Does Mozilla Firefox have a lifecycle policy, end of support dates?
I'm currently using version 3.6 and there have been a lot of reported issues w/version 4.0. I want to stay on 3.6 but I'm not sure how much longer Mozilla will support it. Is there a lifecycle policy in place for versions. Are there any know End of Life/Support dates??? I can't find any
All Replies (12)
I have not seen a published end date for support for Firefox 3.6. Based on recent practice Mozilla have supported old versions until the next major release. This may change as the process for releasing updates for Firefox is currently undergoing a major change.
Well, currently they are still patching 3.6 so it must still be supported, but that doesn't really help as far as predicting when 3.6 will go End of Life....
Firefox 3.6 is still supported, but we are discussing the EOL plan. Feel free to attend the planning meeting:
http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.planning/browse_thread/thread/2b42f29c21378451#
Is there a published EOL or estimated EOL? I am trying to ensure my company is using the latest security features and worry that 3.6.x is not fully secure.
So, the planning meeting took place.... Was any determination made on how long version 3 will be supported?
Well, there are more end of life dates on Wikipedia, but Firefox 4 has now entered in a phase "end of life".
This was not supposed to be Mozilla's last large release cycle, There are versions 6, 7, 8 are working on.
You must type on Wikipedia history of Mozilla Firefox, then scroll down even more and you i'll see the release history.
Yes, Mozilla Firefox 3.6 is still supported and marks the beginning of a new development cycle and 5 is now available to download.
Mozilla Firefox 3.6.20 will coincide with Firefox 6 and will be released in August 16, 2011.
Modified by SonyBit15
I hope I am not too late to save you years of headaches and hair pulling. Firefox 3.6 was the most stable version. 4,5,6,7 and maybe even 8 have so many bugs you'll be in tears trying to work them all out. Stay with 3.6 as long as it fits your needs. Then switch to Chrome or IE.
The biggest problem is that the most people doesn't realize the existance of FF 4,5,6 or 7 and they are not updating. Instead, most of them are switched to Chrome (crap browser! in my opinion).
FF 3.6 is the slowest FF browser. I've got old PC, very old, but on my machine, FF 3.6 is like a grandpa of 80 years.
Latest FF-s are much more faster. Btw, from time to time, I'm using Nightly. I like constant improvements.
P.S. On very old machines like P2 or P3, Chrome browser is like a cyanide.
FF 6 or 7 are excelent on every machine. My neighbour have an old P2 (500MHz, 384MB) and Chrome was on that machine. It was like a suicide.
Then I gave him FF 7. Wow! That machine can still work. Only for browsing or typing docs.
Modified by Killjoy
The Firefox 4+ versions have system requirements for P4 or higher, with SSE2 support.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/4.0/system-requirements/
I have 2 PII PC's, 350Mhz & 500MHz, and found that anything newer than the Firefox 2.0 version to be a dog, even with 768Mb of RAM. Never tried a PIII.
I built a AMD-64 2.2GHz 3 years ago for the Firefox 3.0+ versions (and turned the PII 350 into a NAS file server).
Firefox 3.6 will be supported until shortly after the proposed ESR (Extended Support Release) is released. My guess is that will be near the end of the year, and Firefox 3.6 support would end in Feb or March.
A Firefox 3.6.24 version is in development, for release in 2 or 3 weeks - when Firefox 8.0 is released.
Firefox 3.6 is the only browser in the known universe that, in conjunction with Prism, allows somebody to run multiple one click logins to Google Apps, GMail, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook or any other web based system that uses logins and for which you have multiple accounts - mostly when you have work logins, group logins and personal logins.
It is a completely different isolated session. Google's Chrome has a vaguely similar option to Prism, but NOT isolated. As it would be said in New Zealand about Chrome's "Prism" - It's as useful as tits on a bull
Sadly, Prism is going the way of the dinosaur, along with 3.6 - But damn, it works well.
Please add one more user vote to keep 3.6 alive a bit longer - or even better a user vote to upgrade Prism to work with the current Firefox "one last time" :-)
Regards,
Ian Macintosh.
Mozilla have indicated that Firefox 3.6 will reach end of life on April 24th 2012, I think it is very unlikely that this decision will change.