They call it Nightly because they update it every night. Seriously!

Okay -- but how do I know it's an update if it's always tagged with the same version number?

Good point, unlike beta where each update increments the digit after the b, Nightly shows the same version number for long stretches of time.

You can check the update history on the Troubleshooting Information page. Either:

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
• (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
• type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

In the first table on the page, click the "Show Update History" button where you can find the install time and build id of each update.

Thanks, jscher2000!

douglasbost said

Okay -- but how do I know it's an update if it's always tagged with the same version number?

The more bleeding edge Nightly development channel meant more for Testers and devs in mind gets checkins with two updates each day. The version of Firefox itself will stay the same, it this case 59.0a1 currently.

In the past the useragents of any build used to show the build date but that was frozen starting at Firefox 16.02 Release.

You can type about:buildconfig in the Location (address) bar to see the build link.

Release < Beta (b#) < Nightly (a1)

A version on the Beta channel gets say nine to sixteen builds. There is also the Developers Edition (Aurora) that is same a Beta but with addition Dev features.

Firefox 58.0 was on Beta channel as it will be Released on January 23rd. Beta channel will then have 59.0b# and the Nightly will have 60.0a1 start development by next Monday I believe.

If you want to be a Nightly channel Tester then you may want to read the Builds threads in http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=23 each day.

"Help -> About Firefox" only shows the date of the current build and no hour info.