Some Firefox Users Get Left Behind with Each Major Update, Chrome Users Don't

As most Firefox users know by now, whether they love it or hate it, Mozilla switched to a rapid release cycle for the browser. A new major version comes out every six weeks and users are encouraged to update as often as they can.

One major difference between Firefox and Chrome, which also comes out once every six weeks, is that Firefox doesn't force users to update to the new version, though it's working on making the process more invisible.

The differences between the update system in Chrome and Firefox aren't that great and they're becoming smaller, but they do affect adoption, quite a lot.

Chrome downloads and installs updates automatically with no user involvement or even knowledge. There are ways of blocking automatic updates, but most people don't even know it’s happening.

Firefox also downloads updates automatically, but asks users whether they want them installed. What's more, the update checking system can be disabled completely. Most users don't bother disabling it, but a surprising amount of them choose to postpone updates, sometime for quite a lot of time.

This explains a behavior spotted by Pingdom when looking at browser version stats. When plotted on a graph, the Chrome update process is visibly more efficient than Firefox's.

With each major version update, more and more Firefox users get left behind and the version loses market share when compared to the one before it. With Chrome, it's the opposite, though not everyone switches to the new version immediately.

There are a few caveats, for one, Chrome has been gaining market share overall since launch, Firefox has been losing it lately. But Mozilla knows there are problems beyond that.

"Yes, we’re still working on the update process. One major difference right now is that you can simply say no to Firefox updates. Google makes that much more difficult. But yes, we are a bit less efficient here. Give us a few more releases to iron out the remaining kinks and all will be much better," Mozilla's Asa Dotzler admitted.

In fact, Mozilla is working on it right now. There is a big project to bring completely silent updates to Firefox. When completed, the entire process will be automatic and invisible to users. They will still have to option of not upgrading though.