Mozilla won't delay Firefox releases (but some features may be delayed)

[harlan4096]

Mozilla won't change the schedule of Firefox releases for the moment according to a schedule update published on the official Mozilla Wiki website.

Several browser makers, software developers and hardware manufacturers announced recently the postponing of planned releases. Google for example decided to skip Chrome 82 and Microsoft announced that it would focus on delivering security updates for its Windows operating systems only and skip non-security updates for the time being.

It was not clear up until now if Mozilla would also delay the release of new Firefox versions; this changed yesterday when Mozilla confirmed that the current Covid-19 pandemic won't impact the Firefox release schedule.

Firefox Stable will continue to be updated every four weeks. Mozilla changed the flexible Firefox release schedule to a fixed four-week cycle recently. The next Firefox Stable release will therefore be released on April 7, 2020 as planned.

Mozilla notes that feature developments may be slowed down because of the current situation; while this won't impact the release schedule, it could mean that planned features may be moved to a later release date. The organization plans to review planned features and delay some of the non-critical changes based on that review.

sticking with the published release schedule for the moment

expect feature development to slow down though

reviewing planned features for breaking potential, and delaying some changes

Mozilla re-enabled the security protocols TLS 1.0 and 1.1 in Firefox already this month, which it disabled in the Firefox 74 release previously, as some government sites relied on these protocols exclusively. Firefox users who tried to access these sites could not any longer because Firefox support for these outdated protocols ended with the release of Firefox 74 originally.

Mozilla (and other browser makers) will still disable TLS 1.0 and 1.1 in browsers eventually but the current situation made it necessary to re-enable the protocols.
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