Beginning on this date, Firefox will no longer function on older Windows systems.
Microsoft has been betting big on Windows 11 for a long time, almost since its launch. One of its main goals is to have most users move from previous versions of the operating system to this latest version, which directly affects the programs we use.
However, as we have mentioned on numerous occasions over the past few months, the success of this initiative has not been as expected. All this despite the fact that Windows 10 is about to end its official support, which will happen on October 14, 2025.
Among the problems we may encounter when working with versions that no longer receive official support from Microsoft, we must highlight everything related to security. Operating systems become vulnerable and do not receive security patches, which malicious criminals try to take advantage of at all costs. Naturally, this directly affects the web browsers that we install and use.
When Microsoft officially stopped supporting Windows 7 for most users last year, it quickly did the same with its own browser built into the operating system. Other companies, like Google, have also pulled support for Windows 7 and its browser. Mozilla, on the other hand, has not followed suit.
The company's initial plan was to continue supporting Firefox for Windows 7 with Extended Support Release 1115.
In fact, Mozilla itself announced the extension of the said official support at the end of last year, 2024, so updates were guaranteed until March 2025. Well, we're telling you all this because the company, Mozilla, has just announced another extension so that we can continue using Firefox on older versions of Windows safely.
With all this, what we want to tell you is that we will be able to continue using Firefox on older versions of Microsoft's operating system, such as Windows 7, until September2025. Until that date, Firefox 115 ESR will continue to receive official support from Mozilla.
It is worth noting that this also applies to the aforementioned Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 operating systems. As for Apple's offerings, macOS 10.12 to 10.14 will receive Firefox updates. In parallel, we should know that according to the new release schedule, Firefox ESR 128 will remain compatible with the latest operating systems until this deadline (next September 2025).