What you need to know
- Mozilla announced its plans to extend Firefox support on unsupported operating systems until March 2025.
- The company will offer two ESR (Extended Support Release) releases, including 115 for unsupported operating systems and 128 for Windows 10 and newer.
- Mozilla argues “enough” Firefox users are still running unsupported operating systems, including Windows 7, prompting its decision to extend support for Firefox on old devices.
As an analyst with over two decades of experience in the tech industry, I’ve seen numerous companies phase out support for older operating systems and software versions to focus on newer, more efficient technologies. However, Mozilla’s decision to extend Firefox support on unsupported operating systems until March 2025 is a refreshing change of pace.
Microsoft is planning to discontinue support for Windows 10 by October 14, 2025, but users can still utilize Firefox 115 on outdated systems like Windows 7, 8, and 8.1, as well as macOS versions 10.12 to 10.14. Mozilla has extended the support for these older versions, so they will continue to receive important updates until April 1, 2025. Firefox 115.21 will also keep getting updates until March 4, 2025.
In summary, Firefox 115 is the final version of this web browser that can operate on the listed outdated operating systems. Therefore, it’s important to note that trying to set up Firefox 116 on these outdated systems will not work successfully.
If you haven’t heard already, Mozilla revealed their intention to continue supporting Firefox on these previously unsupported operating systems back in July. Prior to this announcement, Mozilla released Firefox 115 without clarifying if it would operate on unsupported systems, which left some users uncertain about whether or not they should update the browser.
Mozilla initially intended to discontinue support for Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 by September 2024, but later altered those plans. The organization now provides two ESR (Extended Support Release) versions: one for unsupported operating systems, version 115, and another, version 128, which is for Windows 10 and newer systems.
Discontinuing support for Windows 7 would have given Mozilla the opportunity to streamline their codebase and relieve them of the obligation to maintain newer libraries that may not be compatible with pre-Windows 10 versions. Notably, Mozilla has decided to continue supporting Windows 7 due to a significant number of Firefox users on this platform. This decision might provide Mozilla with a competitive advantage as Microsoft’s Edge browser and Google Chrome have already ceased support for Windows 7, potentially leaving an unoccupied market share open for exploration.
According to Mozilla:
Beyond October, maintaining it won’t be free anymore (as backporting security updates becomes progressively difficult due to the natural divergence that occurs as an Extended Support Release moves further into its lifecycle), but there are still a sufficient number of users who find it beneficial, so we decided to continue supporting it for now at least.
It’s not yet clear if Mozilla plans to continue supporting Firefox on these unsupported systems after the stated deadlines.
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2024-09-17 11:39