www.mozilla.org versus archive.mozilla.org versus ftp.mozilla.org
What are the differences between the following download options?
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/#product-desktop-release https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/devedition/releases/ https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/
All Replies (8)
The mozilla.org site is where most regular Firefox users will likely download Firefox from as the files get served with a CDN like https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net
For Windows users they can get the full offline setup from www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/ instead of the small online stub installer.
Mozilla prefers people use archive.mozilla.org over ftp.mozilla.org though they have pretty much the same listing.
ftp.mozilla.org used to be where people could download files with the ftp:// protocol however it was disabled way back on August 5th, 2015. Many people still mistakenly refer to it as FTP because of the ftp in link.
Modified by James
Note that your second links gives you the Developer Edition
Note that on Windows, you may want to download Firefox from the archive server to prevent getting an installer with a Unique Identifier. See "Can I remove the identifier before downloading?"
James said
The mozilla.org site is where most regular Firefox users will likely download Firefox from as the files get served with a CDN like https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net For Windows users they can get the full offline setup from www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/ instead of the small online stub installer. Mozilla prefers people use archive.mozilla.org over ftp.mozilla.org though they have pretty much the same listing. ftp.mozilla.org used to be where people could download files with the ftp:// protocol however it was disabled way back on August 5th, 2015. Many people still mistakenly refer to it as FTP because of the ftp in link.
So if the archive is sort of a replacement for the ftp, why not just shut the ftp down, if they are as you said are hosting the same files. If i download firefox from either the ftp or archive, is there ANY difference between those? If so, what is it?
So that makes actually four download options instead of three. https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/firefox/releases/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/#product-desktop-release https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/devedition/releases/ https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/
cor-el said
Note that your second links gives you the Developer Edition Note that on Windows, you may want to download Firefox from the archive server to prevent getting an installer with a Unique Identifier. See "Can I remove the identifier before downloading?"
Could you elaporate more specific about the unique identifier? What exactly is the unique identifier in the first place, is it embeded into firefox or is it an exe or something else?
James said
The mozilla.org site is where most regular Firefox users will likely download Firefox from as the files get served with a CDN like https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net For Windows users they can get the full offline setup from www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/ instead of the small online stub installer. Mozilla prefers people use archive.mozilla.org over ftp.mozilla.org though they have pretty much the same listing. ftp.mozilla.org used to be where people could download files with the ftp:// protocol however it was disabled way back on August 5th, 2015. Many people still mistakenly refer to it as FTP because of the ftp in link.
Why does mozilla preffer people useing archive over ftp? Because the ftp protocol was disabled way back in 2015? Well the site is still online so why not use it, is there any difference when downloading from the ftp or archive? When i say difference i'm reffering to the downloaded firefox.exe
cor-el said
Note that your second links gives you the Developer Edition Note that on Windows, you may want to download Firefox from the archive server to prevent getting an installer with a Unique Identifier. See "Can I remove the identifier before downloading?"
So according to this:
attribution¶
This object contains the attribution data for the product installation.
Attribution data is used to link installations of Firefox with the source that the user arrived at the Firefox download page from. It would indicate, for instance, when a user executed a web search for Firefox and arrived at the download page from there, directly navigated to the site, clicked on a link from a particular social media campaign, etc.
The attribution data is included in some versions of the default Firefox installer for Windows (the “stub” installer) and stored as part of the installation. All platforms other than Windows and also Windows installations that did not use the stub installer do not have this data and will not include the attribution object.
So, this means downloading here https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/download/thanks/ fives me the stub installer with the unique identifier, but downloading here, https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/#product-desktop-release gives me an installer with no unique identifier? That's what i understand from reading the above text..
Right.
confirm?