Not So Fast - March 2012 'Net Briefs

Mozilla’s Firefox browser has long been under fire from the IT managers of many enterprise companies because of its rapid release cycle and a tendency to end support on older versions that are oftentimes still in use. Never again, promises Mozilla; it has unveiled an Extended Support Release (ESR) version of Firefox for software management and support. The ESR (initially based on Firefox 10) will give IT departments 12 weeks to test and certify new releases, and each release will be maintained for a full year — which is about nine release cycles. The new version, which will be developed separately from the consumer version of Firefox, is likely Mozilla’s response to Google Chrome’s growth in the browser market, specifically among enterprise clients.