Google Toolbar FIX for Firefox 2 : Ubuntu (6.10)

By | 2006/11/29
7 Comments

So I’ve realized that the Google Toolbar will not install on Ubuntu 6.10 “Edgy Eft” with Firefox 2. I did however figure out a fix for it. Thanks to a post on Google Groups “Something’s Broken” and the Ubuntu Forums. Below are instructions for downloading, “fixing” and installing the Google Toolbar on Firefox 2.

  1. Download Google Toolbar (Save to disk)
  2. Open the archive (double-click or Open With “Archive Manager”)
  3. Edit the install.rdf file and change it from:

Linux

to

linux-gnu_x86-gcc3

This is the main reason that it wont compile in the first place. It needs to specify what build and compiler was used to make Firefox 2 and “Linux” just isn’t quite specific enough.

Now that we’ve changed that file we’ll have to do one more little tweak. At this point we’ve changed the contents of the archive so we also need to remove the digital signature that verifies the archive. Even that one little change will cause the archive to not verify on signature check. The next step is to remove the contents of the /META-INF/ folder.

  • Delete the three files in the /META-INF/ folder of the archive

At this point you should be able to install the .xpi file and the Google Toolbar will function as expected. Either drag-and-drop the .xpi file into the extensions box or select File > Open File and select your newly edited google-toolbar-linux.xpi file.

Tada!

7 thoughts on “Google Toolbar FIX for Firefox 2 : Ubuntu (6.10)”

  1. Miguel

    Just what I was looking for to install the toolbar (to check pagerank). Thanks!

  2. Ubuntu Tutorials

    I hope it was simple enough. It really was pretty simple once I figured out how it was pieced together.

  3. Pingback: » Top Ten Ubuntu Tutorials : User Voted Ubuntu Tutorials : Breezy - Dapper - Edgy - Feisty

  4. Andy

    Thanks for this, these instructions got me going in the right direction. They don’t work as-is though. When I open the archive, it opens with Ark (The one you mention does not get installed by default) and it would always fail when trying to update the install.rdf file after editing it.

    I had to unzip the file manually to edit the install.rdf and then update the zip file. (zip -r -y ../google-toolbar-linux.xpi . -i)

    All good after that. Thanx!

  5. Albert

    ok.. that’s what I get… did anyone have the same problem?

    “Google Toolbar for Firefox could not be installed because it is not compatible with your firefox build type (Linux_x86_64-gcc3). Please contact the author of this item about the problem.”

  6. jak

    I sorry I was not able to apply this wonderful.. thing…

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