Firefox 37.0 was released today and despite the bug fixes and new features, something else was much more noticeable. The installer is being pushed as the Stub file. This is nothing new from the main download page, which has been pushing the stub installer since Firefox 22.0 and July 2013.
The stub installer is similar to what other developers call an ‘online installer’ because you have to be online in order to download the rest of the file. I prefer an ‘offline installer’ so I can update the software from a USB drive or not have to wait for it to download on each computer that I install the update. The previously mentioned work-around to get to the standard (non-stub) installer was to go to the Systems & Languages page and choose the download option for your language and operating system. That would provide the full installer. Starting today with Firefox 37.0, that page has been updated to link to the Stub installer as well.
As I still need the full setup package for customizing the Firefox installer, I was able to find a new download location for the standard Firefox installer. Mozilla runs an FTP site that hosts the installers for previous versions at http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/
You can browse the folder structure to find the version that you want and in your language.
A better place to bookmark is https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/latest/win32/en-US/
This folder takes you directly to the latest stable Windows and English-US installer from an official source. You can change the path if you need a different OS or language. It contains links to two files, the full installer and the stub installer.
- Firefox Setup 37.0.exe
- Firefox Setup Stub 37.0.exe
I was able to download the full ‘offline’ installer, customize it, and go on my way. This is just another annoyance to Firefox’s approach to software releases.
Update: There was a bug reported for only providing stub installers (Bug #1149620) and it looks like the problem has been fixed and the full installers are available on the Systems & Languages page once again.