Feature Freeze Exception: Seeding the official Firefox snap in Ubuntu Desktop

As a side question, why does FF snap in Jammy have two icons? One seems to be for the actual snap package, the other for some deb remainder. To remove both you would have to apt remove FF && snap remove FF.

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sounds like a bug … the deb is needed for upgrading from former versions but it should really just install the snap, seems there is still a .desktop file in it …

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Thanks for feedback. Should I file a report? Even removing FF completely and reinstalling snap only still creates two entries.

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yes, you should, but i dont exactly know if ubuntu-bug firefox will work for this to file it against the deb on launchpad, @oSoMoN should be able to tell us

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Good catch! This is indeed a bug, which I just fixed.
The desktop file in the deb is intended for compatibility with existing installations where it might be favourited in the dock. But it shouldn’t be visible in the activities, indeed.

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Wow that was quick. My OCD says thank you.

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Any plans on fixing the issue where when Firefox crashes, the theme doesn’t restore, unless the app is restarted manually?

Also experienced Firefox and Thunderbird snaps “fritzing” when open for too long. Didn’t think of recording the experience.

I wonder if this issue is related?; it was noted in Lubuntu, Ubuntu-MATE originally (it’s no longer impacted) & Ubuntu Desktop using the canary ISO. You may have fixed it at the same time?? or at least you maybe able to tell me the likely package the bug should be filed on.

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This is being tracked in upstream bug #1740547.

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That’s probably a slightly different issue, where indeed the deb and the snap (both providing the browser) where installed at the same time. With the deb now a transitional package that installs the snap, this shouldn’t happen any longer.

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@oSoMoN

Hi, has this been forgotten about as it’s been 6 months and it still there?

Thanks

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My Firefox keeps asking to be default. I set the about :config option widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal.file-picker to default (2).

Also, I can’t open magnet links to KTorrent or Zoom with Zoom links using Firefox snap.

Just upgraded from kubuntu 21.10 to 22.04, my firefox apt was forcefully converted into a snap. From what I measured on my machine:

Firefox100 (deb):
First launch time (after system reboot) - 2.7s
Second launch time (firefox launched and then closed) - 2.7s

Firefox100 (snap):
First launch time (after system reboot) - 15s
Second launch time (firefox launched and then closed) - 4s

I’ve been spending the last couple of hours trying to get a working .deb version of firefox, as I personally don’t think trading performance for security and faster updates is a deal.

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I have been doing some rudimentary test, maybe this help you:

I have noticed that after an updated of the firefox snap the first startup time gets worse for some reason there is a degradation in that, what a did is a complete remove of firefox snap remove --purge firefox and reinstalled fresh with new profile and everything. That help me reduce form a 15sec first start to a 6sec and form 6sec second start to 2sec.

I have always used the snap version of firefox.

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You’re right, I had forgotten to follow up. Thanks for the reminder. This workaround has been removed in the beta branch.

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If you’re using KDE, that’s very probably bug #1970594.

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Thanks. :slight_smile:

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Did a fresh snap install with a new profile and everything, but the snap launch times are still rather high (about 15s after a computer restart, otherwise 4s, tested 3 times and without any add-ons or firefox profile modifications)

However, it probably has something to do with the (first) error message I get when I launch the firefox(snap) from terminal after a computer restart: Screenshot_18-05-2022-Firefox100-snap-launch-after-reboot This error (something related to libreoffice, which is installed as a .deb anyways), does not appear when I launch firefox(snap) for the second time(launch time 5s), or if I launch firefox-esr (installed as .deb, launch time 2s) before launching firefox(snap).

If there is any place better to report this, please let me know.
Thank you

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There’s a high variance in startup time according to my anecdotal experience. This would certainly benefit from some methodical profiling. There’s not much missing for it to be close to flawless.

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Too bad didn’t help you :frowning: as per @ppd there is a high variance in startup times. In this link is the only tread in the snapcraft forums that try to talk and dig in this topic of slow startup times but, it did not take traction.

In this link are the results of my test using different laptops maybe this help to get attention to this. @ppd maybe there could be the place to gather son results using methodical profiling. I have see updates affecting the startup time, even if you use something like TLP or CPU Auto-freq affects the startup time of snaps and firefox snap.

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