Mozilla Firefox is on its last legs in Windows XP and Vista

Mozilla is the latest in line to drop support for Windows XP and Vista, announcing that it will no longer update its Firefox browser for the operating systems from June 2018. This news comes after other companies have chosen to do the same thing.

Many companies are dropping support for Windows XP and Vista as of late, with Blizzard moving on from the aging OSs to look towards the future following Microsoft’s departure from mainstream support for these versions of Windows in 2009 and 2012 respectively. Windows XP entered a full state of ‘end of life’ (EOL) after its extended support release (ESR) expired in 2014 as did Vista’s back in April.

It makes sense given that both operating systems, along with Windows 8.1 dropped in popularity this year, with Windows 7 and 10 increasing in user base.

Mozilla brought its XP and Vista users into a state of ESR, stating that the recent extra time given to the ESR would be its last extension before its end of life.

“As one of the few browsers that continues to support Windows XP and Vista, Firefox users on these platforms can expect security updates until [June 2018],” confirms the company. “Users do not need to take additional action to receive those updates. Unsupported operating systems receive no security updates, have known exploits, and are dangerous for you to use.”

Choosing to not update your operating system and continuing to use unsupported browsers is always a huge security risk, so it’s recommended that users utilise this 9-month warning to prepare themselves for the forthcoming.

KitGuru Says: Other browsers stopped supporting the operating systems quite a while back so users were lucky enough to get Firefox as long as they did. Hopefully this will prompt companies to make much needed investments as businesses tend to be the main culprits of not upgrading.

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