[UPDATED] How to Install Firefox 3 beta 3 on Debian Etch

Why should you use Firefox 3? Software nowadays tend to get bloated, big and slow. Not this one. Though still in beta form Firefox 3 surely impressed my Pentium 3 650 Mhz 256 MB RAM PC running Debian Etch. Woho, it's fast, this I can guarantee.

A crude test I performed involved opening ten tabs from the same links in my iGoogle RSS feeds section. While opening the tabs in Firefox 2, I wasn't able to click and view the tabs which have already loaded. In Firefox 3, I was able to do so with almost instantaneous response from Firefox.

UbuntuGeek posted some instructions on how to install Firefox 3 beta in Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon. These were the instructions I followed after downloading the beta release since the following codes did NOT work for the Firefox install.

# tar xvzf package.tar.gz (or tar xvjf package.tar.bz2)
# cd package
# ./configure
# make
# make install

Installing Firefox 3 beta on my Debian Box:
*Note: The steps are for Ubuntu - they worked on my Debian Box

From UbuntuGeek.

#sudo apt-get install libstdc++5

Make a backup of old firefox preferences

#sudo cp -R ~/.mozilla ~/.mozillabackup

If you haven't already, download firefox 3.0b3 from HERE

Now you have the firefox-3.0b3.tar.bz2 file

Unzip the .tar.bz2 file in /opt directory using the following command

#sudo tar -C /opt -jxvf firefox-3.0b2.tar.bz2

Link the plugins using the following command

#cd /opt/firefox/plugins/

#sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/* .

Create a link to your new firefox launcher using the following command

#sudo dpkg-divert --divert /usr/bin/firefox --rename /usr/bin/firefox

#sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox

#sudo dpkg-divert --divert /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox --rename /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox

#sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox

Finished!