Mozilla takes first step in pulling Firefox plug on macOS Mavericks, Yosemite and El Capitan

[Karlston]

Mozilla takes first step in pulling Firefox plug on macOS Mavericks, Yosemite and El Capitan

Beginning next week, Mozilla plans to automatically move users running older versions of macOS to the Firefox Extended Support Release, a version of the browser that provides security updates only.

Magdalena Petrova/IDG

 

Mozilla this week announced it would automatically move users running outdated versions of macOS to the Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR), an edition that provides security updates only.

 

The move, a first step towards dropping all support, will take place June 30, when Mozilla releases Firefox 78. On that date, users of Firefox still running OS X 10.9 (Mavericks), 10.10 (Yosemite) and 10.11 (El Capitan) on their Macs will instead be shunted to the extended channel and given 78.0 ESR. While that and Firefox 78 will be identical, when the latter shifts to version 79 four weeks later, ERS will remain at 78, increased to 78.1 to mark its first security update.

 

Firefox ESR and its limited feature changes were designed for enterprises that valued stability over sexy new functionality. Mozilla has used it before to wind down support for aged operating systems; three years ago, it pushed users who relied on Windows XP or Windows Vista onto Firefox 52 ESR.

 

For the next year, Mozilla will deliver security updates to Firefox 78 ERS running on Mavericks, Yosemite and El Capitan. In July 2021, those patches will stop and anyone stuck on one of those versions of OS X will be taking risks if they're browsing with Firefox.

 

Apple abandoned those flavors of OS X some time ago. The last security update for El Capitan, the youngest of the three, was in July 2018. By tradition, Apple supports only the three latest versions with security updates. Currently, the trio in support are Catalina (10.15), Mojave (10.14) and High Sierra (10.13) from 2019, 2018 and 2017, respectively.

 

Other browsers continue to work on some older Apple operating systems. Although Google shut down Chrome running on Mavericks in 2018, the browser remains supported on Macs running Yosemite and El Capitan.

 

More information about Mozilla moving some Mac users to the ESR build can be found online.

 

 

Mozilla takes first step in pulling Firefox plug on macOS Mavericks, Yosemite and El Capitan

 

[kay3460]

ESR support makes sense if you think about it carefully.  Anyone running OS X 10.9 (Mavericks), 10.10 (Yosemite) and 10.11 (El Capitan), or for that matter, Windows XP or Windows Vista would be prioritizing legacy application stability over "new features". 

 

"New features" generally means depreciating old useful features for things like pocket or a redesigned UI with hidden menus and submenus.

 

Besides, webrender and hardware acceleration fails to support older hardware anyways.

 

Multi process/parallelization means eating an extra 3GB of RAM and running your single core CPU at 100% 100% of the time.

[steven36]

They can use waterfox classic for mac based on Firefox 56  and get security updates even after  1 year when  official is no longer supported    .

 

Edit: Also they can use Waterfox current  witch  is just a new  ESR version .   Classic  Waterfox  has it's pearks it's a lot less giltchey  than quantum  also if you like  classic addons it rocks but  it has some  downsides too  it like  Google  makes it hard  to do recaptcha on it   while Firefox  works good for that service  . I have 6 browsers  and use Waterfox classic   and Firefox the most and i tell you what every since they turn on Multi Process  they still never got all the bugs out of it  at lest in Waterfox 56 you can turn it off  and it  very stable.