Mozilla, a free-software community created by the members of Netscape, has announced that it will continue to support Firefox for previous Windows operating systems - XP, and Vista - until September 2017. Breathing life to old PCs and laptops, Windows XP and Vista users will be moved to the Firefox Extended Support Release.
The Firefox Extended Support Release (or the Firefox ESR) is a community-led project intended for groups in large organizations such as schools, universities, businesses, country and/or city governments. It allows them to benefit from the speed, flexibility, and security of Firefox while getting the support they need.
Microsoft ended its support for Windows XP back in April 2014 and will cease supporting Vista in April 2017.
On the other hand, Mozilla will continue to provide Firefox security patches for Windows XP and Vista users for at least nine months. Firefox can still be used after the end of the support, but will not be able to get any more updates based on the mentioned operating systems. Google dropped its support for the Chrome web browser on XP and Vista in mid-2016, however, Mozilla will continue to stick with these operating systems.
The organization has announced its plans of making the latest major update to the browser, which is the Firefox 52 that will support Windows XP and Vista. This version of Firefox will be released early in March 2017. Mozilla apparently favors the Windows operating systems as it has already dropped its Firefox support for the OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, OS X 10.7 Lion, and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.