It is not often you find more than one Windows XP stories a day, but with the retirement date fast approaching, this is what we have. Firefox has also confirmed that it plans to support Firefox on Windows XP after Microsoft ends support for the OS.
Also, because very recently, Google made a similar announcement that it would continue supporting Chrome on the aging operating system.
These are necessary, but controversial moves, mind you — as they can lure end users into believing that their browsers may be up to date with the latest updates, while in reality the underlying operating would system surely be open to hackers and cybercriminals.
In any case, Mozilla has made its position clear in a statement from Jonathan Nightingale, the VP of Firefox at the company saying:
“We have no plans to discontinue support for our XP users.”
What this means is that Windows XP users that will not have upgraded to a newer version of the operating system (or the ones that still will be planning a move at that time) will be able to choose between two browser options — Chrome and Firefox.
Microsoft will, obviously, stop supporting Internet Explorer on Windows XP come April 8, 2014.
But Mozilla’s decision is as understandable as it is obvious. The browser market is insanely competitive, and with potentially millions of users that may still be on the old operating system come retirement, the browser companies will want to attract anyone and everyone they can.
All Comments
Xp is legendary it was greatsest os ever…
Let look deeper, what do they really mean by continued support? That they’ll let their same old browsers continue to run on XP? This talk is cheap, lets see what they really do. I hope you will inform us when either google or mozzilla provides major browser updates that are specific to XP.