Gran Paradiso Alpha 5 is frozen in the background

May 30, 2007 08:28 GMT  ·  By

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 dies today. Version 1.5 of the open source browser from Mozilla has reached the end of its lifecycle, and May 30, 2007 is a date synonymous with its expiration. Firefox 1.5 was initially scheduled for expiration on April 24, 2007. However, Firefox managed to survive the original planned date for the end of the line of support. Towards the end of the past month, Mozilla revealed that it was prolonging the life of Firefox 1.5 until mid May 2007.

Mid May has long come and gone, and Mozilla failed to kill the 1.5 version of its open source browser. But no more, Mozilla has announced that it will release one final update for Firefox 1.5, following which, support will be considered terminated.

"On Wednesday, May 30, we expect to begin distributing Firefox 1.5.0.12 and Firefox 2.0.0.4 via automatic updates. These are standard stability and security updates for the browser to ensure a fast and secure online experience for our users. We expect this is the final stability and security release for the version 1.5 product series. Firefox 1.5.0.12 includes an auto-update mechanism that offers users the ability to migrate to Firefox 2. The upgrade offer will be enabled within in a few weeks. We strongly encourage everyone to download Firefox 2 now to benefit from features that make search, communication and online security more effective," revealed Mozilla in a message.

According to statistics made public by Market Share by Net Applications, Firefox accounted for a total of 15.42% of the browser market at the end of April 2007. This percentage is divided between Firefox 2.0 and Firefox 1.5, and as of the past month, Market Share was still keeping track of an estimated installed base of 4.39% Firefox 1.5 out of all the browsers. The still high popularity of Firefox 1.5 and the slow pace of corporate upgrades are among the reasons why Mozilla has delayed killing the version for so long.

Additionally, not only Firefox 2.0.0.4 will be made available starting today, as Mozilla is moving forward with the development of Firefox 3.0. "We'll be freezing tomorrow night (May 30th) at 11:59 PM PDT for Gran Paradiso Alpha 5. The currently posted schedule called for the freeze to be tonight, but we have moved freeze days to Wednesdays for the alphas to accommodate the Gecko 1.9 meeting as a last update before freeze" Mozilla informed. The code freeze signals that the release of Gran Paradiso Alpha 5 is extremely close.