Firefox XP support will shift to ESR 52, drop in mainline past 51

[Monroe]

Just started reading about this Firefox ESR version today. After the news about Pale Moon dropping WinXP had come out ... I decided to find the latest Firefox portable version ... I did this last week.

I was searching for a portable ESR version just now and came across this download page with several language downloads. It the portable apps versions ... still looking for a stand alone ESR portable version to work with.

I posted this page for anyone interested in working with the ESR version now.

Index of /portableapps/Mozilla Firefox, Portable Ed./Mozilla Firefox ESR, Portable Edition 45.5.0 ... (16 Nov 2016)

http://mirror.ufs.ac.za/portableapps/Mozilla Firefox, Portable Ed./Mozilla Firefox ESR, Portable Edition 45.5.0/

...

[vwestlife]

On 11/27/2016 at 8:37 AM, NoelC said:

FYI, Windows Vista right now (literally since about June of this year) for most folks can't complete a Windows Update operation.  It just goes into a hard loop on one core.

You have to be very patient but eventually it should work. After installing Vista with SP2 recently I had to wait over 18 hours (with Windows hogging one CPU core the entire time) before it started getting updates again -- and that was on a Quad Core i5. On a slower machine it would likely take even longer!

XP, on the other hand, starts getting updates nearly instantly after installing it...

[NoelC]

I'm not sure being patient is enough...  I ran a test and stopped it after over 81 hours of Xeon x5690 CPU time was wasted.

-Noel

[Dibya]

Vista is the most beutiful System ever made . Even more stable than 10

[NoelC]

EVERYTHING is more stable than 10, which even beyond its "always beta level" instability reboots itself on purpose any time an update rolls out.  Since it does this, it's not hard to imagine it won't be long before Microsoft will feel it's okay to deliver system software that REQUIRES a reboot every few days (shades of pre-NT OSs).  Microsoft is regressing, presumably so they can start all over again and have another 30 years of success.  Thing is, they're not as smart as their predecessors.

On topic for this thread:  It sounds like some major changes are coming up architecturally in FireFox soon, so I think I'll just hold on the current version I have for a while even though I'm not running it under XP.

-Noel

[dencorso]

1 hour ago, NoelC said:

On topic for this thread:  It sounds like some major changes are coming up architecturally in FireFox soon, so I think I'll just hold on the current version I have for a while even though I'm not running it under XP.

I think the last good version will be 52esr anyway, so  my plan is to keep updating until 52 is out, then move on to the esr branch and stop updating just in time to keep the last 52.x.y (avoiding the move to 59esr, that is bound to happen later on)...

[cc333]

Maybe someone can make an up to date branch of ESR 52 that will continue to work on XP etc. after Mozilla drops it in 2018 (because, with the POS hack, XP would still have a good year of useful life left). Something for XP x64 would be nice too (Waterfox does, but I had issues running the latest version (put bluntly, it didn't), so an alternative based on the ESR would be better I think).

TenFourFox, which did the same for PowerPC Macs, is alive and well, so I'm certain that it would be feasible, if someone is willing to do the work.

c

Edited December 1, 2016 by cc333

[Jody Thornton]

Now here's something I think has yet to surface that could prove interesting.  As it stands, Waterfox is the only xFox build that supports Windows XP x64 Edition.  Will that also shift to the ESR branch, or cease completely?

[Jody Thornton]

So wait!  Is Windows XP x64 Support still available with v50x?  It almost sounds as if support disapeared after v46x.

https://www.waterfoxproject.org/blog/waterfox-50.0-release-download

[Guest]

http://www.ghacks.net/2016/12/24/mozilla-support-for-windows-xp-and-vista-until-september-2017-at-least/

[dencorso]

24 minutes ago, Sampei.Nihira said:

http://www.ghacks.net/2016/12/24/mozilla-support-for-windows-xp-and-vista-until-september-2017-at-least/

On 12/17/2016 at 3:07 PM, dencorso said:

Well...

FF will drop XP at 53.0.0. So shall FF esr do, too. However, the last FFesr to support XP ought to be 52.8.0...
... then it moves on to 59.0.0 and tells XP: "hasta la vista, babe" !   Life's like this.

In fact, nobody said there won't ever be a FF esr v.52.8.1 (or 52.9.0) released... it might as well happen... just like FF esr 24.8.1 was released, way back when... and that may as well lead right into early 2018, at least... (yet, POSReady 2009 still goes on to April 9, 2019). Why worry?   \m/

[mixit]

So, the channel switch to esr has now happened with the release of 52.0. Curiously, they're still allowing normal/non-ESR 52.0 standalone installers (available at Mozilla's FTP site) to upgrade previous versions, even though the internal updater forces the esr switch and the main download portal offers XP users ESR versions as well.

[Guest]

Starting with Firefox 52, websites may no longer access the API so that it can no longer be used for tracking purposes. Mozilla will keep the API open to extensions and Firefox itself however.

About:config

dom.battery.enabled

Double-click the preference to set it to false.

__________________________________________________

http://www.ghacks.net/2016/12/28/firefox-52-better-font-fingerprinting-protection/

Edited March 8, 2017 by Sampei.Nihira