Firefox Nightly introduces streamlined installer on Windows

The small Stub Installer downloads the actual installer files from mirrors as close to the user as possible

Mozilla has introduced a new feature in nightly builds of Firefox for Windows that streamlines the install process for the open source browser. The new "Stub Installer" downloads a small executable that users execute and which in turn downloads the actual installation files from Mozilla's servers. A similar type of installer has been used to deliver Google's Chrome browser on Windows for quite a while.

The Stub Installer is location aware and the installation resources will be downloaded from servers as close to the user's physical location as possible. It also automatically detects the system's architecture and downloads the appropriate version of the browser. Currently, the new feature is only available for English language versions of Firefox. In future, it would be possible for the application would to detect the system's current language and install an appropriate language pack.

Mozilla's developers are calling on interested users to test the new installer and report bugs in the bug tracking system. They have posted a battery of test cases for users to run through on the release announcement on their quality assurance team blog. A version of Firefox for Windows with the new installer can be downloaded from Mozilla's servers. However, the H would like to remind readers that nightly builds of Firefox should not be used on production systems.

(fab)