Mozilla announces that Firefox will be available as a snap package for Ubuntu 16.04

A few hours ago, Canonical made official from the Twitter account @ubuntu the launch of its sixth version Long Term Support, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus). The new version comes with many new features, one of which has to do with how to deliver updates. If you have followed us today, you will know that I am referring to the packages snap. Reactions to the release of the latest version of Canonical's operating system and the possibility of delivering the Snaps It has not been long in coming and we already know a software that will use them: Firefox.

Mozilla has announced it in its official blog, an entry that they have used to also announce that they have renewed their partnership with Canonical, which means that their browser will be Ubuntu's default browser for a few more years. It seems that both Canonical and Mozilla have thought of the computer science maxim that says "if something works, don't touch it."

Firefox will remain Ubuntu's default browser

As for being available as a package snapWhat will users notice? So far Canonical has released the latest version of Firefox to supported Ubuntu versions within days of its release, sometimes though rarely on the same day. From the moment they start to deliver it as snap, the users we will receive the update on the same day, as long as we use the Xenial Xerus version or later.

To give you an idea, how many times have we posted that there is a software update available and said that it is not yet available in Ubuntu's default repositories? Sometimes we warn that a beta is available, which has nothing to do with it, but when the launch is official we have three options: wait for it to be included in the repositories, add the repository manually and update or download the .deb package ( or as offered) to install it manually as well. These problems will be a thing of the past when Snaps be standardized.

The downside is that to start installing these Snaps we will still have to wait a little longer. Mozilla says in the same blog post that they will have the first package snap at the end of this year. In any case, I think the wait will be worth it.