How to Change Firefox Release Channels

After the first release of Mozilla’s “developer’s” build of Firefox, Firefox Aurora, Mozilla debuted Channel Switcher that lets users switch on the fly among Aurora, Beta, and Release versions of the web browser.

The benefit of the built-in channel changer is that users who want to see what’s coming in future versions of Firefox can now do so without having to download a separate installer (Google was also having something similar for Chrome web browser called Google Chrome Channel Changer, which is now deprecated and not recommended by Google).

Here’s how to change Firefox Release Channels:

1. To change Firefox channels, you must first be running the Firefox Aurora version.
2. Go to the menu button (the big orange button on the left-hand corner of the web browser’s window), then Help, and choose About Aurora.
3. The first sentence below the version information reads, “You are currently on the Aurora update channel. Change.“
4. Click Change, and the window shows the change channel drop-down.

   

5. Choose the new channel you want to use, then select the Apply and Update button below.
6. When the updates are done downloading, click Apply Update and Firefox will restart.

After the web browser restarts, it should be running the new channel you’ve chosen. You can confirm this by going back to Help menu, then choosing About.

Mozilla has explained more about how the channel changer works in an article on its site.

The channel changer does not affect your profile, so your tabs and other settings should all remain the same.

Windows, Mac, and Linux users can download Firefox Aurora here. You will be able to can now download the Firefox beta version when they are made available by Mozilla. If you’re looking for the Firefox Nightly channel, you’ll have to download it here, as it’s not offered by the channel changer.