On 07/28/2018 08:08 PM, don fisher wrote:
Is there a way to load an old version of Firefox? I guess I am simple, but I never felt the need for more than Netscape:-) Is there a way to get to older distribution trees, something like 3.1. I found a 42.2 dist with a Firefox 49.0.2-37. Do you see any problem installing this?
Don
There is no problem doing it, you can download any version you want straight from mozilla, e.g.
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/45.9.0esr/
Just download the .bz2 file, change to the /opt directory, and as root just:
# tar -xjf /path/to/firefox-52.9.0esr.tar.bz2
(you can do this without removing your current firefox)
Then exit root, and run firefox from an xterm the first time to make sure you don't have any missing deps (I don't think you will, but just to be safe)
$ /opt/firefox/firefox
(you may have several messages dumped back to the terminal, but if it launches, you are fine)
You can create a custom `.desktop` file for it in your ~/.local/share/applications folder if you like.
HOWEVER, that said, there are security concerns with using an older firefox. As long as you are not using it for shopping/banking/etc... you won't expose yourself to critical issues, but you know the risks.
That said, there is no reason the current firefox can't be configured to do just what you want with a .bin file. The problems is two-fold. First it is how the web-server reports the type of file it is to firefox. Second it is what firefox is doing with the type reported.
You want the .bin treated as any binary file, e.g. like the tar.bz2 file you downloaded OR you want to set the behavior for "unknown" types to download.
It has been a while, but I the opposite problem with C files not being displayed as text, but being prompted to download them. (it's been a number of years...), but that was the same issue having to tell Firefox to display as plain-text instead of downloading.
There is no reason the current version of firefox can't be configured to handle any type any way you like -- the problem is How TF to do it? I've been picking through about:config and one setting you might try is:
browser.helperApps.alwaysAsk.force
And you may get some ideas from
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1012615