Life After Firefox for Windows XP and Vista Users

Believe it or not Windows XP is more than 15 years old operating system. Microsoft has ended support for Windows XP and advised everyone to upgrade their computers to the latest operating systems. Running Windows XP at this point of time is very risky as it is very old, has many well known vulnerabilities and can easily fall prey to newer malware. Similar things can be said about Windows Vista which is almost 10 years old. It is no surprise that Mozilla is going to end Firefox browser support for Windows XP and Vista users. But here are a few other things that you can do if you want to keep using XP or Vista:

1. Use Last Compatible Version of Firefox – Although it could be a little risky, but users of XP and Vista perhaps cannot expect much security on those older operating systems. You can download the last compatible version of Firefox for XP or Vista from the Firefox FTP servers at https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/.
2. Switch to Firefox ESR – This is actually Mozilla’s plan that they will automatically switch all the XP and Vista users to the Firefox ESR (extended support release). The ESR versions are supported for a longer duration and are usually meant for organizations that do not want to frequently update the browsers to newer versions. You can download the Firefox ESR browser from https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all/.
3. Switch to Other Web Browsers – There are many other web browsers that might still support Windows XP or Vista. For example, UC Web browser works very well on Vista and K-Meleon works both in XP and Vista. But it is better to stick with the Firefox ESR as it is much more secure browser.

If you cannot afford or or do not want to upgrade your computer to a recent version of Windows, then you can start using Linux that can run on older computers. Lubuntu runs on older computers and can be used using a bootable CD or USB disk. You can also use LXLE Desktop Linux which is based on Ubuntu Linux and is specially designed for older computers. The benefit of using Linux is that you can use latest version of Firefox or other browsers through them.