"End-of-life for Firefox 1.5"

Posted by ken on Sun, 04/22/2007 - 20:40Firefox Press

Unless my information is incorrect, “Firefox 1.5.0.x will be maintained with security and stability updates until April 24, 2007”.
There’s still a surprisingly large amount of Firefox 1.5 users out there. Perhaps they have their reasons for not updating Firefox, but it highly suggested that users upgrade to 2.0.

I have people who come to me who are using IE5 which is fine with me because when their PC craps out on them, I get to install Firefox, that’s my running deal, but I’d hate to see Fx users having problems especially since those who wish to target us and our computers have increased their technology to do so.

Pass the word about this, post it on your blogs and web sites so that our fellow Firefox users don’t fall too far behind and make themselves vulnerable to attacks.

digg it


Ken


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EOLs and upgrading
Submitted by Andrew T. on Tue, 04/24/2007 - 02:34.

I think it's reasonable for the development lives of Firefox 1.5 and 2 to overlap by half a year.

It's fine to promote upgrading to the newest version.  Some people might have legitimate reasons to stick with an earlier version (Firefox 2 craps out on Windows 95 & NT 3.51, for example), but even then it's hardly the end of the world:  An unupdated, three-year-old version of Firefox would still be safer and render better than an unupdated, three-year-old IE installation any day.

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Promote on websites
Submitted by Kelson on Mon, 04/23/2007 - 18:25.

If you run a website or blog, and access to scripting, try serving up a banner to users who are  running older versions of Firefox.  Feel free to adapt this JavaScript code.  Or use something simpler, like this:

<script type="text/javascript"><!--
/* Show upgrade link for old Firefox visitors only */
if ((0 <= navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Firefox/0')
    || 0 <= navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Firefox/1'))
    && navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Flock') == -1) {
    document.write('INSERT SFX BANNER HERE');
} // -->

Replace "INSERT SFX BANNER HERE" with the code for one of the "upgrade now!" buttons.

Or if you can run PHP, Perl, etc., that's an option as well.

--

Can Firefox users and Opera fans agree on anything?
The Alternative Browser Alliance

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Button
Submitted by Ken Saunders on Mon, 04/23/2007 - 19:45.

Thanks for sharing that, that's really cool.
The thing is, I don't have a button that says "INSERT SFX BANNER HERE". :)


Ken

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Upgrade, upgrade, upgrade!
Submitted by JustZisGuy on Mon, 04/23/2007 - 14:26.

With how Firefox likes to churn out new versions I think we will be using Firefox 8.0 about the same time Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 8! :)

Just keep in mind that while home users will be screaming "New version! New Version! Yay! I must have the latest and greatest!", such short life cycles can turn off corporate users. It can sometime take a year or more to get a product certified against a particular environment.

Also there are likely many locked down public machines out there running these older versions of Firefox. Heck, I know of one set of public terminals that are still running the old Mozilla Suite 1.2! (they are running on Solaris so nobody even knows how to upgrade them!)


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Maybe it's for the best
Submitted by ALIENDUDE5300 on Mon, 04/23/2007 - 05:11.

Ending support will save resources for developing firefox 2 and it will also encourage users to update.

Visit My New Website based on Spreading Firefox

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Need to get the word out
Submitted by on Sun, 04/22/2007 - 22:52.

Yes, this is true.  We moved to a very short lifecycle model that is very much consumer-oriented around the release of Firefox 1.5. You can see the details here: http://wiki.mozilla.org/ReleaseRoadmap

This was also when we started the idea of security and stability updates every 6 to 8 weeks.

There are some plans to get a press release out within the next couple of weeks to raise the visibility of this policy. We did this last year as well around 1.0.x.  We've also been advertising this in the release notes for each dot release and within the Start Page snippets.

A major upgrade offer will be made through the Automated Update System (AUS) shortly as well.

Presently about 40% of Firefox users are on 1.5.0.x

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Alot of people are still
Submitted by ThreeDee912 on Thu, 04/26/2007 - 00:26.

Alot of people are still using Firefox 1.5, as many people just wait for the auto-update, which doesn't say anything about the newer  2.0. My website's traffic is at about ~15% for Firefox 1.5.0.x users.

ThreeDee912 aka. Big Pixel Software

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wow that was fast...
Submitted by Up North on Mon, 04/23/2007 - 08:35.

So we need to set up a large campaign. This may take some time... I do feel that "laziness" and not being informed about a new update (IE updated not frequently and always automatically (at least 6 --> 7), that users may not know when and how to update (in stead of upgrade).

The mainstream users do not seem to be very informed about this process, and do not check Mozilla website all the time. So to notify 1.5 users once that 1.5 is outdated is a smart move.

How about those (poor) 1.0 users?

 We can start a campaign here with some banners, youtube vids, and we surely need an official myspace page (even if that means copying Opera in this, we place a joke in the site about it to reduce flaming) to announce it. My space friends of Firefox will see it through announcements in their inbox.

Slogans please?

- We care about you, so please update your Firefox. Mozilla, improving the web...

- Mozilla Firefox cares about you. Please update your version. Mozilla, improving lives...

- Mozilla, just making things easier...

- and so on...

Alright: go

marco


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Can't believe it
Submitted by ottodv on Sun, 04/22/2007 - 22:14.

I just can't believe this to be true.

But I checked on: http://www.mozilla.org/news.html and it does indeed say:

"Note: Firefox 1.5.0.x will be maintained with security and stability
updates until April 24, 2007. All users are encouraged to upgrade to
Firefox 2."

Just seems a little early to me. 

Otto

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