Firefox 3.6 Support Ends April 2012

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Firefox 3.6 Support Ends April 2012

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 5, 2012 @06:01AM from the slow-motion-shutdown dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla for some time after switching to the rapid release process talked about releasing Extended Support Releases that would give companies and organizations some breathing space in the race to test and deploy new browser versions. With the first ESR release (which will be Firefox 10), comes the Firefox 3.6 end of life announcement. Firefox 3.6 users will receive update notifications in April to update the browser to the latest stable version by then."

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Group Policy by DCTech · 2012-01-05 06:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

companies and organizations some breathing space in the race to test and deploy new browser versions
I doubt this hardly matters to companies. The thing is, they *cant* deploy Firefox as it is. There is no group policy like with IE, and recently with Chrome. You can distribute it easily within your company. This is what Firefox has always lacked and I don't understand why they have been so ignorant about it. Yes, it does nothing to home users, but it's required for companies.
1. Re:Group Policy by DarkOx · 2012-01-05 06:28 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Right because it was so hard to script out the installer, and copy pre-crafted config file to the right place Actually if anything that ties corporate users more to a specific version because they have to actually invest some time into building their own deployment package which is certain to be somewhat version dependent.
  If you IT staff can't "deploy" Firefox they are worthless. I can completely understand them not wanting to chase the latest version, preferring to just replace the executable installer package with one that just has the security fixes in it but none of the new math. So all their pre-rolled configs and installation scripts don't have to change.
  
  --
  Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
2. Re:Group Policy by Richard_at_work · 2012-01-05 06:46 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Fine, script the installer.
  Now update the home screen, and add new bookmarks to already deployed installs.
  That's where GPO carries on and your solution ends.
3. Re:Group Policy by hairyfeet · 2012-01-05 07:23 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Firefox has to run as admin to update, strike one. It doesn't have low rights mode like chrome and IE, strike two. Its crazy release schedule means zero testing before deployment, strike three and you're outta there!
  As someone who used FF before it was even called FF and the suite before that i hated to see it go but go it had to as its performance has been getting worse it seems as far as CPU spiking and RAM leaking, extensions were breaking everywhere and the final straw was that XSS bug that allowed malware writers to spam yahoo mail accounts from FF. If you got a bunch of spam emails from friends with Yahoo accounts, all consisting of a single word or sentence and a driveby malware link? that was the FF XSS bug. With low rights mode its damned near impossible to pull crap like that since the browser runs even lower than a user it simply can't get the permissions to do a lot of nastiness. Low rights mode was released with vista in 2007 BTW and here it is 2012 and Firefox STILL doesn't have it. But hey they have personas right?
  I truly hope the FF devs will stop going Goatse at their users and get back to their original mission statement which was to build a small, fast, and light browser with good security because I do miss NoScript although I don't know if its really needed with low rights mode and sandboxing. But if you think IT are "worthless" for not deploying a less securable browser that requires admin rights to install and isn't easy at all to set up GPOs that can't be trivially bypassed by the user? Then I'd personally hate to see what the admins are like you'd consider competent, probably the type that just gives everyone admin rights and cleans up after the messes.
  
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  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
4. Re:Group Policy by Dagger2 · 2012-01-05 09:35 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Firefox has to run as admin to update
  True for now.
  
  It doesn't have low rights mode like chrome and IE
  True.
  
  Its crazy release schedule means zero testing before deployment
  Well, other than the six weeks it's in "Beta" (i.e. release candidate) where the intent is to make no changes, and the six weeks it's in "Aurora" (i.e. beta), where only bug fixes are made. And the extra twelve weeks it's in certify/deploy state in the ESR proposal. But other than that.
  
  extensions were breaking everywhere
  Extensions rarely break with the new "major releases are now minor releases" model. As of Fx10, it will even stop claiming they're broken too.
  
  and the final straw was that XSS bug that allowed malware writers to spam yahoo mail accounts from FF ... With low rights mode its damned near impossible to pull crap like that
  OK, I'm not sure which bug you're referring to, but generally running the browser in a low-rights mode doesn't prevent XSS bugs, because XSS bugs happen inside the browser itself.
  
  that requires admin rights to install
  Wait, install? You said "update" earlier. But OK... I believe it installs fine as a non-admin user if you opt to install it to a directory the user has write permission to, which is what Chrome does by default. Firefox Portable certainly works fine as a non-admin user (updates included!), and that's just a wrapper around a vanilla Firefox.
  
  and isn't easy at all to set up GPOs that can't be trivially bypassed by the user
  True, as far as I know. Though if you're allowing the browser to be installed without admin rights, the user could presumably just overwrite it with a version that doesn't obey GPOs, so either this applies to Chrome too or you in fact don't actually want non-admin users to be able to install the browser.
  I dislike the new release schedule as much as the next guy, but I'd prefer it if you disliked it for reasons that were true, or at least not getting fixed before 3.6's EoL.
Re:rapid-release by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-05 06:08 · Score: 3, Informative

They're releasing less versions now then they did during 3.x if you look at the total quantity of updates rather then the version number.
quoting original document by Luckyo · 2012-01-05 06:22 · Score: 3, Insightful

The ESR is specifically targeted at groups looking to deploy it within a managed environment. It is not intended for use by individuals, nor as a method to mitigate compatibility issues with addons or other software. Mozilla will strongly discourage public (re)distribution of Mozilla-branded versions of the ESR.

