Mozilla now serving Firefox updates’ betas
Posted by Percy Cabello on March 19th, 2007 • Tags:
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Mozilla announced the Mozilla Community Beta Program, which have started pushing Firefox updates release candidates to users who have previously downloaded a beta version.

Previously, updates’ (like 2.0.0.1, 2.0.0.2) release candidates were only available as a direct download users would have to look for regularly. The result was that these updates were not as thoroughly tested as releases (like 1.0, 1.5 or 2.0) which was a waste of previously signed in beta users who can provide a much wider test base.

Firefox has three differente update channels:

  1. Release, which gets only final releases and updates. This is were the large majority of users are.
  2. Beta, which gets beta releases: not as stable as final releases not as unstable as nightlies.
  3. Nightly, which get the daily in development versions of Firefox. This means not warranties at all, it may delete your hard drive or melt your mouse. You are on your own but your help is appreciated.

As of now, users who downloaded a beta version of Firefox are receiving 2.0.0.3 release candidates now. As the name implies, release candidates are versions thought to be good enough to become a release. Unless a bug is found it is automatically labeled as the final release.

If you are interested in trying this betas/release candidates, you can download a previous Firefox beta version. Or, you can tweak a Firefox parameter to change your channel:

  • Open the channel-prefs.js file, which is located in the defaults\pref folder in Firefox install folder.(in Windows, by default it is C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\)
  • You will find a single line, edit it so it becomes: pref(“app.update.channel”, “beta“);
  • Now in the Help menu, select Check For Updates… and you will prompted to update to Firefox 2.0.0.3 Release Candidate 1.

Beta channel updates

If you are testing a Firefox update, you can provide feedback or report any problem you may encounter through Hendrix, the Mozilla feedback page.

Comments
John Silvestri said on March 19, 2007, 10:03 am:

…or you could use the Update Channel Selector extension:
http://www.oxymoronical.com/web/firefox/updatechannel

Personally, I don’t get the whole buzzword bingo of the recent announcement, as I think this is pretty much how it always worked if you had the channel set to ‘beta.’ I could be wrong, but it just seems like spin on that idea.

Sheldon said on March 19, 2007, 11:15 am:

Thanks for the instructions. I was trying to do it from about:config, but that did not work.

Percy Cabello said on March 19, 2007, 12:45 pm:

John, from the post:
“these updates were not as thoroughly tested as releases”

The change is that now updates (like main releases) benefit as well of a larger beta user base. Updates were not pushed until final before, not even for beta users.

David Naylor said on March 19, 2007, 3:14 pm:

I’ve got 2.0.0.3rc1 and it works great. They have fixed the bug with the saved passwords. With 2.0.0.2, if you had several logins at a site, Firefox wouldn’t fill in your password after choosing user name.

netster007x said on March 19, 2007, 9:00 pm:

Thanks for the instructions on changing the update channel, worked perfectly, and great to have. I also tried changing the about:config preference, but it did nothing. WHY is the about:config pref disabled? This seems like an Fx bug on its own!

Alok said on March 28, 2007, 1:39 pm:

Well You can directly download this version from the mozilla ftp site http://ftp.mozilla.org. Thanks for this tip.