sorry, but a operating system for servers isn't exactly a usecase that browser makers will keep in mind when making such decisions. microsoft already ended support for IE9 on their own system over two years ago for example...

You still didn't answer the question and that is a very poor response for a supported product.

the answer might not be to your liking, but server platforms play a minor part in any of those considerations as they are not the target market for browser vendors. that decision by mozilla to drop support for all xp/vista based systems after the end of the 52esr cycle on september 5th has been announced long ago and isn't subject to change. there since have been many changes/optimizations that won't allow firefox to run on these outdated platforms any more.

The way that Mozilla is dropping support for supported products is very concerning as an open based browser platform. Whether or not you do not like my answers to your very poor statements and excuses that your giving for for the drop in support is also concerning.

Basically you are telling everyone that has an older server product whether it's supported or not to just upgrade. Servers are very expensive and the operating systems for servers are very expensive and Mozilla just doesn't care by your statements.

Also to answer your question to the IE9 response. Microsoft has stopped supporting IE11 for Windows 7, 8.1 and even 10. So what is your point. Should Mozilla turn around and stop support for Windows 8.1 and 7 immediately?

nikm2 said

Also to answer your question to the IE9 response. Microsoft has stopped supporting IE11 for Windows 7, 8.1 and even 10. So what is your point. Should Mozilla turn around and stop support for Windows 8.1 and 7 immediately?

Let's take a more pragmatic position. Those 7/8 O/S will no longer get security updates and the Browser will not want to install on unsecured O/S that will lead to hacks. If you want to be a hacker's dreamware then by all means be so but once 7/8 O/S loose support it's not the fault of the Browser if they stop supporting outdate O/S. It's in Mozilla best interest to support the current O/S for security reasons and not just because you think so. You want to keep arguing about Win O/S go to a Win Forum and do that there - this isn't the place for that.

Well then with your response to my question you talk once the operating systems lose support which they have not and neither has Windows 2008 and until that time comes Mozilla is supporting every supported product by Microsoft except Windows 2008.

Very clearly something has gone wrong when a supported operating system is no longer supported.

EOL https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/lifecycle/search/1163

Please follow the Migration information included in the above URL

Firefox 53.0 and later Releases (including current 61.0.1 Release and 60.1.0 ESR) on Windows has required Windows 7, 8 (8.1), 10 to run.

ESR short for Extended Support Release was intended for Enterprise users in mind and not for regular users. The now legacy 52.0 ESR was not made for to support WinXP and Vista in mind but for Enterprise users.

It was a bonus that 52 ESR was a option for WinXP and Vista users to still have a updated browser option for a while longer and will be almost 2 1/2 years past when Chrome, Chromium, Opera dropped XP/Vista back in April 2016 despite Vista extended support was until April 11, 2017 and only supported Win 7, 8, 10 since.

If the Firefox ESR concept did not exist then Mozilla would have perhaps dropped WinXP/Vista as of Firefox 53.0 Released on April 19, 2017 which would have meant end of support for Windows Server 2008 R2 then also.

If Windows server 2008 R2 were to get supported for a while longer with back ports of security and stability fixes to the old legacy Firefox 52 ESR then the EOL WinXP and Vista users would be asking for to be supported also. This would then spread use of resources to doing so more. The old EOL WinXP that many people still clinging onto for various reasons was getting to be more difficult to support in last few years with QA and testing and fixing for.

One of the many complications in supporting WinXP.

from the tracking Bug#1130266 for Reading is comment #16

Jim Mathies [:jimm] on Sept 29, 2016 Supporting XP is actually become quite a problem for our releng teams in that data center testing hardware doesn't support XP anymore. So for example we currently use AWS for most of our testing, but have XP tests running on old hardware we have to maintain ourselves in a data center. It's issues like this that push us to move XP out to an extended support release where we can decommission most of our automated testing associated with it.

You are very confused about operating systems.

Windows 2008 with service pack 2 is supported by Microsoft until 2020 which is Vista based.

Windows 2008 R2 with Service pack 1 is supported by Microsoft until 2020 as well which is Windows 7 based.

So if Microsoft supports both operating systems Mozilla should too.

If Windows server 2008 R2 were to get supported for a while longer with back ports of security and stability fixes to the old legacy Firefox 52 ESR then the EOL WinXP and Vista users would be asking for to be supported also. This would then spread use of resources to doing so more. The old EOL WinXP that many people still clinging onto for various reasons was getting to be more difficult to support in last few years with QA and testing and fixing for.

Look under the section of

Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 2009-04-29 2015-01-13 2020-01-14

It shows you that Windows 2008 Service Pack 2

Life Start date: 2009-04-29

Mainstream Support End Date: 2015-01-13

Extended Support End Date: 2020-01-14

Pkshadow said

Please follow the Migration information included in the above URL

Regardless of whatever the version of 2008 server you have is based, no Windows servers OS's has been listed as supported from Firefox 53.0 and on.

https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/51.0/system-requirements/ https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/52.0/system-requirements/ https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/53.0/system-requirements/ https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/54.0/system-requirements/ https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/55.0/system-requirements/ https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/56.0/system-requirements/ https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/57.0/system-requirements/ https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/58.0/system-requirements/ https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/59.0/system-requirements/ https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/60.0/system-requirements/ https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/61.0/system-requirements/

The now legacy 52 ESR is almost EOL as of Sept 5th as only 62.0 and 60.2.0esr will be the current Releases then.

Firefox 52.8.0esr was actually going to be the last however the current ESR was changed from 59.0 to 60.0 so 52.9.0esr was for to have the usual overlap.

This has been the decision for a long time now as trying to argue for extending Firefox 52 ESR updates now is a bit late.

Not long ago we had somebody argue that support for 52 ESR should be extended simply because the POS and ATM's using WinXP were still getting some updates.