Mozilla readies to pull support plug on Firefox 3.6
Mozilla has announced a date for the end of support for Firefox 3.6. April 24, 2012. Mark it in your calendar, Firefox 3.6 users!
Why is this date significant? Because after this date there will be no more new releases to fix security patches. The browser will get real old (and real dangerous to use) real fast. Using Firefox 3.6 beyond the end of life date is NOT RECOMMENDED.
Something else is happening on that day too ... Firefox 10 will be released, and it will be Mozilla's first Extended Support Release (ESR) release.
See how modern browsers stack up - The BIG browser benchmark! Chrome 16/15 vs Opera 11 vs IE9 vs Firefox 9/8 vs Safari 5
Since Firefox 4.0, Mozilla has been on an aggressive update schedule which sees a new version pushed out every six weeks. While this might be acceptable to home users, business and enterprise uses find this aggressive update cycle to be too much to handle. Back in September of last year Mozilla announced plans for a Extended Support Release cycle that would see a version of the browser supported for 42 weeks. Initially Firefox 8 or 9 was slated for ESR, but this slipped.
It seems that a lot of regular users are sticking with Firefox 3.6 too, for one reason or another. Currently Firefox 3.6 is at #6 in the browser version charts. Mozilla has tried nudging Firefox 3.6 users to the latest release already. Now it's putting the squeeze on them. While there's no doubt that the latest releases offer far better JavaScript performance than 3.6, it's not been enough to convince the stalwarts that upgrading is worthwhile.
ESR support for Firefox 10 will mean that Mozilla will backport security bugs qualified as "Critical" and "High" to the ESR where feasible. However, Mozilla is at pains to point out that there may be exceptional cases where a backport cannot be applied with reasonable effort. Other security and stability backports to the ESR will be included at Mozilla's discretion.
When an ESR version reaches end-of-life, no further point releases will be offered to users, and an update to the latest supported version of the ESR (or Desktop Firefox, if the ESR for that platform is discontinued) will be offered to users of the end-of-lifed version.
While this decision won't please some, I think it's the right decision to make. Mozilla can't remain committed to Firefox 3.6 (and its users) indefinitely.
Will an ESR version of Firefox help to appease those who file the current update schedule too aggressive, or will users migrate to different browsers?
Related:
- The BIG browser benchmark! Chrome 16/15 vs Opera 11 vs IE9 vs Firefox 9/8 vs Safari 5
- Mozilla attempts to appease enterprise users with talk of 42-week Firefox release cycle
- 'Firefox with Bing' - You asked for it!
- Firefox 3.6 is Mozilla's Windows XP
- Firefox 3.6 users to get nudged towards 8.0.1
- See what you're missing - Firefox 3.6 vs Firefox 8.0.1