Mozilla to Kill Off Firefox for Windows XP and Vista in June 2018

[Exterminator]

Mozilla to Kill Off Firefox for Windows XP and Vista in June 2018

Mozilla is one of the few companies that continue to support Windows XP, with its browser currently part of Firefox 52 ESR (Extended Support Release) channel.

Today, however, Mozilla announced that both Windows XP and Windows Vista are projected to lose Firefox support in June 2018, and users are recommended to upgrade to a newer version of Windows before this deadline.

With ESR support, Firefox is only getting security updates on Windows XP and Vista, but the browser isn’t receiving any of the new features that are available for the latest versions of the browser.

Windows XP still super-popular
This helps Windows XP users browse the web securely even though their operating system is no longer getting updates – and the same in the case of the majority of browsers, including Internet Explorer, which doesn’t receive any new updates on XP.

“We are announcing June 2018 as the final end of life date for Firefox support on Windows XP and Vista. As one of the few browsers that continues to support Windows XP and Vista, Firefox users on these platforms can expect security updates until that date. Users do not need to take additional action to receive those updates,” Mozilla said.

Windows XP still has a market share of approximately 5 percent, and statistics point to a rather slow drop despite the lack of security updates. End of support was reached in April 2014 and since then Windows XP received just a single patch earlier this year when Microsoft rolled out an emergency update to address the WannaCry vulnerability.

XP, however, is mostly used in companies and organizations where other security systems have been implemented, including restrictions to block Internet connection and limited connectivity to internal networks. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that these systems are completely hacker-proof, with an upgrade to supported Windows still the best choice to remain secure.