Why is the 78.0.1 download for MacOS called "Firefox 78.0.1esr.dmg" and not "Firefox 78.0.1.dmg"?
I got the pop-up about FF 78.0.1 so went to https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/78.0.1/releasenotes/ and clicked on "Download Firefox" (https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/download/thanks/). The download dialogue (image attached) that appeared said that it wanted to download "Firefox 78.0.1esr.dmg". The "esr" in the filename surprised me, as I'm not on any ESR release train. Why is it named that and not "Firefox 78.0.1.dmg", similar to its predecessors?
Chosen solution
To Ram: You indirectly solved the problem. On https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-download-and-install-firefox-mac it says this: "Important - macOS 10.9, 10.10 and 10.11 users move to Extended Support Release" where that text is a link to https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/macos-users-esr
That page says: "Firefox version 78 is the last supported Firefox version for macOS users of OS X 10.9 Mavericks, OS X 10.10 Yosemite and OS X 10.11 El Capitan. These users will be moved to the Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) channel by an application update. This will provide security updates until the next ESR update in July 2021, after which the affected users will no longer receive security updates."
It would have been nice if the 78.0.1 release notes at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/78.0.1/releasenotes/ had mentioned that, or had a link to that page.
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I'm not sure why you got the ESR version and not the regular release.
Fire 78 ESR will replace Firefox 68 ESR in a few releases (there is an overlap to allow administrators to test the new version).
there is no need to use the ESR version as a normal user.
You can find the full version of the current Firefox release (78.0.1) in all languages and all operating systems here:
I do not why this happened but if you wish to download Firefox on MAC please see this article: How to download and install Firefox on Mac Alternatively, you can also go to the link you provided: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/78.0.1/releasenotes/ and scroll down and click on "All Firefox downloads". This will lead you to customize your download to fit the exact Firefox version along with the exact language and the exact platform you wish to install on. Let me know if this helps.
To cor-el: Nope. I get the same result using either https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/#product-desktop-release (and clicking the Download Now button: https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-latest-ssl&os=osx&lang=en-US) or using https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/78.0.1/releasenotes/ (and clicking on the Download Firefox button: https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/download/thanks/)
Modified by Steve Chessin
On https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/ make sure it is Firefox and not Firefox Extended Support Release in first drop down.
Chosen Solution
To Ram: You indirectly solved the problem. On https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-download-and-install-firefox-mac it says this: "Important - macOS 10.9, 10.10 and 10.11 users move to Extended Support Release" where that text is a link to https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/macos-users-esr
That page says: "Firefox version 78 is the last supported Firefox version for macOS users of OS X 10.9 Mavericks, OS X 10.10 Yosemite and OS X 10.11 El Capitan. These users will be moved to the Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) channel by an application update. This will provide security updates until the next ESR update in July 2021, after which the affected users will no longer receive security updates."
It would have been nice if the 78.0.1 release notes at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/78.0.1/releasenotes/ had mentioned that, or had a link to that page.
Modified by Steve Chessin
Try to download from the Mozilla CDN server:
To James: That doesn't help. I did have Firefox in the first drop down and it downloaded 78.0.1esr anyway.
cor-el said
Try to download from the Mozilla CDN server:
l'll try that, but I have a sneaky suspicion it won't work (or won't work well) on MacOS 10.9.5.
Steve Chessin said
It would have been nice if the 78.0.1 release notes at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/78.0.1/releasenotes/ had mentioned that, or had a link to that page.
It does link to https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2020/06/23/update-on-firefox-support-for-macos-10-9-10-10-and-10-11/ on https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/78.0/releasenotes/ as the 78.0.1 is a minor update for fixes in relation to search engines. It even has Reference link to 78.0 release notes on the 78.0.1 page.
James said
Steve Chessin said
It would have been nice if the 78.0.1 release notes at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/78.0.1/releasenotes/ had mentioned that, or had a link to that page.It does link to https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2020/06/23/update-on-firefox-support-for-macos-10-9-10-10-and-10-11/ on https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/78.0/releasenotes/ as the 78.0.1 is a minor update for fixes in relation to search engines. It even has Reference link to 78.0 release notes on the 78.0.1 page.
Given that 78.0 was "first offered to Release channel users on June 30, 2020", and 78.0.1 was "first offered to Release channel users on July 1, 2020" (that is, one day later), and I update when I'm ready, it's not inconceivable that I would have missed the 78.0 release notes. As for clicking on the link to read them, that's an extra step. The people who generated the 78.0.1 release notes should have propagated that note about "Firefox 78 is the last major release with support for macOS versions 10.9, 10.10 and 10.11. If you use one of these versions, you’ll be supported through Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release) 78.x for the coming year" to the 78.0.1 release note page.
A further problem in the case is that updating to Firefox 78.0 was disabled very quickly because of a specific issue with search engines that came up with this release and that was fixed with Firefox 78.0.1, so only a few have seen Firefox 78.0.