Need Information On Firefox V.55 Vs. Ff52esr (or Even Ff56)

Hi Folks,

I'm still using an older version of firefox to keep essential add-ons that Quantum no longer had. I'm having problems on a windows 7 computer with the version I have on it (FF52), and would like advice on the best way to proceed. I'm not willing to go to the current version of FF - I need the add-ons I have.

Anyhow, I had copied over my profile from a different computer where I'd been using FF55. I'd had some problems with 55, so I installed 52 on this computer, but using the profile from the other computer. It's not working very well as I can't get vertical tabs or vertical tabs reloaded to work, it's also crashing fairly often for no apparent reason, etc.

For what it's worth, this isn't a malware/virus problem - I'm running McAfee and also periodically malwarebytes, Adwcleaner, etc., and scans aren't finding problems (initial scan w/ adwcleaner found some stuff that was on the computer when I got it used). Computer has been restarted several times and so on, and I'm still having the problems. Could this be because the profile was from a firefox 55 version and it's being used on a FF52 version? Or would that not cause this sort of problem?

I gather FF56 won't be able to access my older saved sessions (I use Session Manager and those are the sessions I'm concerned about - so if this is NOT a problem, please let me know).Wiki says: "...Another change was the introduction of the mozlz4 format, a proprietary variant of the lz4 compression format (.mozlz4 and .jsonlz4 file extensions instead of .json.lz4 as per unix/linux standard). Session data is stored in the lz4 format instead of plain text. Firefox 56 can not recognize the legacy plain text session files, only the lz4-encoded ones...." If this doesn't actually cause a problem with older Session Manager sessions, then I'd be interested in FF56 v. FF52ESR...

So I'm wondering if I should go to 55 on this computer, or 52ESR (or FF56)? I gather the ESR would have a little better security - but want to know if there's a difference in reliability, memory issues, crashing problems, add-on compatibility or other features since 52ESR is, I gather, based on older code than 55?

If someone could talk me thru the pros and cons of using 55 versus 52ESR I'd sure appreciate it!!! Or even point me to a good forum to get a solid answer to this question - I tried the Mozilla support site, and only got "must upgrade to current version!" - which is worthless to me.

Also, I would be VERY grateful if folks could point me towards:
1. a reasonably safe site where we can search and install legacy add-ons
2. any webpage which has a good information showing which legacy add-ons now have reasonable replacements in the current FF version.

Thanks in advance for any help on these issues!

 

Correct.

Also, while legacy add-ons are supported up to Firefox 56, they are not guaranteed to work.

https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/02/16/the-road-to-firefox-57-compatibility-milestones/

If you want to continue using legacy add-ons, use Firefox 52.9.0esr.
https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/52.9.0esr/win32/en-US/

 

Thank you Eldon! Both the profile and the add-ons were from the other computer using FF55. I'll give 52.9.0ESR a shot and see how that goes.

Another question for you - will my having used the profile & add-ons from the 55 version with 52 be likely to have corrupted them? If so, I can copy them over again from the laptop they originally came from (e.g., the FF55 version). I hope they'll work with the 52ESR version... I can't say I was all that happy with 55, but I suppose worst case I could go to it.

Don't suppose you know where I can reasonably safely still get legacy add-ons? I gather there have been some people who've made them available, but I've no idea how safe those sites are thought to be?

 

Not likely, but possible.

I'm not aware of a site dedicated to legacy add-ons.
Post a list of the add-ons. Someone may know of alternatives.