Symbian smartphone: Mozilla To Stop Further Support For Firefox

Mozilla will be providing only two more security updates for Firefox 2.0 before it retires the popular web browser in December.

"We're starting to consult the development community for feedback," said Mike Beltzner, the director of Firefox, prior to setting a final 'end-of-life' date. If all goes according to plan, the last update for the older browser will be Firefox 2.0.0.19. The current build of Firefox 2.0 is 2.0.0.17, which was released last month to patch 14 vulnerabilities.

Mozilla's policy is to support a browser for six months after it's been superseded by a new version. The company unveiled Firefox 3.0 in mid-June; shortly after that, Mozilla announced that it would stop patching Firefox 2.0 later in the year.

Beltzner confirmed Wednesday that Firefox 2.0 remains on track for retirement by the end of December.

He also noted that a majority of Firefox 2.0 users have taken advantage of an upgrade offer to Firefox 3.0 that Mozilla triggered two months ago. "Presently two-thirds of our users are using Firefox 3, with more than 50 percent accepting the first major upgrade offer back in late August," said Beltzner in message posted early Wednesday to the Mozilla site.

Thunderbird, which is developed and maintained by Mozilla Messaging, a Mozilla spin-off, is considerably behind Firefox in its shift toward version 3.0, which is based on the Gecko 1.9 tree. Earlier this month, for example, Mozilla Messaging renamed what had originally been Beta 1 of Thunderbird 3.0 as, in fact, a third alpha. Previously, Mozilla Messaging had said the first release candidate for Thunderbird 3.0 would likely ship in late January, with a final some time after that.