Firefox ESR

I found this review very confusing, because it refers to "Firefox ESR version 115.1.0"… but my version of Firefox ESR is 102.14.0esr, and when I choose "About Firefox" from the menu, the program tells me my version is "Up to date". Huh? I spent quite a bit of time on the Mozilla website trying to figure this out… their navigation was not intuitive to me, and I had a hard time finding their list of versions (releases) correlated with the operating system requirements, etc. But eventually… as far as I can tell, there is as of now, no such thing as Firefox ESR version 115.1.0… that's the regular version, not the ESR version at all. MacUpdate sometimes gets the versioning information wrong in general, and this seems to be one of those times. If there's something I'm missing here, somebody please enlighten me.

MU> "Version 102.4.0, first offered to ESR channel users on October 18, 2022" ;-)

I disagree somewhat with this page's subhead, identifying Firefox ESR as "Firefox for system administrators." That may be its primary purpose, but I use it as my main FF for a different reason (I'm not a sysadmin). ESR changes less often and less radically than the main channel version, and since Moz's updates frequently annoy me by breaking the various web-development extensions I use... and breaking my FF-CSS and about:config customizations too... I run ESR to slow down the rate of breakage.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/enterprise/#download points to the current enterprise release which is 78.15.0esr, not 91.<whatever>. Again, this is pointing to the wrong release and version. Check with Mozilla directly to verify this information if you doubt it.

MACUPDATE: This page is intended for "ESR" version of Firefox (Extended Support Release) which is a completely different branch from the mainstream Firefox release that is on this page https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/10700/firefox The link to the developer site is correct, but the version you are tracking on this page is completely wrong. Mainstream Firefox is on version 91.0.1, but the ESR version as of Aug 26, 2021 is at version 78.13. It is very important to track and maintain the two branches of Firefox separately. It is not a question of older or newer, they are completely different branches.

A wonderful and feature rich alternative to the current incumbent Chrome.

After a few years using alternatives, I find myself using FF more and more. Talking about appearance, https://github.com/wilfredwee/photon-australis does a good job for bringing back rounded tabs (the irony about the awful standard FF Quantum interface is that Chrome switched to rounded tabs in the meantime! :-D ). That combined with the Dark theme and a few other tweaks is really cool. As for extensions, Waterfox has soon left behind a number of addons I loved, so there's less and less a valid reason for me to stick to it. Chromium and Vivaldi have been my other browsers of choice since FFQ came out, fast and all, but both have little issues with one site or another... So in the end FF is there, generally the most reliable of the browsers, even if a little slower compared to Chromium based browsers, and it's very likely that I'll switch back to it in the near future. :-)

As of July 9, 2019, there are actually two current ESR versions available (60.8.0 and 68.0): https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/60.8.0/releasenotes/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/68.0esr/releasenotes/ Development of the Firefox 60 ESR stream will end with the release of 60.9.0, according to Mozilla's ESR info page: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/

I want to point out why it's still pertinent to use FF52 ESR — together with other browsers or even the most recent version of FF.
First of all, I've got a whole lotta .maff files stored everywhere and it's absolutely out of the question for me to spend hours converting them, so the easiest and most reliable way to read them is with FF52. As I still consider .maff files to be the best and lightest way to store web pages, I continue storing new pages this way — I think I've got years in front of me before changing computer to something that won't support FF52 ESR in some way (even if at some point it might be through a virtual machine).
My current main browser is Chromium, my second choice is Waterfox.
It's very likely that I switch back to the latest FF ESR when Chromium drops MacOS 10.11 and Waterfox abandon its pre-Quantum core — as it was the reason I switched from FF to WTF.
I've got also 1Password 4 that's still working nicely between all my current browsers: if I switch to Quantum, I have to switch to 1P6 or Enpass and lose that compatibility.
I'm sure there are other reasons, but to me that was enough to keep things that way instead of following what El Capitan permits.

Mozilla is keeping two(2) versions of Firefox ESR current.
60.02ESR is https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/60.0.2esr/mac/ and 52.81ESR is https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/52.8.1esr/mac/ . As always, choose your language. This is a very good reliable browser for small enterprise.

And if you want to stick to pre-Quantum ESR: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/52.8.0esr/mac/ (then choose your language ;-) )

Oh, this is heavenly. Just "down-graded" from version 57. Same browser but _all_ my extensions work, even the few that quit working in the few versions before 57. I'll keep this browser for as long as I can because several of my favorite extensions are not being ported or replaced for 57+.

> Currently 52.7.2

So, now the ESR channel has its own page?
I'm wondering what's the reason behind this... Anyway, I've been using this channel rather than the "stable" one for a few years now (since v38 ESR) after having had some issues, and I don't regret it.
Recent Firefox release history has shown how much ESR is a good choice even for home users. Actually, ESR is the "really stable" channel, compared to the "(quite) stable" one. ;-)
Now, it's the one I advise my friends to install, it has security patches as well as the "stable" channel, and the common user wants a reliable browser more than useless innovations later abandoned such as Hello, etc. Things are a bit different in 2018 as FF57 has changed its core, as everybody knows, and for the time being, the ESR channel is also the choice you make to keep using old extensions — until the next ESR branch (FF60, next summer).