On August 2, 2016, Firefox 48.0 was released. It is scheduled to be replaced by Firefox 49.0 on September 13, 2016. At that point, Mac users using OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, 10.7 Lion, and 10.8 Mountain Lion will be left behind by the current versions of Firefox. It will be a sad day, as Firefox is the last major browser to support Mac OS X 10.6 through 10.8.
But it’s not all bad news. Firefox has given us Mac support longer than Google’s Chrome browser, which left us behind in April 2016. And in comparison to Apple’s Safari browser, Chrome and Firefox have been downright generous. Safari 5.1.10 was the last version for OS X 10.6, and that arrived on September 12, 2013. Safari 6.1.6, the final revision for OS X 10.7, was unleashed on August 13, 2014, and 6.2.8, the last version for OS X 10.8, a year later on August 13, 2015.
Chrome gave Snow Leopard users 2-1/2 years more support than Apple did, Lion users 20 months more, and Mountain Lion 8 months. When Firefox 49.0 arrives, Snow Leopard users will have had 3 years more support by Firefox than Safari gave them. Lion users, 25 months, and Mountain Lion holdouts, 13 months.
Outdated Does Not Mean Obsolete
About Firefox for Mac Mozilla Firefox is a graphical web browser developed by the Mozilla Corporation and a large community of external contributors. Firefox started as a fork of the Navigator browser component of the Mozilla Application Suite. Mac OS X 10.1 (Firefox 1.0.8), OS X 10.2 and OS X 10.3 (Firefox 2.0.0.20), Mac OS X 10.4 (Firefox 3.X), Mac OS X 10.5 or above (Current Version).
Fear mongers will insist on running the latest version of browser on a fully up-to-date operating system with the belief that anything else puts you at risk. The truth is, there are unknown risks in the latest software. You can never be 100% secure.
However, you can be very productive with older operating systems, applications, and browsers. Just because some new piece of software requires a newer OS version is no reason to upgrade – unless it gives you a feature you really need to have. I have been happily working with OS X 10.6 on my 2007 Mac mini for years. I use Safari, Chrome, and Firefox daily on it, and only one of them is current – and not for much longer.
Then again, OS X Snow Leopard itself is far from current, yet it allows me to run lots of software and be very productive. I don’t find it limiting at all to use outdated software with an outdated operating system on a discontinued computer that will never run OS X 10.8 or newer. It’s good enough for what I need it to do.
Honestly, that’s the whole point of Low End Mac. You can be productive even if you can’t run the latest Mac OS and browser. After all, there was a time when they had nothing newer to use, and they were productive then.
The Real World
Security experts will count out hundreds or thousands of security issues with whatever you’re doing on your computer, and none of it matters until someone targets that issue in a way that reaches your machine. That’s the real world. Theoretical security problems are not real until they become exploits, and even then the problem might never reach your system if you’re not downloading apps from unreliable sources.
Further Reading
- Mozilla Will Retire Firefox Support for OS X 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8 in August 2016, VentureBeat, 2016.04.29
- Google Chrome Leaving OS X 10.6 through 10.8 Behind in April, Low End Mac, 2016.03.05
- Apple Signals End to OS X Snow Leopard Support, Computerworld, 2013.12.07
Keywords: #firefox #osxsnowleopard #osxlion #osxmountainlion
Short link: http://goo.gl/bhnbpU
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Status
OS X 10.7 support | |
Stage | Development |
Status | In progress |
Release target | Firefox 16 |
Health | OK |
Status note | Master feature page for Mac 10.7 support. See https://etherpad.mozilla.org/Lion-Bugs |
Team
Product manager | Asa Dotzler |
Directly Responsible Individual | Alex Limi |
Lead engineer | ` |
Security lead | ` |
Privacy lead | ` |
Localization lead | ` |
Accessibility lead | ` |
QA lead | Vlad Ghetiu |
UX lead | Alex Limi |
Product marketing lead | ` |
Operations lead | ` |
Additional members | ` |
Open issues/risks
- https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=639707 '[10.7] add resume support for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion'
- https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=714147 'Support Lion User Interface Preservation'
- https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=654350 '[10.7] Add Cmd+Opt+Q for 'Quit and Discard Windows'
Stage 1: Definition
1. Feature overview
We should get our platform updated so it supports the new features of Mac OS X, and feels native to the OS. We want to support things like full-screen mode, the new scroll bars, etc.
This feature falls primarily in the Experience category (from the 'Discover, Experience, and Connect' vision statement.)
2. Users & use cases
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3. Dependencies
- https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=678392 [10.7] Add support for swipe animation as in Safari
- https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=674373 [10.7] Support HiDPI mode on OS X Lion
4. Requirements
Currently identified features that should probably be broken into separate feature pages:
- Full-screen mode button in the main window [DONE]
- The new conditional/disappearing scroll bars [IN PROGRESS]
- Gestures need to be re-mapped (Lion 'steals' some of our existing ones)
- Resume support (possibly in place of session restore?) [NOT STARTED] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=639707 '[10.7] add resume support for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion'
- Double tap zoom support (smart zoom) — I assume Fennec has something like this already
- Animate opening window [DONE]
- Better scrolling acceleration model, rubber 'bounce' at the end
- Possibly look into sandboxing (security) for content process, decoding video, etc: http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars/9 — Electrolysis might already be handling this?
- HiDPI support (doubling of the icons and interface) [NOT STARTED] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=674373 ('[10.7] Support HiDPI mode on OS X Lion'
- Search tokens (for search engines and keywords)
- Ability to keep parts of the application in memory even when user shuts it down
Firefox For Mac Os 10.6.8
We should also evaluate whether availability in the Mac App Store is important for adoption, if Apple ends up making that the default way to get software on the Mac. Note that there is already a feature page tracking the Mac App store integration.
Also see the Chromium issue about full screen mode to see some of the reasons why we can't just hook up our existing fullscreen implementation to the new button: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=74065&q=os%3DMac&sort=-modified&colspec=ID%20Stars%20Pri%20Area%20Feature%20Type%20Status%20Summary%20Modified%20Owner%20Mstone%20OS
Non-goals
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Stage 2: Design
5. Functional specification
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Firefox For Mac 10.7.5
6. User experience design
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Stage 3: Planning
7. Implementation plan
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8. Reviews
Security review
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Privacy review
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Localization review
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Accessibility
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Quality Assurance review
Current bugs with [10.7] whiteboard entry: 10.7 bugs on file
Firefox For Mac 10.7
Operations review
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Stage 4: Development
9. Implementation
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Stage 5: Release
Firefox For Mac 10.7 32
10. Landing criteria
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Feature details
Priority | P2 |
Rank | 999 |
Theme / Goal | Experience |
Roadmap | Firefox Desktop |
Secondary roadmap | ` |
Feature list | Desktop |
Project | ` |
Engineering team | Platform Integration |
Team status notes
status | notes | |
Products | ` | ` |
Engineering | ` | ` |
Security | sec-review-unnecessary | triaged on 2012.05.02 |
Privacy | ` | ` |
Localization | ` | ` |
Accessibility | ` | ` |
Quality assurance | ` | ` |
User experience | ` | ` |
Product marketing | ` | ` |
Operations | ` | ` |
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