Firefox ESR?

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wingspar
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Joined: April 23rd, 2004, 10:16 am

Firefox ESR?

Post by wingspar »

I read what Mozilla says about Firefox ESR, but still have no clue what it is or why it is on my computer. I have an old notebook with XP on it that I turn on once every month or two. I use it to update FF to make sure there are no changes in my theme before I update my main computer running Win 7. Firefox ESR was never on the notebook and I do not know when it got installed or why.

My main computer is running FF 53.0.3, but the notebook is running ESR 52.2.0 which is the current version I just updated today. If I go to the Mozilla page on ESR, there is a link to install the personal edition of FF if I don’t need/want ESR, but when I do that, it just tells me I am up to date with 52.2.0.

Why do I have ESR, how did it get installed on my computer and how do I get the current 54.0 on the notebook without losing all my settings and bookmarks?
Gary
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JayhawksRock
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Re: Firefox ESR?

Post by JayhawksRock »

All XP users have been migrated to ESR channel automagicly. XP is no longer supported by Mozilla on any other channel.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/o ... tions/faq/
"The trouble with quotes on the internet is you never know if they are genuine" ...Abraham Lincoln
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James
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Re: Firefox ESR?

Post by James »

Firefox 53.0 and later has dropped support for the EOL Windows WinXP and Vista so Mozilla is giving such users a chance to still have a secure Firefox and not be using a old EOL version that gets more and more vulnerable over time even though the OS's will be vulnerable. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/en ... -and-vista

The ESR is short for Extended Support Release and was mainly for enterprise and such users in mind. It generally gets eight updates in line with the major Firefox Releases so WinXP/Vista users will still be able to use Firefox with security updates until Firefox 52.8.0esr out when Firefox 60.0 is Released May 1st 2018. By this point Mozilla will have supported WinXP/Vista for two years since Google dropped support with Chrome in April 2016.

The "Firefox security updates for XP and Vista users will continue until September 2017" in above article is incorrect as the person who added this was going by a vague comment in a Bug as the same person made another Bug after saying it will be when 52 ESR ends in 2018 which will be May 1st unless extended.
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wingspar
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Re: Firefox ESR?

Post by wingspar »

Thanks. I was kind of guessing that it had something to do with XP. What about support for Win 7? Will that end anytime soon?
Gary
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James
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Re: Firefox ESR?

Post by James »

wingspar wrote:What about support for Win 7? Will that end anytime soon?
Not likely anytime soon as Microsoft is supporting Win7 until January 14, 2020 and I know a lot of Windows users like it much better compared to 8.1 and especially 10.

There is the better possibility of dropping 32-bit Windows version of Firefox Releases compared to dropping Win7. They did drop 32-bit version for Mac OSX starting Fx 53.0 and later.

Firefox 53.0 was the first to have a new stub installer served on mozilla.org that will give you 32-bit or Win64 if you have 64-bit Windows 7, 8.1, 10 as I guess it made it easier to do so with support for WinXP and Vista dropped.
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lovemyfoxy
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Re: Firefox ESR?

Post by lovemyfoxy »

ESR will also keep the XUL extensions longer than the regular FF.

Judging by experience with XP, I think MS will support Win 7 longer than 2020. IMHO.
2 Desktops--Win 7 Ult.SP1 x64/6GB RAM /Firefox 52.9ESR/Waterfox64 2022.11/Thunderbird 52.9ESR/BitWarden PW Manager/Verizon FIOS wired network
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wingspar
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Re: Firefox ESR?

Post by wingspar »

James wrote:
wingspar wrote:What about support for Win 7? Will that end anytime soon?
Not likely anytime soon as Microsoft is supporting Win7 until January 14, 2020 and I know a lot of Windows users like it much better compared to 8.1 and especially 10.

There is the better possibility of dropping 32-bit Windows version of Firefox Releases compared to dropping Win7. They did drop 32-bit version for Mac OSX starting Fx 53.0 and later.

Firefox 53.0 was the first to have a new stub installer served on mozilla.org that will give you 32-bit or Win64 if you have 64-bit Windows 7, 8.1, 10 as I guess it made it easier to do so with support for WinXP and Vista dropped.
I see that I have the 32 bit version of FF, but I am running Win 7 64 bit. Doesn’t FF know if you are running 32 or 64 bit systems?
Gary
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James
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Re: Firefox ESR?

Post by James »

wingspar wrote:I see that I have the 32 bit version of FF, but I am running Win 7 64 bit. Doesn’t FF know if you are running 32 or 64 bit systems?
Up til Firefox 52.0, Windows users downloading Firefox from www.mozilla.org will get 32-bit Firefox by way of small stub installer. If you want full offline setup or Win64 then you need to go to www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/

You have 32-bit Firefox because that is what you installed and updated with since.

Note a 32-bit Firefox on Windows (also Mac OSX or Linux) will not update to 64-bit Firefox. Maybe in future it will be done for Windows users if 32-bit Firefox is dropped and if user has 64-bit Windows. However there is the issue of mixing in which mixing of different builds have caused crashes before.

Crashes caused by mixing is why the .zip builds of Firefox for Releases was discontinued as of Firefox 1.0.2 back in March 2005. There were many new users starting as of Firefox 1.0.x and thought that in order to keep their seeings they had to install .zip or setup builds over old program folder.
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