Wouldn't the average Ubuntu user be best off by getting it through the Ubuntu package repo once it's updated there? Or doesn't Ubuntu have a channel that would provide that soon by default?
Yes. The Firefox website should ideally provide some instructions - including a way to open the Firefox entry in the Ubuntu/Gnome Software Center, instead of giving users a tarball most don't know how to handle (and if they do know how to handle it, is not necessarily what they're looking for). The tarball should of course still be available as a download option, but almost all interested users (yes, even the technical ones) should use their distribution's package manager.
Well, yes and no. I'm precluded from installing new Firefox via apt-get because my Ubuntu version fell off active support. Running a dist-upgrade is risky, and I don't feel like doing it until I know I have a spare free day to fix everything in case of a problem. A Firefox PPA would be a nice thing to use instead, for now.
If Firefox offered a .deb for $OS on their homepage, and Grandma attempts to install it while running $OTHEROS, then likely she will either 1) fail or 2) break her system. That's a worse user experience than a .tar.gz.
Asking Firefox to maintain packages for every outdated Debian-based distro is unreasonable. Nice to have, yes, but unreasonable to ask.
