install multiple versions of firefox in linux

Since apt-get and yum won't let you install multiple versions of firefox I will explain how to here.

  1. Go to this page and decide which version of firefox you want.
    ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/
    I used this one.
    ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/9.0.1/linux-i686/en-US/firefox-9.0.1.tar.bz2

  2. Unzip the archive

tar -zxvf firefox-9.0.1.tar.bz2

-z means filter the archive through gzip
-x extract
-v verbose
-f file name

  1. Put firefox in its own directory.
mv firefox firefox-9.0.1
  1. Make a backup of your profile direcory
cp -r /home/bob/.mozilla /home/bob/.mozilla3

If you use seamonkey or thunderbird there profile info will also be there.

  1. Create a new profile so you don't corrupt your old profile.
firefox -CreateProfile "firefox-9.0.1 /home/bob/.mozilla/firefox/firefox-9.0.1"

This is my profile name firefox-9.0.1 and this is my profile directory /home/bob/.mozilla/firefox/firefox-9.0.1

  1. Run firefox 9.0.1 from the directory I put it in.
/home/bob/firefox-9.0.1/firefox -no-remote -P firefox-9.0.1

/home/bob/firefox-9.0.1/firefox is my install directory
-no-remote allows to use firefox 9.0.1 and my old version of firefox
-P is the profile option
firefox-9.0.1 is the name of my profile

These 2 links go into more depth if you are interested.
How to install Firefox 8 on Linux (Mint, Ubuntu, ...) | libre-software.net
Running Multiple Versions of Firefox in Ubuntu 9.10 - odyniec.net

Don't do this like one of the links say to do.

firefox -no-remote -CreateProfile firefox-3.6

That creates a profile called firefox-3.6 like you would expect but it puts profile in the firefox directory instead of creating its own separate directory. So in this case it would be in /home/bob/.mozilla/firefox/ instead of /home/bob/.mozilla/firefox/firefox-3.6 like you would expect.