Mozilla is changing Firefox’s release schedule from September, with new stable versions planned every two weeks instead of once a month.

The faster release cadence will, Mozilla says, make the schedule more predictable and allow features and improvements which are ready to ship to do so sooner.

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But in its message to developers, Mozilla describes the change as an experiment, one it says it plans to “closely monitor” to make sure the impact is positive and, if needed, adjust the speed of releases.

Firefox 154, due for release on 18 August, will be the final stable version released under the current schedule. Firefox 155 is then planned for 1 September, after which new stable releases will arrive every two weeks.

Despite the sped-up release timetable, Mozilla’s own engineers are not going to be required to complete work at a faster pace. Features that are not ready for release will stay in development until they are.

Opting for a faster release schedule may help Firefox look visibly competitive against its (many) Chromium-based rivals, like Google Chrome, which already use a fortnightly update cadence.

Will putting out more releases lead to more Firefox users?

The browser already gets maintenance updates between major versions, so any uptick is unlikely to alter how existing users view updates (as there’s already frequent “restart Firefox to update” nags).

Whether the benefit translates into new people choosing Firefox over a rival…

Nothing for users to do, though

However you get your Firefox updates, you’ll be getting more of them

Existing Firefox users don’t need to do anything to track the faster update schedule, as updates come through the same channels as now. On Windows and macOS that’s via the browser’s built-in update system; on Ubuntu it’s via Snap or Mozilla’s APT repo, etc.

For anyone less keen on constant churn, the Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) channel will, says Mozilla, continue to release at a slower pace, with longer gaps between major releases that add big new features or involve dramatic design changes

ESR does receive security updates regularly, so there’s no trade-off between staying stable and staying safe.

As I said further up, Mozilla isn’t committed to keeping its two-week release cycle permanently. It plans to monitor the results of this experiment and make changes if necessary – so this might not be a done deal yet.

Does moving to a faster release schedule make sense for Mozilla, or is a slower, steady approach a better fit? Let me know what you think.