Just two days after the release of Firefox 2.0.0.19 and the official cut-off date for all updates to Firefox 2.0, Mozilla announced its plans to make available Firefox 2.0.0.20 as soon as possible. On December 17, Mozilla explained that it had managed to ship an incomplete Firefox 2.0.0.19 build, and that, in this context, yet another update for Firefox 2.0 was required. In this manner, even though Mozilla had planned to kill off support for Firefox 2.0 with the launch of version 2.0.0.19, the successor of Firefox 3.0 has got a reprieve, albeit small in any real significance. It seems that only the Windows version of the open source browser will get an additional breath of fresh air.

“We missed a fix due to an innocent clerical error in the build process, and will now be including it. No big deal,” explained Mike Beltzner, Mozilla User Experience lead. “It was a Windows-only omission, and happened at the point where we packaged and signed builds.”

On December 16, 2008, Mozilla made available for download Firefox 2.0.0.19 and Firefox 3.0.5. Samuel Sidler, Quality Assurance engineer at Mozilla, revealed that no additional security and stability updates were planned for Firefox 2.0 past 2.0.0.19. In this context, December 16 marked the release of the last security and stability update for Firefox 2.0, with Sidler urging users to upgrade to Firefox 3.5 as soon as possible.

Users insisting on running Firefox 2.0.0.20 will no longer benefit from security and stability updates for that version of the open source browser. Mozilla currently offers Firefox 3.0.5 for those willing to upgrade and is cooking Firefox 3.1 codenamed Shiretoko, with Beta 3 expected by the end of January 2009. Firefox 3.0.6 is also in development with Mozilla estimating a February 2009 release. At the same time, candidates of Firefox 2.0.0.20 are already being offered for testing.

Firefox 3.0.5 and Firefox 2.0.0.19 for Windows are available for download here.

Firefox 3.0.5 and Firefox 2.0.0.19 for Mac are available for download here.

Firefox 3.0.5 for Linux is available for download here.

Firefox 2.0.0.19 for Linux is available for download here.