Firefox 115 Released: The Last Version for Windows 7 and 8
Firefox 115 was the final major version to support Windows 7, 8 and older macOS, migrating those users to the ESR channel, while adding payment-method import and Linux hardware video decoding.
Historical Archive. This article documents an event from 2023 and is preserved with its original date for reference. It is not current news, and details may have changed since publication.
What happened
Firefox 115 was released on July 4, 2023, first offered to Release channel users on that date according to the official Mozilla release notes. Its most consequential aspect was that it marked the end of support for several older operating systems.
The end of Windows 7 and 8 support
Following Microsoft's end of support for Windows 7 and Windows 8 in January 2023, Firefox 115 was the last version those users would receive on the standard channel. Users on Windows 7 and 8 were automatically migrated to the ESR 115 version so they would continue to receive important security updates. Similarly, it was the last major version to support macOS 10.12, 10.13 and 10.14, with those users also migrated to ESR 115.
New features
Firefox 115 let users migrating from Chrome-based browsers bring over saved payment methods, enabled hardware video decoding for Intel GPUs on Linux, added close buttons to the Tab Manager dropdown, and let users without platform H264 support fall back to Cisco's OpenH264 plugin for playback. It also refreshed the interface for importing data from other browsers.
Web platform
On the developer side, the release added the URL.canParse function for quickly checking whether a URL is valid and parseable, supported change-by-copy array methods on Array and TypedArray prototypes, added the animation-composition CSS property, and enabled IndexedDB in private browsing without memory limits thanks to encrypted on-disk storage. It also added supports conditions to CSS import rules.
Why it mattered
Firefox 115 was a milestone in Firefox's platform lifecycle, drawing a line under a decade-plus of Windows 7 and 8 support while keeping those users protected through the ESR channel. Alongside that transition, its payment import and platform additions kept the browser competitive for users on supported systems.
Related on Skillo
See also: Firefox 100 and the three-digit milestone, Firefox 120's Global Privacy Control.
Sources
Published date reflects the original event date (2023-07-04). This article is original Skillo editorial written from the sources above; facts were verified in September 2026.
Written by
Skillo Staff
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