Hey there! Let's work through why your Firefox download isn't working and get it sorted out without using apt-get:

1. Fix the curl URL (The Top Issue) #

Your original curl command uses & instead of plain & — that's an HTML escape sequence, which bash doesn't understand. On top of that, wrapping the URL in quotes prevents bash from treating & as a background process marker.

Use this corrected curl command instead:

curl -o ~/firefox.tar.bz2 "https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-latest-ssl&os=linux64"

2. Fix the Tar Extraction Command #

Your current tar command has an extra path that will throw errors. The Firefox tarball extracts to a firefox directory by default, so you just need to specify where to place that directory (your home folder is perfect):

tar xjf ~/firefox.tar.bz2 -C ~/

The -C ~/ flag tells tar to drop the extracted firefox folder directly into your home directory.

3. Troubleshoot If the Download Still Fails #

If curl still won't pull the file, check if you can reach Mozilla's download server at all:

curl -I "https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-latest-ssl&os=linux64"

You should see a HTTP/2 302 redirect (that's normal for Mozilla's downloads). If you get a connection error, your network might be blocking access to the server.

4. Verify Curl is Installed #

Ubuntu 16.04 usually includes curl by default, but if it's missing (and you don't want to use apt-get), you could grab a static curl binary as a last resort. First, confirm it's installed with:

curl --version

5. Launch Firefox Easily #

Once extracted, you can start Firefox right away with:

~/firefox/firefox

To make it even simpler, create a symlink in ~/bin/ (just make sure ~/bin is in your system PATH):

ln -s ~/firefox/firefox ~/bin/firefox

Now you can launch Firefox anytime by just typing firefox in the terminal.

内容的提问来源于stack exchange，提问作者Ford O.