Install the Ghostery browser on Linux
The Ghostery privacy browser is a web browser based on Mozilla Firefox with a major focus on privacy and security. In this guide, we’ll show you how to install the Ghostery privacy browser on Linux.
Downloading the Ghostery privacy browser
To download the Ghostery privacy browser, you’ll need to go to the official download page on the website. Once you’ve made it to the webpage, click the “Download” button.
Upon selecting the “Download” button on the Ghostery website, your browser will begin downloading a TarGZ file. This file contains the browser files and everything you need to run it.
Alternatively, you can download the Ghostery privacy browser from the terminal with the wget command below. This command will place the TarGZ archive in your “Downloads” folder.
wget https://get.ghosterybrowser.com/download/linux -O ~/Downloads/Ghostery-2023.6.en-U
S.linux.tar.gz
How to install the Ghostery privacy browser
The Ghostery privacy browser for Linux is distributed as a TarGZ file. To start the installation process, you need to open up a terminal window. You can open up a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T on the keyboard. Or, search for “Terminal” in the app menu, and launch it that way.
Once open, use the cd command to enter the “Downloads” directory. This directory contains the Ghostery privacy browser TarGZ file.
cd ~/Downloads/
To extract the contents of the TarGZ archive, use the tar xvf command below.
tar xvf Ghostery-*linux.tar.gz
Once the archive is extracted, use the mv command to place the “Ghostery” folder inside of the /opt directory.
sudo mv Ghostery/ /opt/
After placing the files in the /opt directory, use the touch command to create a new file. This file is ghostery-browser.desktop it is the shortcut file, that will allow you to launch the app from your Linux desktop with ease.
touch ghostery-browser.desktop
Next, open up the ghostery-browser.desktop file in the Nano text editor with the command below.
nano ~/ghostery-browser.desktop
Paste the following code into the Nano text editor by pressing Ctrl + Shift + V on the keyboard.
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Ghostery Privacy Browser
Exec=/opt/Ghostery/Ghostery %u
Icon=/opt/Ghostery/browser/chrome/icons/default/default64.png
Type=Application
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
StartupNotify=true
Save the edits to the shortcut in Nano by pressing Ctrl + O on the keyboard. Now, you’ll need to move the file into the /usr/share/applications directory.
sudo mv ~/ghostery-browser.desktop /usr/share/applications/
Update the permissions of the file using the chmod command.
chmod +x ~/ghostery-browser.desktop
With the file in the correct location, you’ll be able to launch the Ghostery Privacy Browser from the app menu on your Linux desktop.
How to install the Ghostery privacy browser with Flatpak
Downloading and installing the Ghostery privacy browser with the TarGZ provided on the website works well, it’s a little involved. If you want to install the Ghostery privacy browser on Linux, but don’t want to do a lot of work to get it running can install it via Flatpak.
To start the installation process, you’ll need to have the Flatpak runtime installed. To install it, open up a terminal window on the Linux desktop. You can do this with Ctrl + Alt + T on the keyboard. Or, by searching for “Terminal” in the app menu.
Once the terminal window is open and ready to use, follow the installation instructions outlined below that correspond with the Linux OS you use.
Ubuntu
To use Flatpak on your Ubuntu system, you can install the “flatpak” package with the apt install command.
sudo apt install flatpak
Debian
If you’re on Debian, you can install the “flatpak” package with the apt install or apt-get install command.
sudo apt-get install flatpak
Arch Linux
If you’re on Arch Linux, you can install the “flatpak” package on your system with the pacman -S command.
sudo pacman -S flatpak
Fedora
Fedora should already have the “flatpak” package installed. However, if it isn’t, you can set it up with the dnf install command.
sudo dnf install flatpak
OpenSUSE
OpenSUSE will already have the “flatpak” package installed. If you don’t have it set up, you can install it with the zypper in command.
sudo zypper in flatpak
With the Flatpak runtime installed and configured on your computer, you can use the flatpak remote-add command to add the Flathub app store on your computer. You’ll need this software repository to install the Ghostery browser.
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
You can now install the Ghostery privacy browser on your Linux PC using the flatpak install command.
flatpak install flathub com.ghostery.browser
