when you run the installer, it creates an installation (by default, though this can be changed) in your home directory. This is fine but it will only work for that user. With the prebuilt binaries, I personally like to install it to /usr/local/firefox (run the installer as root and tell it to install to that directory) and create a symbolic link in /usr/local/bin:
Code:
ln -s /usr/local/firefox/firefox /usr/local/bin/firefox
which will put firefox in your path.
Keep in mind this is only my preference and with these prebuilt packages you can install them anywhere you want without any problems.
By convention, /usr is where the files that came with your system are and /usr/local is for any changes you have made to the system. Note that if you have a prefix /usr, the parts of an installed program are split up ( not like the Program Files directory in Windows where every program has it's own directory) into the appropriate directories.
executable binaries go into bin (so a prefix of /usr they will end up in /usr/bin)
icons, themes, etc.. go into share
header files for compiling against the app/library go into include
libraries, both shared and static go into lib
man pages go into man
and so on.
the above does not apply to the prebuilt "all-in-one" packages like firefox and mozilla. They use a different method of throwing everything into the same directory and using shell scripts (inside you installed firefox directory open up firefox with a text editor and you will find out that it is not the actual browser, but a shell script. firefox-bin is the browser itself, but you have to call it through the firefox script) and altering your environmental variables.
Where to install Firefox?
