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Firefox 3.6 End of Lifed, Extended Support Release (ESR) of Firefox and Thunderbird Portable 10.0.4 Released

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Submitted by John T. Haller on April 26, 2012 - 2:02am

For those who don't know, the 2+ year old Firefox 3.6.x release is officially discontinued and unsupported. It will receive no more security updates or bug fixes. All users on 3.6 should upgrade to the current Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition 12.0 immediately to ensure they are running a secure and stable browser going forward.

The ESR (Extended Support Release) version of Firefox and Thunderbird are intended for large companies so they can peg web applications and internally test things on a consistent browser with a specific rendering engine and feature set. It still gets regular bug fixes. In fact, it's on exactly the same update schedule as mainline Firefox, with a new version scheduled every 6 weeks. The difference is the ESR version gets bug fixes only. Mainline Firefox, currently at 12.0, gets new features and functionality as well. Of course, unscheduled updates can happen in between that 6 week schedule if a critical issue arises and that will likely mean an additional update for both of them.

I thought this warranted a blog post as most users will be unfamiliar with the ESR releases and may be confused seeing a new release with an old version number. And because many users were under the mistaken impression that the ESR channel would mean it was updated less often. It is, however, a great way to test out your website, web application or extension with the ESR version of Firefox that corporations will be using.

So, for the stragglers still clinging to 3.6, the time to update is at hand.

Comments

John T. Haller's picture

John T. Haller

April 26, 2012 - 2:53am

14 security issues were patched in the 12.0 release of Firefox this week. 11 of those also existed and were patched in the 10.0.x ESR branch as well. I'm wondering how many of them exist in Firefox 3.6.28 right now and will never be patched.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Thanks for PortableApps' support for Firefox 3.6 all this while. I finally had to update mine to Firefox 12.

Also had to make its interface as close to 3.6 as possible. That includes installing the Status Bar plugin and live with a missing New Tab button (I can choose either the Navigation Toolbar OR the tabs and not both). And yes, I'm aware of double clicking the empty spaces at the tabs to open a new one. Old habits die hard.

GlennAllen

April 28, 2012 - 3:59pm

I don't understand why you'd be missing the New Tab button... disable Tabs on Top and enable the Menu Bar to make it look just like 3.6; and now that many/most(/all?)) add-ons have "adapted", the Add-on Bar functions about the same as the old Status Bar.

I used to be able to open a new tab by either the button at the Navigation Toolbar or the Tabs (there is a New Tab button at the right of my tabs). Right now, I can only choose either one.

I usually use the Navigation Toolbar's Open New Tab when I use my bookmarks. I use the one next to the tabs when I were to type a URL not in the bookmarks. As I said, old habit. Gotta live with the new interface.

Ok, figured out how to fix this. Manually added "new-tab-button" into the localstore.rdf file.

So it looks something like this now :

  <RDF:Description RDF:about="chrome://browser/content/browser.xul#nav-bar"
                   mode="full"
                   collapsed="false"
                   currentset="unified-back-forward-button,stop-button,reload-button,new-tab-button,urlbar-container,search-container,bookmarks-menu-button-container,fullscreenflex,window-controls" />

And a screenshot: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/822/firefoxpd.png

... with security authentication enabled on my E4200 wireless router, the only browser that will let me log onto it is FF 3-6.
Any other versions or browsers get session rejected.
Guess i'm one of the few who wont be going to FF 12, unless anyone knows the work around/fix

Pokémaniac

April 26, 2012 - 9:42am

Have you tried switching your user agent? If you switch your user agent to that of Firefox 3.6, it might let you in.

John T. Haller's picture

John T. Haller

April 26, 2012 - 10:22am

Reading online, people are using it with Firefox post 3.6. Something up with yours? Updated to the latest firmware? If it really only works with FF 3.6, then it should be nominated for crappiest router ever and be thrown away.

Seriously, though, update the firmware and try other browsers (like IE since you have it anyway). If all else fails, keep a backup copy of Firefox Portable 3.6 and use it ONLY to adjust router settings. But don't use it as your general browser to browse the web as it is insecure and you will get malware (it isn't an if, it's a when now).

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!