Using Linux on a 64-bit ARM device and longing to use Firefox Nightly builds? Well, you’re in luck — Mozilla has finally made ARM64 Linux builds available to download.
As I understand it most Linux distributions that support ARM64/AArch64 offer a native ARM version of Firefox in their repos (in Ubuntu that’s via snap) though some Linux ARM distros only offer Firefox ESR, which is a long-term support version lacking newer features.
It’s not been possible to get Firefox for ARM64 directly from Mozilla itself.
But that’s changing.
When Mozilla launched its own APT repo bringing DEB versions of Firefox to Debian users it received feedback from Linux ARM folks that they would like to see ARM64 builds added to it.
Mozilla has obliged; Firefox Nightly for ARM is now available through the Mozilla APT repo.
Additionally, a Firefox Nightly binary for ARM64 (compressed in a .tar.bz2 archive) is available to download directly. This enables those on non-Debian Linux distros (and those who don’t wish to set up the Mozilla APT repo) to benefit as well.
Nightly builds of any software shouldn’t be considered stable but, for now, this goes double for the new Firefox Nightly ARM64 builds.
Mozilla says cautions that it is “still incorporating comprehensive ARM64 testing into Firefox’s continuous integration and release pipeline” so ARM builds are not as robustly tested as its more familiar 64-bit Intel/AMD ones.
There is good news, though. Mozilla says its eventual “…goal is to integrate ARM64 builds into Firefox’s extensive automated test suite, which will enable us to offer this architecture across the beta, release, and ESR channels.”
While those builds are perhaps a little overdue — Chromium’s Linux ARM support is robust at this point — it’s nonetheless welcome.