Everlasting browser updates (also after EOL)

could you please help me to setup Ubuntu 20.04 LTS so that its browser (for example Firefox) would receive updates after end of life of Ubuntu automatically? (without user intervention). Thank you very much for your help.

You can download firefox and install it to a local directory to receive automatic updates regardless of which version of Ubuntu you are using.

First, download firefox for Linux 64-bit from this webpage.

Then, run the following command to create a local bin directory:

mkdir ~/bin

Next, extract the firefox download and place the "firefox" directory in your ~/bin directory.

Finally, you will need to create a launcher desktop file so you can start firefox by clicking a firefox icon.

First, run the following commands to create the needed file and directories (ignore warnings):

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications
touch ~/.local/share/applications/firefox-local.desktop
chmod +x ~/.local/share/applications/firefox-local.desktop

Next, copy and paste the following into ~/.local/share/applications/firefox-local.desktop using your favorite file editor:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Firefox Local
Comment=Web Browser
Exec=HOME/bin/firefox/firefox %u
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Icon=HOME/bin/firefox/browser/chrome/icons/default/default128.png
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/xml;application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml;application/rss+xml;application/rdf+xml;image/gif;image/jpeg;image/png;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;
StartupNotify=true

Save the file and then run the following command to correct the paths in your file:

sed -i "s|HOME|$HOME|g" ~/.local/share/applications/firefox-local.desktop

Finally, log out and log back in and you should have an application called "firefox local" you can run and this version of firefox should automatically update when you start the application.

To verify that firefox is updated, press ALT+H and then press A.

To verify you are using the manually downloaded version of firefox, first start up firefox local and then run the following command and it should show /home/<username>/firefox/firefox instead of /usr/lib/firefox or /usr/bin/firefox:

pgrep -a firefox

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS was released in 2020-April with 5 years of standard support; followed by a further 5 years of extended support (once you enable ESM), so you're asking for something that will work in 2030-May?

The ESM currently cannot be setup; so you can't currently arrange the second 5 years of support - let alone whatever occurs between 2025 and 2030.

Snap package of firefox comes to mind, but that still doesn't cater for the base system which will need to be changed for it to remain updated (ie. enabling ESM come 2025)...