I'm a Linux newbi...still.

I would like to upgrade from Firefix 1.5 to the latest version...3.0

However, the updates tab on the 1.5 version is grayed out.

I like to upgrade but without going through the TAR UNTAR thing.

Is there a simple way to upgrade without pulling my hair out?

Thanks.

Please specify your distribution. Most major distros have Firefox 3 in repositories.

Also even if you are getting Firefox from Mozilla's site you don't need to install Firefox on Linux at all as such. Just extract the archive, open the newly-created Firefox folder and click on the file named 'firefox' - that will get your new Firefox running.

Centos 5.0 using KDE.

Current version is 5.2 which has Firefox-3.0 as default.

Yes, but that means I have to do an new/upgrade to my OS. Hoped to get away without doing that.

I just did this very same upgrade on Mandriva 2007. First I created a folder named firefox3.0 under /home/****/. Then I downloaded the firefox 3.0 package from Mozilla to /home/****/firefox3.0. I expanded folder firefox3.0 to find the shell script file, firefox, double click on this shell script to launch firefox 3.0 making sure that I did not not have the old 1.5 version of firefox running. I allowed firefox 3.0 to connect to the Mozilla welcome site and complete loading. I then reconfigured all my "preferences" at the menu bar Edit/Preferences. Then I went to the Adobe site and downloaded the latest Flash file and installed it according to to their instructions.
Finally, since I had the old 1.5 version of firefox installed at /user/bin/, I manually moved all the firefox 3.0 files and folders to replace the 1.5 files and folders at /user/bin/.
It works just fine. I still like the graphics of 1.5 better than 3.0 but 3.0 seems to load web pages faster.