Firefox 3.5 Users to Be Automatically Updated to 3.6 Next Month

Mozilla has been making quite a lot of interesting moves lately, when it comes to releases and updates, and it's not done yet. The organization is making another rather bold move and will upgrade Firefox 3.5 users automatically to Firefox 3.6 about a month from now.

It's the first time that Mozilla has planned to upgrade users from one major version to another automatically.

Technically, not all users will be updated, just the ones that have automatic updates for minor patches enabled.

The plan is not set in stone at the moment, but it seems that, if everything else falls into place, this is the path Mozilla will take.

"We need a plan to obsolete Firefox 3.5 as we can't support it into perpetuity. We have been frustrated with our efforts to move users off of old releases and are worried too many people do not upgrade and are on vulnerable and unsupported versions of Firefox," Mozilla writes on its Wiki page for Firefox 3.5 end of life.

Mozilla says there are about 12 million Firefox users still running Firefox 3.5. The group has been catering to them by releasing security updates for the aging browser, but this can't go on forever, Mozilla simply doesn't have the manpower.

So the plan is for Firefox 3.5.19, the current release, to be the last one. On June 21, Mozilla will push Firefox 3.6.18 to both Firefox 3.6.16 and Firefox 3.5.19 users. This will be labeled as a minor security update so it should be automatically installed, depending on user preferences.

The reason why Mozilla is reluctant is because users, Firefox users in particular, don't like to have things shoved down their throats, even if it's for their own good.

However, with the choices being automatic updates or leaving users exposed to security threats because of an obsolete browser, Mozilla will take the first option. [via The H Online]