More sites are incorrectly labeling Firefox ESR as outdated

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c627627
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Re: More sites are incorrectly labeling Firefox ESR as outda

Post by c627627 »

Yes sir, and for the purposes of this thread, it is security fixes, and _only_ security fixes that are relevant.
Meaning, whether some rarely used feature exists on this or that browser should not be used as an excuse by major web site Admins to request that ESR 52 not be used. There is nothing inside the latest ESR 52 that makes it inferior to any of the other browsers they don't label with a black exclamation point inside a yellow triangle.

I get that this is a 'who cares' question but it seems like people sometimes go out of their way to force things on users for reasons other than security.
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Re: More sites are incorrectly labeling Firefox ESR as outda

Post by WaltS48 »

c627627 wrote:Yes sir, and for the purposes of this thread, it is security fixes, and _only_ security fixes that are relevant.
Meaning, whether some rarely used feature exists on this or that browser should not be used as an excuse by major web site Admins to request that ESR 52 not be used. There is nothing inside the latest ESR 52 that makes it inferior to any of the other browsers they don't label with a black exclamation point inside a yellow triangle.

I get that this is a 'who cares' question but it seems like people sometimes go out of their way to force things on users for reasons other than security.
Maybe they are bringing the site up to date with compatibility changes that no longer work with your 52 ESR?

You might want to peruse the Firefox Site Compatibility changes made between version 52 and up.
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c627627
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Re: More sites are incorrectly labeling Firefox ESR as outda

Post by c627627 »

Yes they are bringing sites up to date with compatibility changes. Of course that is why they are doing it. In the example of PayPal:
"To meet the new PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) required by all websites that hold payment data, PayPal will no longer support outdated web browsers."

But Firefox 52 ESR absolutely meets any minimum requirements sites have.

I guess this is also about parallels to forcing people to switch to Windows 10 even if all they do is web browsing / word processing.
To force upgrades, some IT professionals want to just overlook the fact that Security Patches are still in effect for Windows 7 until 2020 and for Windows 8 until 2023, and likewise, Firefox 52 ESR will not begin to be out of date until September, when first Firefox security patches are released that are not available for ESR 52. Still it should be many years before any features not present in ESR 52 begin to be on the list of minimum site requirements.
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Re: More sites are incorrectly labeling Firefox ESR as outda

Post by therube »

But Firefox 52 ESR absolutely meets any minimum requirements sites have.
Minimum security requirements, yes.
But it may or may not meet other (I'll call it, browser or html) requirements - though most likely it would meet those too.

Older FF versions, say like 38, will fail, fairly regularly on plenty of websites - simply because coding, features, websites use today are beyond what something like 38 are capable of handling (& exclusive of security related issues).

Anyhow, no forcing a particular website to accept you.
All you can do is to try to work around barriers thrown at you by those sites.
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Re: More sites are incorrectly labeling Firefox ESR as outda

Post by lovemyfoxy »

Is ESR 60 just like regular 60? dead extensions?
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Re: More sites are incorrectly labeling Firefox ESR as outda

Post by frg »

> Is ESR 60 just like regular 60? dead extensions?

yes
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c627627
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Re: More sites are incorrectly labeling Firefox ESR as outda

Post by c627627 »

therube wrote:
Older FF versions, say like 38, will fail, fairly regularly on plenty of websites - simply because coding, features, websites use today are beyond what something like 38 are capable of handling (& exclusive of security related issues).
Yes but see what you did there, you brought up Firefox 38 - then attacked 38 for "failing fairly regularly".
Which is absolutely both true _and_ it has nothing to do with Firefox 52 ESR which will be 100% usable for many years to come.
There is nothing lacking in Fx52 ESR that would make it fail on websites, for most people, anywhere.

And all extensions on it still work with one more security patch still to come for it.
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Re: More sites are incorrectly labeling Firefox ESR as outda

Post by Frank Lion »

therube wrote:Older FF versions, say like 38, will fail, fairly regularly on plenty of websites - simply because coding, features, websites use today are beyond what something like 38 are capable of handling (& exclusive of security related issues).
That's not actually correct and there's a lot of nonsense written about 'modern websites' as though they are re-inventing the wheel or something. They are not, look at the source code and there is the same old .css, .html and .js to code the sites.

I tested this modern websites idea a while back by using Firefox 0.8PR from 2004. I had to add modern security certificates to it as most/all came into existence long after that version. The result? Websites worked OK, I've seen better lay outs, but they were OK. Most of the vast amount of .js on these sites is ad related anyway.

So, that's the 'good news', on the downside older browsers are going to be increasingly reported as being unsupported old/outdated browsers, simply because they are. In addition, as I stated back in the day, the suggested use of Firefox 52ESR was only given as a temporary 'fix' to give users who didn't want to go down the Firefox 57+ route, more time to figure out what to use instead.

Firefox 52ESR will soon receive the last of its security updates in a month or so, which means that unless you have taken other security measures, then, security-wise, it really isn't a good idea to continue to use it.
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Re: More sites are incorrectly labeling Firefox ESR as outda

Post by therube »

I mentioned 38, mainly in the context of Pale Moon.
Current Pale Moon (27.x) is essentially FF 38 based.
Pale Moon does seem to run into a lot of useragent related issues, but what I've noted here, https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.ph ... 50#p143750 are site breakages that affect PM 27 (& likewise, FF 38) [& generally, not more "current" browsers, 52 & later included]. (Of note, a recent change in Yahoo webmail does affect PM 27 where FF 38 is not affected. Not sure why offhand?)
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Re: More sites are incorrectly labeling Firefox ESR as outda

Post by Frank Lion »

therube wrote:I mentioned 38, mainly in the context of Pale Moon.
Current Pale Moon (27.x) is essentially FF 38 based.
That's fine, I'm just trying to get a bit more definition into these everyday browser-related terms.

'A website fails' - not really, mostly just doesn't work perfectly. In light of what many websites want to inflict on you, this is not always a bad thing.

'Modern website' - Usually, a BS term. People are suckers for 'new and shiny'. Actually, most people are suckers fullstop.

'User experience' - This is always a BS term. Websites and browsers alike don't give a damn about your experience. They only give a damn about how much information they can extract about you and to what use this information can be put to, either in the form of 'personalised advertising' (or information, in the case of the Russians) or even just how to pass it on and for how much.

'Browser telemetry' - see 'user experience' above.
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