Firefox from Mozilla APT repo keeps asking to be set as default and creates strange .desktop file

szx — Sat, 12 Oct 2024 02:19:33 GMT

I installed Firefox on my Ubuntu 22.04 from the Mozilla APT repo as suggested here:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w_install-firefox-deb-package-for-debian-based-distributions-recommended

It works fine, however, the problem is that when I launch Firefox it keeps asking me to set it as the default browser application when in fact it is already the default (I can confirm it in Settings -> Default Applications). If I answer Yes, it creates a new shortcut (.desktop file) for itself in ~/.local/share/applications for some odd reason and names it something like userapp-Firefox-XXXXXX.desktop. And after I do this, there are two instances of Firefox listed in Default Applications dropdown.

I don't understand why it can't just use the existing file /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop. Can anyone elaborate?

Re: Firefox from Mozilla APT repo keeps asking to be set as default and creates strange .desktop file

harpia — Fri, 02 May 2025 03:13:56 GMT

I just hit this same problem on elementary OS 8 (based on Ubuntu LTS 24), so I've written a bug report: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1963970

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Firefox from Mozilla APT repo keeps asking to be set as default and creates strange .desktop file

Re: Firefox from Mozilla APT repo keeps asking to be set as default and creates strange .desktop file