How to upgrade Firefox in Windows
- anna gonzalez (Unlicensed)
Firefox auto-updates itself
Having an up to date web browser is vital to having a safe and fully-featured web experience and Firefox's auto-update feature facilitates this very easily.
In most cases - actually, unless you have specifically disabled it - Firefox will check for updates every couple of hours and automatically update itself.
What if Firefox is not already auto-updating?
If you are being told that Firefox is out of date (our homepage will tell you if Firefox is out of date) then in most cases you just need to wait a few hours and Firefox will auto update itself.
If this doesn't occur, it's possible that:
- Your computer's firewall is preventing Firefox from checking if there are updates
- Your employer has blocked Firefox from auto-updating
- You (or someone else) has configured your Firefox to not auto-update
Fixing these issues is beyond the scope of this article; these situations are typically rare.
Updating Firefox
This guide will show you how to manually trigger Firefox to check for updates and install them if they are found.
The screenshots below are taken from Mac OS X, but the process is the same on Windows.
Simply opening the "About Firefox" interface is enough to trigger Firefox to check for updates and download them if there are any found.
Click the "Firefox" menu
This will reveal a menu with lots of options. One of them will be named "About Firefox".
Click "About Firefox"
You will be taken to the About page for Firefox.
Firefox will automatically check for updates
The About screen may look different to the one in the screenshot above. Version numbers shown here are examples and may change depending on what is considered the latest version...
Firefox tells you "Checking for updates..." while it checks for a newer version.
If Firefox finds updates, it will prompt you to install them
If a newer version is found, you will see a button prompting you to update to the latest version.
When you are ready, you can click this button to trigger the update. The new version will start to download.
Firefox will download the latest version
When the download is finished and Firefox has applied the changes, it will prompt you to restart the browser.
Click the "Restart Firefox to Update" button to restart it.
Firefox has now been updated
If you view the "About Firefox" screen again, you will see that Firefox is now running the latest version.
Congratulations, you have now ensured that your copy of Firefox is up to date.
In normal circumstances, Firefox will keep itself up to date automatically - if for some reason Firefox didn't update itself, please speak to your IT Support team for further help.