Windows 7/8.1: Firefox will be support until 3. Q. 2024 at least

[German]Good news for users of Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1 who want to continue using these operating systems, which have (largely) fallen out of support with Microsoft, for a while longer. Mozilla has announced that they plan to support these operating systems for at least another year.

The support for Windows 7 SP1 has already expired for the broad mass of users in January 2020 – but in corporate environments there is the possibility of the ESU program to continue to receive extended security updates. This extended support is even possible until January 2024 in certain constellations. For Windows 8.1, the end of support was in January 2023 – but Windows Server 2012 R2 (based on the same kernel) is still supported until October 2023. In addition, there are still the embedded versions of these client operating systems, which are still partially supported.

Google has therefore ended support for its Chromium browser in January 2023 with version 109. This means that all Chromium-based browsers, such as Microsoft Edge, will eventually be discontinued and will have to continue using version 109 of the Chromium browser. So the air is getting thinner browser-wise for users who continue to run this operating system. I had pointed out this in the blog post Windows 7/8.1: Google ends support in February 2023, Edge also affected.

LOnly for Windows Server 2012 R2, Microsoft and Google have promised to provide security update for Google Chrome / Edge 109. Meanwhile, an Edge 109 update has also appeared in the Microsoft Update Catalog, see Edge: 111.0.1661.51; 110.0.1587.78; and 109.0.1518.95 (for Server 2012 R2); disable Bing button and PDF test.

Firefox still get support

What's interesting now is that Mozilla Firefox will still have support for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1 until at least Q3 2024. In the Bugzilla forum, there have been requests for years to discontinue support for Windows 7 in Firefox. However, Mike Kaply, a Mozilla representative, spoke up in this thread the other day (neowin.net colleagues spotted that) and wrote:

We will not be ending support for Windows 7/Windows 8 before the release of the Firefox 115 ESR, so the Firefox 115 ESR will support Windows 7/Windows 8 at least until 3Q 2024.

I can't speak to when we will remove support for Windows 7/Windows 8.

It states that Mozilla will not discontinue support for the aforementioned operating systems before Firefox 115 is released. Firefox 115, expected on July 4, 2023, will continue to support Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1. The Extended Service Release (ESR) variant of Firefox 115, however, will get support at least until the 3rd quarter of 2024. So until then, Firefox can be used under these operating systems with the current patch level. This decision is probably also due to the fact that there is still a significant user base and Mozilla therefore does not shut down its test environment for these operating systems.