What are Chrome/Edge Canary, Firefox Nightly and Opera Developer Versions?

On this website or many other websites, you might have read about Google Chrome Canary, Mozilla Firefox Nightly, Microsoft Edge Canary and Opera Developer versions and you might have wondered what are these special versions and how do they differ from public stable versions?

Today in this topic, I’ll try to clear your all your doubts about these special editions of popular web browsers. After reading this article, you’ll have a better idea about these special versions and the difference between these specific and public stable versions.

All web browsers follow a particular release cycle and release channel platform. The public stable versions which are provided for download on these web browsers official websites, are thoroughly tested. They don’t contain any bugs and issues (most of the times) and are ready to be used on primary/work machines. The stable versions can be used by anyone on any machine without worries.

On the other hand, Chrome Canary, Firefox Nightly, Edge Canary and Opera Developer are testing versions of these web browsers. These testing versions are not tested by the development team. They are provided for download as soon as they are compiled. That’s why these testing versions may contain bugs and issues. You may face crashing problems, incompatible add-ons/extensions issues, particular website layout problems, performance issues, etc. These testing versions are provided for download to those people who are interested in testing new features and don’t worry about bugs and issues. These are future versions of the web browsers and are intended for developers and advanced users.

When a web browser company wants to add a new feature to its web browser, it first implements the feature in the testing version of the browser. After that testers start testing these features and provide their feedback to the company. The company modifies the feature based on the feedback. All bugs and issues reported by testers are fixed during development and testing phase. Once the feature is ready for daily use, the testing version is released to public as stable version.

Let’s talk about all the browsers one by one!

Mozilla Firefox provides Nightly (previously known as Minefield) builds for testing purposes. Once a nightly version is tested, it’s transferred to Beta channel. Beta versions may also contain issues but they are more stable than Nightly versions. You can consider a Beta version as the Release Candidate version. Once Beta version is finalized, It’s transferred to Stable channel which is released to public as new Firefox version.

Related: Mozilla Firefox Nightly Updates

Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers provide Canary builds for testing purposes. After some testing, the build is transferred to Developer channel. After more testing, the build is transferred to Beta channel and finally the fully tested build is transferred to Stable channel for public release.

Related:

Google Chrome Canary Updates

Microsoft Edge Canary Updates

Opera provides Developer version for testing new features. After testing, the build is transferred to Beta channel and then the final build is transferred to Stable channel ready for the release.

Related: Opera Beta / Developer Build Updates

The testing versions of all web browsers are released daily. They have not been tested or used. They are released as soon as they are built. Beta versions are normally released once per week. Beta versions have been tested and used and contain minimal risk. Stable versions are released roughly every six weeks and can be used on primary machines without any issues.

So it’s your choice. If you don’t care about bugs and issues and want to test new features and changes as soon as they are made to the browser, you can use the testing versions of your favorite web browser.

If you want to early test drive new features and changes but worry about bugs and issues, you can try Beta versions.

If you want the most stable version of the browser without bugs and issues for daily use, then the public stable version is your best choice.

Almost all these browsers Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Opera allow users to install and run their testing, beta and stable versions in parallel as these versions are installed in different directories and use dedicated user profile folders. So you can install testing version alongside beta and stable versions in your machine and use whatever version you want to use.