Here Comes The End Of Firefox 3.5 Era!
Mozilla Firefox 3.5 version was released on June 2009 which complete 2 years now. Firefox 3.5 came up with variety of new features which was twice as fast as Firefox 3.0 due to the introduction of TraceMonkey JavaScript engine and rendering improvements.
But the current version Firefox 4.0 which came out with lots and lots of features and better UI tweak. We had even informed you that Mozilla will soon stop shipping Firefox 3.6. Well this move was mainly to make room for Firefox 4.0
Unplugging Firefox 3.5
Well finally Mozilla started to unplug the older versions of its browser. Mozilla has planned to disconnect updates for Firefox 3.5 in one month from now and planning to push them towards either 3.6 or 4.0 release.
Mozilla has been frustrated with their efforts to move users off of old releases and are worried too many people do not upgrade and are on vulnerable and unsupported versions of Firefox.
Currently Firefox 3.5 is having 12 million active users and Mozilla wants to put EOL flag as quickly as possible.
Firefox 3.5 → 3.6 is the “perfect storm”
Well after hearing to this news most of us would have thought Mozilla will try to push their Firefox 3.5 users towards 4.0. This is quite obvious because Firefox 4.0 provides a secure browsing and is very less vulnerable.
But Mozilla thinks it will be better to force their users to update to Firefox 3.6 due to couple of reasons.
- More than 95% of add-ons which are compatible for Firefox 3.5 works fine with 3.6 version
- Virtually no UI changes and the changes are mainly additive
How do they communicate?
Mozilla has found some interesting ways of communicating this news to their users.
- What’s new / first run pages
Shown when a user downloads a build from FTP and runs it for the first time (first run) or when a user updates a current 3.5 build (what’s new). What’s new is only really an option when a new 3.5 update is released.
- Google homepage snippets
Small text/images shown at the bottom of the customized Google start/home page. Only has an impact for users who have the default homepage.
- Advertised update
A popup with a message about the update and the ability to easily opt-in and install. Only an option when a non-3.5 update is available.
- Blog / Press
Making noise through various PR channels. Likely won’t have a material impact.
- Websites
If users browse to Mozilla web properties (MDN, mozilla.com, AMO) some random way we can show some sort of message.
Conclusion
Mozilla is planning to release the last and small update for Firefox 3.5 on June 21. This news will be circulated via article and tweet to raise awareness as soon as possible.
Finally, how many of you are happy about this move by Mozilla? Is this a wise decision took by Mozilla to make room for future releases? Please share your thoughts 🙂
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