Can update from Fx ESR 31 to FX ESR 38 affect functioning of corporate Web applications?
Hello, we are are setting Firefox ESR as the default browser in our company. Before making the switch we have tested and updated our corporate applications to make sure they work and display correctly with FX. We tested with FX ESR 31.3.
After the recent release, we are now hesitating what version of the browser to deploy: old ESR31 or moving directly to the new ESR38.
Question: what's the risk involved? can we assume that all apps that worked with the previous ESR version would work the same with the new one? Or should we rather re-test all the apps before going for the new version and install the ESR31 (that will soon be unsupported ). Many thanks for any help in this matter. Tom
Modified by James
Chosen solution
Please do not assume! Since you presumably have enough challenges, I recommend ESR 31.7.0esr, which is the May release. I think there will be one more security update in a couple of weeks, from 31.7.0esr to 31.8.0esr (based on the roadmap graphic in https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/organ.../faq/). So you have several weeks for thorough preparation for ESR 38.
Here's the reasoning:
Because the ESR series hardly gets any updates other than high-priority security fixes, there are thousands of changes in ESR 38 vs. ESR 31. These range from heightened criteria for SSL certificates and security protocols to changes in how Firefox styles pre tags (they no longer wrap text unless you used the white-space:pre-wrap style for them).
You can get a rough overview of changes possibly affecting your apps by reading all of the articles in this series from Firefox 38 back to Firefox 32 (links at the bottom of each page):
- Firefox 38 for developers: https://developer.mozilla.org/Firefox/Releases/38
- Site Compatibility for Firefox 38: https://developer.mozilla.org/Firefox/Releases/38/Site_Compatibility
But there really is no substitute for testing because those articles can only cover the high points, and you'll probably need several weeks for that.
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Chosen Solution
Please do not assume! Since you presumably have enough challenges, I recommend ESR 31.7.0esr, which is the May release. I think there will be one more security update in a couple of weeks, from 31.7.0esr to 31.8.0esr (based on the roadmap graphic in https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/organ.../faq/). So you have several weeks for thorough preparation for ESR 38.
Here's the reasoning:
Because the ESR series hardly gets any updates other than high-priority security fixes, there are thousands of changes in ESR 38 vs. ESR 31. These range from heightened criteria for SSL certificates and security protocols to changes in how Firefox styles pre tags (they no longer wrap text unless you used the white-space:pre-wrap style for them).
You can get a rough overview of changes possibly affecting your apps by reading all of the articles in this series from Firefox 38 back to Firefox 32 (links at the bottom of each page):
- Firefox 38 for developers: https://developer.mozilla.org/Firefox/Releases/38
- Site Compatibility for Firefox 38: https://developer.mozilla.org/Firefox/Releases/38/Site_Compatibility
But there really is no substitute for testing because those articles can only cover the high points, and you'll probably need several weeks for that.
Oh wait, hold on. If some of your users have been using the regular version of Firefox, you probably should NOT roll those individuals back to ESR 31. This will potentially cause issues with backwards compatibility of their settings and add-ons. Those users might instead go to ESR 38 since they will already be experiencing whatever bugs there are in Firefox 38.
I guess it's more complicated than I realized.
Luckily, All our users use ESR 31.x I guess we will have to come up with an automated method of testing of compatibility of our apps for the future.
Thank you very much for your prompt and very useful reply.; Tom