Replace Firefox snap with apt

With Ubuntu Linux, Firefox comes shipped as snap per default. While providing some containerization-related isolation and security advantages, this packaging system as Canonical solo-effort is also polarizing. In especially working with Firefox can be affected by less-than-ideal integration and performance compared to a “native” .deb-based install.

Luckily, in 2024, Mozilla started an official apt repository for Ubuntu derivates, so no need for a PPA anymore to get rid of the Snapcraft backend.

The following ansible play is the direct transformation of the official Install Firefox How-To for Debian-based distributions, which adds the repository and replaces the snap package with it.

Note that when not done on a fresh install, either using Firefox Sync or a profile backup from ~/snap/firefox/common/.mozilla/firefox/ should be considered.

---
- name: switch firefox from snap to deb from mozilla repository
  become: true
  become_user: root
  tasks:

    - name: snap remove firefox
      community.general.snap:
        name:
          - firefox
        state: absent

    - name: get and add mozilla repository key
      ansible.builtin.get_url:
        url: https://packages.mozilla.org/apt/repo-signing-key.gpg
        dest: /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/mozilla.asc
        owner: "root"
        group: "root"
        mode: "0644"

    - name: add mozilla repository
      ansible.builtin.apt_repository:
        install_python_apt: yes
        repo: "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/mozilla.asc] https://packages.mozilla.org/apt mozilla main"
        state: present
        filename: mozilla
        update_cache: yes

    - name: pin mozilla packages
      ansible.builtin.copy:
        content: |
          Package: *
          Pin: origin packages.mozilla.org
          Pin-Priority: 1000
        dest: /etc/apt/preferences.d/mozilla
        owner: root
        group: root
        mode: "0644"

    - name: install firefox apt package
      ansible.builtin.apt:
        name:
          - firefox
          # - firefox-l10n-de
        state: present