They essentially admit that the problem is major enough for people to want to get this "corporate world only" release, and they actually want to prevent people from getting it as much as possible. Disgusting.
Attorneys can't update. by crankyspice · 2012-01-05 06:30 · Score: 3, Informative

Sigh. As one of the Righthaven tools[1] found out the hard way ... the CM/ECF system used by all Federal District Courts has been tested to work with FF 3.5; from extensive personal experience it also works fine with FF 3.6. It does not work at all with FF 4.0+ (in that you can't use FF to upload PDFs, which is all you'd use the Electronic Case Filing system for (document retrieval is done through PACER, though they overlap).
For some stupid reason, ECF specifies an ACCEPT parameter of “image/*” for the PDF upload forms, which of course is incorrect (PDFs are MIME type “application/pdf” per IANA; see also, e.g., RFC 3778).
As of FF 4.0 (https://developer.mozilla.org/en/HTML/Element/input), that 'accept' parameter is honored and FF filters the file selector box to only permit image filetypes to be uploaded. End result? #massivefail
Yes, ECF is broken. But try getting not one, but 89, Federal bureaucracies to fix their tech in a timely fashion... (Each district court runs its own ECF system.)
Sigh.
[1] Declaration of Shawn A. Mangano, Esq., Righthaven LLC v. Democratic Underground, LLC, No. 10-cv-01356-RLH-GWF, docket entry 127-1 (Dist. Of Nevada, June 29, 2011)

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geek. lawyer.
Re:rapid-release by million_monkeys · 2012-01-05 06:40 · Score: 3, Interesting

So should we expect that six weeks later firefox 4 support ends? followed six weeks later by the end of firefox 5 support? etc...? etc...?
System requirements by sirdude · 2012-01-05 06:50 · Score: 3, Insightful

It's interesting looking at how the minimum requirements for 3.6 and 9 compare. In just under 2 years, the recommended hardware for FF has effectively quadrupled in Windows. Macs have odd changes and Linux doesn't warrant minimum/recommended requirements.
Looking at the recommended requirements from a different angle, you need at most a 12 year old system to run FF on Windows and a 6 year old system for Macintosh. Linux's restrictions are solely software dependencies.
Weird.
1. Re:System requirements by 0123456 · 2012-01-05 07:41 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  That IS weird, considering they've rolled out only minor updates and UI problems since 3.6. I'm puzzled that the requirements would have changed at all.
  I believe you'll find the new randomly-positioned status bar takes a lot more RAM and CPU than the old one because it has to continually work out which part of the screen you're trying to read and then ensure it always pops up on top of it.
2. Re:System requirements by BZ · 2012-01-05 09:17 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  I believe the 3.6 requirements just hadn't been updated in a few years and were more or less totally bogus. When 4 shipped, the requirements were updated to reflect reality.
Re:My support for Firefox ended 2011 by Luckyo · 2012-01-05 06:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

I think the main reason for emotional response like yours (and mine, which largely mirrors yours) is because many of us in IT actively advocated firefox as a replacement for IE in corporate world, and actually got it pushed through. Which is one of the biggest reasons why firefox took off, people like using the same browser at home and at work.
And then, they essentially gave everyone in corporate IT a very public finger, especially when you have to explain to your bosses why firefox cannot be supported anymore and you have to switch to something else if that was your primary browser in the company. Not only do you end up feeling used, but your reputation (and potentially career) get stained.
Byob and Wpkg by gQuigs · 2012-01-05 06:58 · Score: 4, Informative

They just relaunched Build your own browser, (byob.mozilla.com), which should help customize the settings. (I haven't tried it yet as we customized it manually)
We deploy with WPKG and find it works quite well. Not all companies use the MSI deployment tools...
Mozilla Unclear on the Concept by rubycodez · 2012-01-05 07:22 · Score: 3, Insightful

They're talking about x weeks after y weeks....what business need is z YEARS, with z>=2, with only bug fixes and security updates. This pandering to out of control bloat, bugs, eye candy and gee-whiz nonsense needs to stop. Business and many people like myself want a stable, secure, predictable, and useful browser, not a petri dish for every brain fart a mozilla developer has.
Re:And PowerPC? by SiMac · 2012-01-05 07:32 · Score: 3, Insightful

Because Camino is still based on Mozilla 1.9.2, which is the base of Firefox 3.6 and will probably be EOLed along with it. TenFourFox is a port of Firefox 9 to PPC. It should work.
Re:FTFY: NotScript by revealingheart · 2012-01-05 07:34 · Score: 5, Interesting

You'll have to provide sources for Firefox's alleged instability. Here's a link to Mozilla's Firefox crash statistics. If you can link to a report about Chrome's stability, it would be very useful.
As for memory, Mozilla have been working on reducing memory in Firefox with the MemShrink project. Nicholas Nethercote's blog has the latest reports on improvements to the upcoming versions. Even then, it's been established before in testing that Chrome is a relative heavyweight when it comes to memory.
Re:My support for Firefox ended 2011 by WrongSizeGlass · 2012-01-05 08:10 · Score: 4, Insightful

Did you see the link above that says "Extended Support Releases"? What exactly is wrong with that proposal?
The problem is it starts with version 10. Those of us who have avoided the "version number race" aren't using 4, 5, 6 ... 10 for a reason. ESR for version 10 really offers us nothing. The ESR roadmap in the article already goes up to version 24 (which should be out by Christmas at this rate). And who knows how long they'll "extend" it for? Their roadmap shows version 10 supported until version 17, which will be a shorter duration than 3.6 was supported.
Re:My support for Firefox ended 2011 by Luckyo · 2012-01-05 09:03 · Score: 3, Insightful

"Too little, far too late".
They already took the PR hit, and they already hit their supporters in corporate world. The damage is done. Half-assed damage control (which is what these ESRs are) is not going to bring firefox back to corporate world, nor remove the huge stain from reputation of both FF itself and IT professionals who were pushing for firefox acceptance in their workplace.