Dear users of ageing hardware, even Firefox is ready to stop supporting your out-of-date tech. On Tuesday, the Mozilla-owned browser released its latest update, claiming it was the last one that users of ageing Mac and Windows users will see outside of an extended-release schedule that’s set to end by September next year.
The update will effectively end support for macOS 10.12 Sierra, 10.13 High Sierra, and 10.14 Mojave. Similarly, Windows 7 and 8 users will no longer receive any more security updates. Both platforms are being moved to the Firefox Extended Support Release, which is mainly an enterprise level of tech support. By September 2024, Apple and Microsoft’s ageing operating systems will no longer get security updates.
This end of support comes as both Apple and Microsoft have effectively ended security support for their ageing OS. Microsoft said it was planning to stop supporting security updates on Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 earlier this year. Meanwhile, Apple’s last security update for Sierra through Mojave was all the way back in July of 2021. Apple normally supports up to three versions of its OS at a time, and with Sonoma on the horizon, there’s essentially no chance we’ll see any extended support.
Mozilla has been better than other software companies supporting that ageing hardware. Mojave was first released in 2018 and brought a heap of formerly iOS-exclusive apps to laptops and desktops. After Apple introduced its M1 chip and moved away from the 10s to 11 Big Sur, 12 Monterey, and 13 Ventura, Mojave has been relegated to far older hardware like the early 2015 MacBook that cannot support new releases.
Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge have already stopped support on Windows 7, 8, and 8.1. Any OS or browser that lacks security updates presents a big risk to users, and both Mozilla and Firefox are emphasising that users move on to Windows 10.
Firefox has continued to be a popular browser for users of ageing operating systems. The Mozilla community’s hardware data shows that while most Firefox users are either using Windows 10 or Windows 7. A whopping 12% of the hundreds of thousands of active Firefox users are on the OS that came out a little less than 24 years ago. Comparatively few Firefox diehards are using any of the older versions of macOS or even Windows 8.1.
Firefox itself has continued to struggle for users against the massively popular Chrome browser. Mozilla’s latest data shows that monthly active users has steadily declined from 2019. Still, it remains one of the most popular browsers underneath Chrome and Safari, and over time it has tried to promote its privacy and security measures to stand out between the heavy hitters and other, smaller, privacy-focused browsers. Meanwhile, Chrome is going to be sharing its new “privacy sandbox” meant to cut down on targeted ads, which itself is a larger effort to effectively kill cookie trackers once and for all.