drwxr-xr-x 15 user user 4096 Jan 01 12:00 gecko That directory holds object files, JavaScript engine components, and layout engine code. The permissions drwxr-xr-x are not accidental. They serve specific security and operational purposes:
org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: Unable to read gecko directory permissions gecko drwxr-xr-x
System directories with that permission are set by your distribution or Mozilla packages. Changing them can break browser functionality. Make it more permissive (temporarily): drwxr-xr-x 15 user user 4096 Jan 01 12:00
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root /snap/firefox/current/usr/lib/gecko This directory contains engine resources that Firefox uses to render web pages. If you compile Firefox from source (Mozilla’s own build system), you’ll often see a obj-* directory containing stage folders like: Changing them can break browser functionality
ls -ld /usr/lib/geckodriver/gecko You might see drwxr-xr-x permissions on a directory named “gecko” that holds platform-specific binaries or resources. Modern Linux distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora) often package Firefox as a Snap or Flatpak. Inside their restricted filesystems, you can encounter:
So drwxr-xr-x means: A directory that the owner can fully control (read/write/search), while members of the owning group and other users can only read and traverse it, but cannot create, delete, or rename anything inside. This is an for system directories like /usr/bin , /etc , and many application folders. Part 2: Where Are You Likely to See “gecko drwxr-xr-x”? The combination appears most frequently in these scenarios: 2.1 Listing Firefox Profile or Cache Directories Example command: