Re: Java plugin phase out timeline

On 1/12/2017 4:34 AM, [email protected] wrote:
> Would you be able share information - here or in private communication - about how soon Release 52 will take effect in the end user experience?
> - What time of the day will Release 52 be released in Central Europe Time zone (CET)?
> - What will trigger the auto-update to v52 by end user (download/install/run) - Process in background? Launching Firefox? Opening new tab? Refresh?
> - Is there any server side mechanism from you that will delay the update (by days/weeks) beyond the end user trigger to reduce the peak load on your server?

March 7 is the official release date for Firefox 52, but Mozilla uses 
server-side throttling to slowly update only a few thousand users over 
the first week or so. If we don't see any new bug reports from those 
users, we unthrottle the update and all other users should automatically 
receive the update within 24 hours of the next time they launch Firefox. 
(Firefox pings the update server every 24 hours.)


> We are running a web service based on a Java applet, and we currently see some 10k unique users per day using Firefox v50 (90% Windows, 10% Mac) and a few v49, v48 and v47.
> It is now clear that we will not be able to replace the Java applet in time before the release of Firefox v52 (March 7).
> We have to prepare our support team for helping our Firefox users when Java stops working for them because of update to v52.
> FYI: Our user agent statistics from December 2016 (total) shows v50.0 and practically no v50.1 though v50.1 was released in mid-December.

New updates may get downloaded but not installed if users don't restart 
their browser periodically. Also, there are some long-standing Firefox 
bugs that cause some users to get "stuck" on older Firefox versions. 
Anti-virus software can cause update problems, too.

Options for using Java after Firefox 52 release are switching to the 
Firefox "ESR" version (Extended Support Release [1]) or using IE on 
Windows and Safari on Mac.

[1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/