steven36 Posted September 6, 2018 Share Posted September 6, 2018 Effective this week, Windows XP is no longer supported by Firefox. More than four years after Microsoft stopped supporting the platform, Mozilla is making a similar move. Last year, the organization said support for Windows XP was expected to be dropped by June 2018, but the browser developer took a few more months to make that happen. On Wednesday, Mozilla announced the release of Firefox 62 and also revealed that it updated Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release) to version 60.2. With these releases, Mozilla cut support for Firefox ESR 52, which was the last version of Firefox with Windows XP support. “At the end of February 2016, XP users made up 12% of release Firefox. By the end of February 2017, XP users made up 8% of release Firefox. If this trend continued without much change after we switched XP users to ESR, XP Firefox users would presently amount to about 2% of release users,” Mozilla says. While Firefox ESR 52 continues to be available for download, it no longer receives security patches, meaning that any vulnerability found in the browser will remain unpatched. With Chrome no longer supporting the platform since version 49 and Internet Explorer 8, the browser most used as standard on the platform, getting no security updates for more than two years, Windows XP users are left with no major browser than could keep them safe from exploits while navigating the Internet. Although still widely used in organizations, Windows XP is currently a nearly-17-year-old operating system that hasn’t received security patches for over four years (although Microsoft did release emergency fixes last year, to address Shadow Brokers-related bugs exploited in the global WannaCry outbreak). “It required effort, and it required devoting resources to supporting XP well after Microsoft stopped doing so. It meant we couldn’t do other things, since we were busy with XP,” Mozilla says. Users impacted by the recent change in Firefox are advised to upgrade to a newer operating system to continue receiving patches not only for Mozilla’s applications, but also for other software their computers depend on. In addition to dropping support for XP, Firefox now includes a preference that allows users to distrust certificates issued by Symantec (by setting "security.pki.distrust_ca_policy" to 2 in about:config). This is yet another step towards removing all trust for Symantec-issued certificates in Firefox 63. Firefox 62, Mozilla notes in an advisory, also addresses several vulnerabilities: 1 Critical severity, 3 High risk, 2 Medium severity, and 3 Low risk. Affecting Firefox 61 and Firefox ESR 60.1, the most important of these could potentially be exploited to run arbitrary code. Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brain_death Posted September 6, 2018 Share Posted September 6, 2018 If you have a pressing need/desire to keep running XP and want a browser to go with it, K-Meleon is one of the more interesting offerings I've found: http://kmeleonbrowser.org/ YMMV! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted September 6, 2018 Author Share Posted September 6, 2018 54 minutes ago, brain_death said: If you have a pressing need/desire to keep running XP and want a browser to go with it, K-Meleon is one of the more interesting offerings I've found: http://kmeleonbrowser.org/ YMMV! The last update it got was 2017 ? Did you try https://otter-browser.org/ (Pre) RC 12 release (01.09.2018) ZIP package for Windows XP or later, 32 bit (67.1 MiB); It's like the old Opera 12 with updates and built in adblocker and you can change your user agent as well to Chrome windows 10 , so you can bank with it . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brain_death Posted September 6, 2018 Share Posted September 6, 2018 33 minutes ago, steven36 said: The last update it got was 2017 ? Did you try https://otter-browser.org/ I did try Otter a long time ago, but thanks for the reminder. I wonder why nobody is talking about this browser now, especially with what you say about online banking... The situation with K-Meleon is a little confusing, with the last 'official' release back in 2015. However, development is actually continuing apace, with four development releases during August 2018 and the last on August 25. https://o.rthost.cf/kmeleon/ Weekly releases are the aim and often a reality. These are all fully portable, so download one and try it, there is nothing to lose. Keep an eye on the K-Meleon forum too. It is very active, especially now... http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/list.php?19 K-Meleon just seems to have something 'new' about it - rather than old versions of Firefox, Chrome and Opera (RIP, lol)... ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted September 6, 2018 Author Share Posted September 6, 2018 4 minutes ago, brain_death said: I did try Otter a long time ago, but thanks for the reminder. I wonder why nobody is talking about this browser now, especially with what you say about online banking.. I did try it before but now it working much better for me , the updates they do now will be not so much for new features but on stability ..They have a support forum as well . https://thedndsanctuary.eu/index.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brain_death Posted September 6, 2018 Share Posted September 6, 2018 Yeah, good effort. The graphics are much improved, but the developers should invest in a cheap 4K monitor. Yikes... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luisam Posted September 8, 2018 Share Posted September 8, 2018 I'm testing Maxthon 5 as alternative to Firefox. I've been using it for a few days but somehow I'm not convinced. Not using XP is not an option for some hardware reasons. I use normally windows 7 and actually have it on multiboot option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brain_death Posted September 9, 2018 Share Posted September 9, 2018 7 hours ago, luisam said: I'm testing Maxthon 5 as alternative to Firefox. I've been using it for a few days but somehow I'm not convinced. Not using XP is not an option for some hardware reasons. I use normally windows 7 and actually have it on multiboot option. Yeah, Maxthon have had a few security issues too, although probably no worse than MicroSoft and Windows 10... According to Wikipedia: Quote In 2016, computer security researchers from Fidelis Cybersecurity and Exatel discovered the browser surreptitiously sending sensitive browsing and system data, such as ad blocker status, websites visited, searches conducted, and applications installed with their version numbers, to remote servers located in Beijing, China. According to Maxthon, the data is sent as part of the firm's 'User Experience Improvement Program' and it is "voluntary and totally anonymous." However, researchers found the data still being collected and sent to remote servers even after users explicitly opt out of the program. The researchers further found the data being sent over an unencrypted connection (HTTP), leaving users vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks. Also, while at one stage very useful, Maxthon's choice of rendering engines might be considered a little anachronistic. Microsoft left Trident behind with Internet Explorer 11 and Google forked the WebCore component of Webkit, to become Blink from Chrome 28. Sure, Apple still uses Webkit, but IMO most people only use the Safari browser because they have to, or don't know any better. Still, Dolphin for mobiles uses WebKit too, so I guess Trident support is the real bugbear... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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