Firefox on Ubuntu Tips and Solutions to Problems

This blog post is about using the Firefox web browser on Ubuntu, providing tips and some solutions to problems.

February 2021 update: I don’t think Xmarks exists now and I don’t think anybody should use Flash. These days I hardly use Firefox and I personally prefer the Chrome web browser at the moment.

Introduction

Firefox is a popular web browser on the Ubuntu distribution, and I thought it was about time I created a blog post for this popular web browser.

Managing your bookmarks

People often forget to backup their bookmarks. Which can be a pain especially if you have a system problem and lose your bookmark library. Xmarks is an addon-on will automatically backup your bookmarks, plus you can sync them with other computer systems, and access them via the Xmarks website.

Blocking Advertisement

Removing advertisements from your web browsing experience is poor form. It does impact businesses, especially as many websites provide content solely to benefit from advertisement revenue. However that being said, for people using older computer systems, adverts can seriously slow down the web browser experience, and for mobile users it can eat up precious bandwidth and money. There is an add-on called ‘Adblock Plus‘, which enables you to browse whilst many adverts are stopped from displaying.

Resolving errors / problems

Unfortunately errors can occur when using Firefox on Ubuntu, just as errors can occur in other operating systems. Below are three common errors problems:

Error: E: /var/cache/apt/archives/ubufox_0.9.1-0ubuntu0.10.04.1~mfn3_all.deb: trying to overwrite ‘/etc/xul-ext/ubufox.js’, which is also in package xul-ext-ubufox 0

Solution: The solution is to remove xul-ext-ubufox, then update your system.

Error: ALSA lib confmisc.c:768:(parse_card) cannot find card ‘0’

Solution: As this is a firefox support page, you are probably receiving this error when trying to use flash in your firefox web browser, such as no audio in a video being displayed in your web browser. i.e. No audio in YouTube. You first step should be to uninstall the ALSA packages you have installed, update your system packages, then reinstall the ALSA packages. You can do this via the ‘Ubuntu Control Centre’.

Problem: No microphone capture in Firefox.

Solution: If the website is using Flash to capture audio you might have to change your microphone settings. Hopefully you already have flash installed, if not you probably should do so now, then restart Firefox. Next you need to visit this web page to change the Flash settings: http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager02.html

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