In April 2011, the development process was split into several "channels", each working on a build in a different stage of development. The most recent available build is called "Nightly Builds" and offers the latest, untested features and updates. The "Aurora" build is up to six weeks behind "Nightly" and offers functionality that has undergone basic testing. As of version 35, the "Aurora" channel has been renamed to the "Developer Edition" channel.[55][56] The "Beta" channel is another six weeks away. It provides improved stability over the nightly builds and is the first development milestone that has the "Firefox" logo. "Release" is the current official version of Firefox.
New releases are planned to occur at six-week intervals.[57] The stated aim of this faster-paced process is to get new features to users faster.[58] This accelerated release cycle was met with criticism by users, as it often broke addon compatibility,[59] as well as those who believe Firefox was simply trying to increase its version number to compare with other browsers such as Google Chrome.[60]