Solved Updates

[Vistaar]

With Mozilla ending support for Firefox ESR v52.x on 05-Sep-2018 that also means that there won't be a safe and fully supported Vista-compatible browser to use on the internet in a month or so...

Where did that information come from? I'm guessing No further security updates for Windows Vista will be provided after August 2018 - does it end August 1 or August 31? | Firefox Support Forum | Mozilla Support, which doesn't look very authoritative to me. In light of Mozilla's official announcement, I would assume that 52.9.0 was the final update, i.e. that Vista and XP have been unsupported since June.

The moral of this thread is that the very first thing to do after a factory restore is run system file checker. If corrupt files are found that scannow is unable to fix, then a clean install is called for. In a situation such as mich is currently in, the Tip in the tutorial mentioned in post #45 might prove useful. If the only problem with IE9 was "cannot display the webpage," the chosen homepage probably requires a higher TLS version than mich's IE9 presently supports.

 

[lmacri]

Where did that information come from?...In light of Mozilla's official announcement, I would assume that 52.9.0 was the final update, i.e. that Vista and XP have been unsupported since June.

Hi Vistaar:

From the Mozilla Firefox support article Important - Firefox is Ending Support for Windows XP and Vista :

"Firefox version 52.9.0esr was the last scheduled release for Windows XP and Windows Vista. No further security updates will be provided after August 2018."

FF ESR v52.9.0 (released 06-Jun-2018) was the last scheduled release for FF ESR v52.x listed at Firefox Release Calendar - MozillaWiki. However, if a critical security vulnerability in FF ESR v52.9.0 is discovered before FF ESR v60.2 is released on 05-Sep-2018 (e.g., new zero-day malware is released into the wild before the end of August 2018 that can actively exploit FF ESR v52.9.0) then Mozilla will release a minor "point" update FF ESR v52.9.1 - see Daniel Veditz's comment <here> on Mozilla's Bugzilla site that FF ESR v52.x is "still supported until ESR 60.2 is released (September)".
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32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox ESR v52.9.0 * Norton Security v22.14.2.13 * MS Office 2003 Professional * 32-bit VLC Media Player v3.0.3* Speccy Portable v1.32.740

 

[Vistaar]

Well we are in full agreement that Firefox users running Windows Vista need an alternative plan, and perhaps I should let this matter rest; but this ambiguity regarding Mozilla's intentions is somewhat troubling. Daniel Verditz's comment goes on to say that "there's always a small chance of a point release if there's some kind of a zero-day in that period." It would seem to follow that there's always a bigger chance that 52.9.0 (released June 26) was in fact the final update. One month from now, should Firefox users running Vista say to themselves, "There must not have been any urgent need for a security update - otherwise our friends at Mozilla would have given us one - so perhaps we can safely procrastinate for another couple of months"? What if I were to assert that there's always a small chance that Opera 36 will receive another security update? Unlike Mozilla, Opera never announced any "final end of life date" AFAIK. I could write a lengthy diatribe on how disingenuous Opera was in the pursuit of market share back in 2016 (often at Mozilla's expense), but hopefully these facts speak for themselves: Today is the second anniversary of Opera 36.0.2130.80 (the blog post is dated Aug 11, 2016, but the installer was created on Aug 9), and there is no more recent version that works on Vista or XP. And yet not much more than two months ago, a Vista user at another online community confidently asserted that "Opera supports Vista." The point is that illusory support might be more dangerous than an unambiguous end of support.

 

[lmacri]

... Daniel Verditz's comment goes on to say that "there's always a small chance of a point release if there's some kind of a zero-day in that period." It would seem to follow that there's always a bigger chance that 52.9.0 (released June 26) was in fact the final update.....

Hi Vistaar:

You can monitor this yourself. If there is a critical security update for FF v61.x released before 05-Sep-2018 it will be listed on the Mozilla Foundation Security Advisories (MFSA) page at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/, and if Mozilla is continuing to support FF ESR v52.9.x as promised until 05-Sep-2018 then I would also expect that a security update for FF ESR v52.9.x would be released that same day and listed on that MFSA page. If you look at the change log for FF v61.0.2 (released yesterday on 08-Aug-2018) at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/61.0.2/releasenotes/ you will see that there were changes and bug fixes for newer FF v61 features but there were no security updates to patch vulnerabilities that could be exploited by malware. That's why no point update for FF ESR v52.9.0 was required yesterday.

The purpose of this special ESR (extended support release) version of Firefox is to give users the option of having a stable version of Firefox that does not undergo major feature changes every six weeks or so (i.e., no "bells and whistles" but fewer bugs) while still receiving all necessary security updates. From the FF ESR FAQ at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/:

"Maintenance of each ESR, through point releases, is limited to high-risk/high-impact security vulnerabilities and in rare cases may also include off-schedule releases that address live security vulnerabilities. Backports of any functional enhancements and/or stability fixes are not in scope."

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32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox ESR v52.9.0 * Norton Security v22.14.2.13 * MS Office 2003 Professional * 32-bit VLC Media Player v3.0.3* Speccy Portable v1.32.740