No one has seen that development coming. After announcing the end of support for its Firefox web browser for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 starting in February 2026, Mozilla seems to have had a change of heart.
Now, the organization says that it is extending support once again. The information has been published on its What Train Is It Now website, which lists the latest and upcoming Firefox releases.
There, Mozilla writes:
We have decided to extend support to ESR 115 only on Windows 7-8.1 and macOS 10.12-10.14 up to August 2026. We will re-evaluate this decision in July 2026 and announce any updates on ESR 115’s end-of-life then.
Support for Firefox on Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and the macOS versions 10.12, 10.13, and 10.14, is guaranteed until at least August 2026. At least? Yes, as Mozilla may extend support again. In either way, the organization will make an announcement in July 2026 regarding the web browser’s support on the older operating systems.
Firefox 115.x users on these operating systems should receive browser updates, only security fixes and critical bug fixes, as usually via the integrated updating system.
The extension gives users on these old systems access to one of the major browsers, as the other major browser makers, including Google and Microsoft, have stopped supporting the older operating systems for a long time already.
Security updates are guaranteed for another six months at the very least. Good move by Mozilla.
Great news. I was about to consider alternate browsers that support Windows 7 (R3dfox, LibreWolf) and will postpone that heavy intellectual decision until at least July, likely August of this year as it seems. Good. Will allow brains to concentrate on Metaphysics of the after-life, not specifically related to Firefox 🙂
Firefox ESR 140.15 and Firefox 115.40
Make it happen Mozilla.
Anyway, I am already using Redfox (based on Firefox) and Supermium (based on Chromium) on a Windows 7 installation.
…and NO esr channel versions forecast for October 2026 and beyond..
I get the impression that Mozilla will be supporting v115.x for quite some time to come. I’m basing my opinion on the “What’s New” page where developer options have been added which weren’t present before this latest release. It seems pointless just to add those options for a few months and then drop them.
Also, there’s a significant number of security updates this time around which makes it look like hackers went to town on 115.x assuming that there wouldn’t be anymore updates. So that might have caused some concern over at Mozilla even though they wouldn’t be responsible for this version if users’ systems were compromised.
Still, it’s welcome news in any event.
Congratulations!
No good to me anymore and as much as detest it, I’ve switched to using Windows 11 Pro now. The main reason for doing so was the sudden lack of privacy caused by the stand-alone Wireguard app ceasing to support Window 7/8 and 8.1
But to my absolute horror I discovered that Firefox 149.2 no longer allows pinning extensions to the toolbar. Instead, users are forced to use the Javascript dropdown and search for the desired app that way. That’s tantamount to adopting Microsoft’s way of running the show i.e. force users to do everything the hard way and then sit back and watch them suffer.
Fortunately though, I discovered an excellent alternative browser called Floorp which allows you to pin whatever you wish to the toolbar. Link in case you want to have a look at it yourself: https://floorp.app/en/download/
It takes a bit of delving into since it’s very bloated, but once you’ve got it all set up to your liking, it runs like a house on fire!
@ Martin,
How come I can comment on this thread, but none of the others?
Hardly conducive to supporting you financially is it?
By the way, may I respectfully suggest that you create an addition page for your site where financial contributors are recognised such as on https://www.voidtools.com/donate/ for example.
Can you describe what is happening (or not) on pages that you can’t comment on?