Installing Firefox on a Chromebook

Updated on February 7, 2026, by Jim Mendenhall

Are you looking to experience the power and versatility of Firefox on your Chromebook? While Chrome OS ships with Google Chrome as its default browser, you’re not locked in. Thanks to the built-in Linux development environment, you can install and run Firefox alongside Chrome with just a few terminal commands. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the full process, whether your Chromebook runs on an Intel, AMD, or ARM processor.

Why Use Firefox on a Chromebook?

There are several compelling reasons to add Firefox to your Chromebook. Privacy is a big one. Firefox includes Enhanced Tracking Protection out of the box, which blocks third-party cookies, cryptominers, and fingerprinters by default. If you’re looking to reduce the amount of data Google collects about your browsing, having a non-Chrome browser available is a practical step.

Firefox also gives you access to its own extension ecosystem. Extensions like uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, and Facebook Container work exclusively in Firefox and provide privacy controls that aren’t available in Chrome. The Firefox add-on library has a strong selection of developer tools, accessibility aids, and productivity extensions that complement what you get from the Chrome Web Store.

If you already use Firefox on a phone, laptop, or desktop, installing it on your Chromebook lets you sync bookmarks, passwords, open tabs, and browsing history across all your devices through a Firefox account. This is especially handy if you move between a Chromebook and a Linux or Windows machine throughout your day.

Finally, Firefox uses the Gecko rendering engine rather than Chromium’s Blink engine. This means websites that behave oddly or break in Chrome sometimes work fine in Firefox. Having a second browser with a different engine on hand is a useful troubleshooting tool when a page doesn’t render the way you expect.

Enable the Linux Development Environment

Before you can install Firefox, you need to enable the Linux development environment on your Chromebook. ChromeOS includes a built-in Linux container (based on Debian) that lets you run Linux applications alongside your regular Chrome apps. Open your Chromebook’s Settings, navigate to the “Linux development environment” section under Advanced, and follow the prompts to set it up. The process takes a few minutes as ChromeOS downloads and configures the container. If you haven’t done this yet, you can find the up-to-date instructions here.

Determine Your Chromebook’s Architecture

Once Linux is up and running, open your terminal and run the command arch to determine your system’s architecture. This step matters because it determines which version of Firefox you can install.

arch

If the result is “x86_64,” which refers to systems with Intel or AMD processors, you can install the latest Firefox version through Flatpak. If you see “aarch64” or “armv7l,” your Chromebook uses an ARM processor and you’ll need to install the Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) version instead. Most modern Chromebooks from manufacturers like Acer, ASUS, HP, and Lenovo use Intel or AMD chips, but some budget and tablet-style models use ARM processors from MediaTek or Qualcomm.

Installing Firefox ESR

For Chromebooks with ARM processors, the Firefox Extended Support Release is your best option. Firefox ESR is the same core browser but follows a slower release cycle, prioritizing security patches and stability over new features. Organizations and schools often use ESR for this reason, and it runs well within ChromeOS’s Linux container. Run the following commands in your terminal to install it:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install firefox-esr -y

Once the installation finishes, you can find and launch Firefox ESR from the App Launcher under the Linux Apps folder. Open the hamburger menu and go to Help > About Firefox to confirm the version number. You’ll see “ESR” in the version string, which tells you it’s the Extended Support Release. Updates come through the standard sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade process.

Installing the Latest Firefox Version (for Intel/AMD)

If your Chromebook has an Intel or AMD processor, you can install the full release version of Firefox through Flatpak. Flatpak is a universal package manager for Linux that keeps applications sandboxed and up to date independently of your system packages. This approach gives you the newest Firefox features and security updates as soon as Mozilla releases them. Run these three commands to set up Flatpak and install Firefox:

sudo apt install flatpak -y
sudo flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
sudo flatpak install flathub org.mozilla.firefox -y

The great news is that you can install both versions of Firefox and use them according to your needs. The Flatpak version and the ESR version run independently, so there’s no conflict between them. You’ll find both in your App Launcher under Linux Apps.

Configuring Firefox for ChromeOS

After installation, there are a few tweaks that make Firefox work better on a Chromebook. One common issue is display scaling. Linux apps on high-DPI Chromebook screens can look tiny because the Linux container doesn’t automatically match ChromeOS’s display scaling. To fix this, right-click the Firefox icon in your app shelf or launcher and look for the “Use low density” or “Use high density” toggle. You may need to restart Firefox for the change to take effect.

If you’d like Firefox to be your default browser for links opened from the Linux terminal or Linux applications, you can set it with the following command. For the Flatpak version, links opened in Linux apps will typically use whichever browser you last interacted with, but you can set the default explicitly:

xdg-settings set default-web-browser firefox-esr.desktop

To bring over bookmarks from Chrome, open Firefox and go to the Bookmarks menu, then select “Import Bookmarks from HTML.” You’ll first need to export your Chrome bookmarks as an HTML file from Chrome’s bookmark manager, save it to your Linux files, and then import it into Firefox. This is a one-time task, and from that point forward you can use Firefox Sync to keep everything updated across your devices.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

While Firefox generally runs smoothly on ChromeOS, a few issues come up regularly. If audio isn’t working in Firefox, try restarting the Linux container first, as audio output should be enabled by default. You can do this by right-clicking the Terminal icon in your shelf and selecting “Shut down Linux,” then reopening it. If you need microphone input in Firefox, check ChromeOS Settings > Linux development environment for an audio input toggle.

If the Firefox window looks blurry or the wrong size, the display scaling fix mentioned above should resolve it. You can also try setting the layout.css.devPixelsPerPx preference in Firefox’s about:config page to a value like 1.5 or 2.0 to manually adjust how Firefox renders content on high-density screens.

Slow performance is another common complaint, especially on Chromebooks with 4GB of RAM. By default, ChromeOS allocates a limited amount of memory and disk space to the Linux container. You can increase this by going to ChromeOS Settings > Linux development environment and adjusting the disk size. Closing unnecessary Chrome tabs while using Firefox also helps, since both browsers share the same pool of system memory.

If Firefox doesn’t appear in your App Launcher after installation, try restarting the Linux container. You can do this by right-clicking the Terminal icon in your shelf and selecting “Shut down Linux,” then reopening Terminal. The launcher should pick up the new application after the restart.

Wrapping Up

Having Firefox on your Chromebook gives you a genuine alternative to Chrome without leaving ChromeOS behind. Whether you went with the ESR version for its stability or the full Flatpak release for the latest features, you now have access to Firefox’s privacy tools, its extension library, and cross-device sync. It pairs well with other Linux apps you might run on your Chromebook, like VLC for media playback. If you run into any issues down the road, the troubleshooting tips above should cover the most common bumps.