Mozilla plans to drop support for Android versions older than Android 8. Android 8 was released in 2017, which means that the move will affect users who use Firefox on mobile phones that are nearly a decade old or older.
Current mobile versions of Firefox require at least Android 5.0, which was released in 2014.
Mozilla announced the intention to raise the system requirements for Firefox on Android on the organization’s bug tracking website. And the organization has good reasons for wanting to drop support.
It allows Mozilla to “implement newer technologies” and prevents engineers from “being burdened by fixing bugs that only emerge on a small population of people using old devices”.
Also worth noting is that libraries that Mozilla is using are dropping support for Android 5, which causes additional problems for Mozilla.
With Android 15 (API 35) official release last Oct 15, 2024 (for Pixel devices), we should be considering bumping up the min Android OS version of the Firefox Mobile Browser up to Android 8 (API 26). Doing so allows us to implement newer technologies, and prevents us from being burdened by fixing bugs that only emerge on a small population of people using old devices. By bumping the min Android OS version, users on those devices will no longer receive app updates.
Additionally, we are increasingly finding that libraries we use are dropping support for obsolete versions like Android 5. This causes us big problems for ongoing maintenance of our apps.
Mozilla is not the only browser maker that bumped Android version requirements recently. Google dropped support for Android 7 and 8 recently with the launch of Chrome 139 for Android. Most Chromium-based browsers for Android are likely affected by the change going forward.
So, if you are still using an Android device that is no longer supported, and has not been for a few years at least, you may find yourself without a supported browser as well.
Will there be browsers that continue to support Android 8 or earlier? That remains to be seen. For now, both Vivaldi and Opera support Android 8, as will Firefox going forward.
As of January 2025 Android below Verison 8.0 was approximately 4%. Version 8 / 8.1 was 3.5%, 9.0 was 6.3%, an 10 was 10%. So it seems that this removal of support is not a real big issue.
The main problem with this for me is if the the currently working Android or apps stop working. I run a daycare and have 25 older tablets (all them same manufacturer and Android vesion 7.0) setup in ” Kid Mode” with educational apps and games on them.
Firefox will continue to work just fine for your 25 older tablets that are on Android 7.0, however some websites eventually may not run properly and loose security benefits but that is not going to happen immediately. You might be getting a notification that your version is not supported (Chrome does it for unsupported versions but unsure about firefox)