Why isn't there a direct download link for Firefox?
I have searched the Firefox for Android subsection of the Mozilla web site, and am disturbed to find that there is no way to download an .apk file directly, without going through an app store. Why is this? There should (theoretically) be no reason to not distribute a package for Firefox, as it is free and open-source.
Or did I just completely miss the link and it's in plain sight?
Chosen solution
The Play store handles compatibility checking, language selection, and integrated updating. This ensures the best user experience.
However, the releases are available on Mozilla's servers for those who prefer to (or have to) sideload and are willing to manage their own updates:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/releases/latest/android/
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Chosen Solution
The Play store handles compatibility checking, language selection, and integrated updating. This ensures the best user experience.
However, the releases are available on Mozilla's servers for those who prefer to (or have to) sideload and are willing to manage their own updates:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/releases/latest/android/
Note that the Release and Beta channel builds installed manually this way do not get updates as each new version have to be installed manually.
The reason we don't provide links to the versions in the Play Store is that there is no updater in Firefox for Android for those versions.
We provide Aurora and Nightly which have self updaters.