How to downgrade Firefox to the last sane version (3.6)

So I keep ranting about Firefox here, and for good reason: the Mozilla team is going above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to driving users to other browsers.

However, try as I might, I simply encounter too many dealbreakers in Chromium.

When I think about it, the last version of Firefox that didn’t drive me crazy with crashing, incompatible add-ons, and stupid UI changes and features removed, it would have to be Firefox 3.6.

I keep forgetting how to do this, so I’m posting this here as much for my own reference as for anyone else’s. This is how to downgrade newer versions of Firefox to 3.6 and keep it that way, at least until things settle down a little, or until another browser comes along that can actually be a viable replacement for it — unlike newer versions of Firefox, sadly. This works with Mint 11, which means it will also work with Ubuntu 11.04.

Step 1: Edit /etc/apt/sources.list

This is a simple matter of editing a few files, ultimately. The first of which is sources.list. So, from a terminal, type this:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Paste the following into there:

deb http://ftp.iinet.net.au/pub/ubuntu/ maverick main
deb http://ftp.iinet.net.au/pub/ubuntu/ maverick-updates main

Then hit ctrl+o to save it and ctrl+x to exit the file.

Step 2: Pin firefox and firefox-branding packages

Still from the terminal, type:

sudo nano /etc/apt/preferences.d/firefox

Paste the following into the file:

Package: firefox
Pin: release n=natty
Pin-Priority: -10

Package: firefox
Pin: release n=maverick
Pin-Priority: 900

Then hit ctrl+o to save it and ctrl+x to exit the file.

Then type:

sudo nano /etc/apt/preferences.d/firefox-branding

And paste the following into there:

Package: firefox-branding
Pin: release n=natty
Pin-Priority: -10

Package: firefox-branding
Pin: release n=maverick
Pin-Priority: 900

Then hit ctrl+o to save it and ctrl+x to exit the file.

Step 3: Update apt-get and install Firefox 3.6

Type this into your terminal window:

sudo apt-get update

This will refresh your packages list in apt.

Now do this so that you blow away the existing mess that is the current version of Firefox:

sudo apt-get remove firefox

And, finally, install Firefox 3.6:

sudo apt-get install firefox

And you’re done!

In my experience, this still gets updates as Mozilla pushes them out to 3.6.* installations (through the source you added in step 1), so as long as they’re still supporting Firefox 3.6, this will still be a viable option.

And I discovered that since I don’t need as many add-ons in Firefox 3.6 (I kept having to find more and more for later versions to deal with stupid things they kept breaking after Firefox 4), it actually starts up and seems to load webpages faster than the supposedly “new and improved” releases. So this is really more of an upgrade than a “downgrade”, but I didn’t want to confuse anyone.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

– Trent