Mozilla blog has published a short article on Thursday stating that it will not support Windiws XP and Vista in September 2017. It has strongly encouraged its users to update their computers. Users who are still using Firefox for both Windows version will be a part of Firefox extended support release which will be starting from next March. Firefox is one of the few browsers which is still supporting not only Vista but also classic XP version of Windows. Mozilla will be adding security updates until September.
Firefox 52 is the latest and perhaps last major version which will be supporting Windows XP and Vista. End of support date is still undecided by the company but it can be anytime after September 2017. The updates will be mainly security patches without any added features and improvements. After this, Mozilla on Windows XP will be unsupported and insecure to use. Firefox ESR is a special release for those organizations which require long term support and don’t want to or can’t test new Firefox releases in every six weeks.
Mozilla is also planning to implement changers to non ESR Firefox so as to block the installation of the browser on Windows XP and Vista machines. It is yet to be known how this will be going further. Windows XP is being used by 10.36% users and Windows Vista is being used by 2.56% users which totals to 13% users still using these versions. Chrome and Opera have already withdrawn their support from Windows XP and Vista long time back.
Microsoft had already withdrawn its support from Windows XP in April 2014 and will be dropping its support for Windows Vista in April 2017. Users of both Windows XP and Vista are left helpless because these operating systems would not be valid after April 2017. Users will still have an option to install Linux which will be free and can run on Windows XP and Vista.
Many online reviewers have also said that Windows 10 can run on old computers. So it is a good option to load Windows 10. Users don’t have to worry much as there still are few alternatives besides Firefox.