Microsoft ended security updates and technical support for Windows 7 on January 14, 2020, but the operating system still lingers with support in some apps, like Firefox. In 2024, Mozilla announced its plans to extend Firefox support on unsupported operating systems, including Windows 7, through its ESR (Extended Support Release) program.
The company argued that "enough" Firefox users are still running unsupported operating systems, including Windows 7, prompting it to extend support for the browser on old PCs.
Mozilla will provide security updates for Firefox 115 ESR until the end of August 2026. It was previously announced that support would end in February 2026, but in order to ensure our users can continue to browse the web, we will extend support another six months and re-evaluate. After that, if support is not extended, users should upgrade their operating system to continue receiving Firefox security and feature updates.
Mozilla
While Mozilla was expected to drop support for Firefox on Windows 7 in February, the company has now postponed the end of support for Firefox 115 ESR to August 2026 (via Neowin).
This means that Windows 7 will continue receiving security updates for Firefox 115 ESR for an additional 6 months.
💬 Is upgrading to Windows 11 or switching to Linux becoming inevitable for Firefox users?
Technically, Mozilla has extended support for Firefox on Windows 7 for 24 months, and I suspect that we could see the company extend support even more. However, the company admitted that it's not an easy feat:
"Continuing to support it past October isn't going to be free (backporting security fixes is already getting increasingly painful due to the divergence which naturally happens over time as an ESR goes further into its lifecycle), but there's still enough users there that we felt it was worth doing for now at least."
In the long-run, it seems inevitable for users to upgrade to supported operating systems like Windows 10 or Windows 11 to continue using Firefox."Unsupported operating systems receive no security updates and have known vulnerabilities," Mozilla added. "Without official support from Microsoft, maintaining Firefox for outdated operating systems becomes costly for Mozilla and risky for users."
However, if your PC isn't able to upgrade to Windows 11 due to Microsoft's stringent hardware requirements, Mozilla recommends switching to Linux. Interestingly, this could play out in their favor since "the vast majority of Linux distributions come with Firefox as the default browser."
Do you think Firefox should continue supporting outdated operating systems like Windows 7, 8, and 8.1? Share your thoughts with me in the comments.
Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.
