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How does firerfox handle automatic updates?

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I've been using chrome for a while now but I'm a bit concerned automatic updating doesn't work. Looked at chrome on three different computers and all three had versions of chrome that were nearly a month out of date so clearly there way of updating doesn't work.

Considering switching to firefox but wondering how it works. Is it done automatically in the background? Does it use the same system as chrome where it uses task scheduler to check for updates as that doesn't seem to work for some reason.

I've been using chrome for a while now but I'm a bit concerned automatic updating doesn't work. Looked at chrome on three different computers and all three had versions of chrome that were nearly a month out of date so clearly there way of updating doesn't work. Considering switching to firefox but wondering how it works. Is it done automatically in the background? Does it use the same system as chrome where it uses task scheduler to check for updates as that doesn't seem to work for some reason.

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Firefox does not use a separate always running process for updating, like Chrome uses. Firefox checks for the availability of an update from within the main process, the first time Firefox is used for the day. And when Firefox does receive an update the user will be asked to restart Firefox to complete the update installation process; so the update process isn't completely hidden from the user.

The release calendar is here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar

Never having used Chrome myself, It would surprise me if it updated any more frequently than at 6 week intervals; so a month "behind" isn't within the realm of being "out of date".

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Chosen Solution

Firefox does not use a separate always running process for updating, like Chrome uses. Firefox checks for the availability of an update from within the main process, the first time Firefox is used for the day. And when Firefox does receive an update the user will be asked to restart Firefox to complete the update installation process; so the update process isn't completely hidden from the user.

The release calendar is here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar

Never having used Chrome myself, It would surprise me if it updated any more frequently than at 6 week intervals; so a month "behind" isn't within the realm of being "out of date".

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the-edmeister said

Firefox does not use a separate always running process for updating, like Chrome uses. Firefox checks for the availability of an update from within the main process, the first time Firefox is used for the day. And when Firefox does receive an update the user will be asked to restart Firefox to complete the update installation process; so the update process isn't completely hidden from the user. The release calendar is here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar Never having used Chrome myself, It would surprise me if it updated any more frequently than at 6 week intervals; so a month "behind" isn't within the realm of being "out of date".

Thanks for the replies. Chrome updates very frequently, there can be four a month and google claims you should get an update within about 3 days of it being released via automatic updates.

It checks via task scheduler for updates every hour. They used to have a process that was always running in the background and I had no issues with that but since replacing that with tasks in task scheduler it no longer seems to work. I'll give it another month and then i'll probably switch to firefox as these updates contain security fixes.

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Shows you how long ago it was that I had Chrome briefly installed. That update.exe was the killer for me!

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Dropbox uses the same method and this link explains the new process. I can only think they changed it because this method is more foolproof in making sure people get updates but sadly not in my case.

Google update process

I used to use firefox for years but using an android phone with chrome as well it's just seems a more consistent experience with things like syncing.