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30 October 2008, 09:13

Firefox 2: End of supported life approaches

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In six weeks, support for Firefox 2 will end. Anyone still using Firefox 2 should soon think about upgrading to Firefox 3. Normally, an existing version reaches its end of life (EOL) six months after the introduction of its successor which would mean, for Firefox 2, mid-December. After that point there would be no more security updates to fix vulnerabilities. Mike Betzner of Mozilla says two-thirds of Firefox's users have already upgraded to Firefox 3.

There is some discussion amongst Mozilla's developers about a possible extension of the support period, and they are collecting feedback on the pros and cons of this possible move. Some developers believe that ending support for Firefox 2 would also end support for the Gecko layout engine 1.8. This could cause problems since it is also used in Thunderbird 2. Thunderbird 3 won't be released for a few months and that would could lead to a extended period of time where vulnerabilities in Thunderbird 2 could remain unpatched. The same problem could also be suffered by the SeaMonkey, Sunbird and Camino, which all currently use Gecko 1.8.

See also

(djwm)

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