Mozilla will also discontinue support for the older operating systems Windows 9 and Windows Millennium when the Firefox 3.0 browser is officially launched next year.
This new move by Mozilla has surprised many in the industry as it was announced shortly after Microsoft decided not to release a patch for a serious security flaw in Windows 98 and Windows Me.
As a result, questions about why Mozilla made this decision quickly arose.
“Mozilla’s products are still functioning on many operating systems that have even fewer users than Windows 98 and Me, so why is Mozilla discontinuing support for these operating systems?” wrote a user named Hermann Schwab on the Bugzilla website. “If you want to stop support, don’t do it quietly; instead, conduct an investigation into the market share of these operating systems where Firefox is installed.”
Meanwhile, one of Mozilla’s developers, Gervase Markham, even suggested discontinuing support for Windows 98 and Me not next year but starting from the launch of Firefox 2.0 in August of this year.
“The key point here is that after July 11, 2006, Microsoft will not provide any security updates for the Windows 9x operating system line,” Markham stated. “I believe that continuing to support these operating systems in terms of the browser after the developer has stopped providing security support is irresponsible, as it could mislead users into thinking they are safe while browsing the web.”
However, users do not seem to agree with Markham’s perspective. If Firefox 2 is still operational and compatible with Windows 98, then convincing users with these reasons is impossible. You can’t tell them in a way like, ‘Hey, we’re not providing this software version for you, we don’t like your operating system, stay away from us.’
Hoang Dung
