Firefox 3.6 Users to Get Nudged to Upgrade to 8 on Nov 17

Firefox 8 has been officially released today as an upgrade from Firefox 7.0.1.

Next week, Mozilla will release another Firefox 8 version, which specifically targets users of Firefox 3.6. The "advertised update" is somewhat odd as Mozilla is pushing out Firefox 3.6.24 today and pitches the update next week as a plea to 3.6 users to make the move to version 8. Perhaps it would be a better idea to send the update to version 8 out simultaneously with version 3.6.24 to reduce the overall number of updates.

Mozilla stresses that 3.6 will still be supported, even if users aren't upgrading to version 8. There is no official end for 3.6 just yet. Mozilla says that users can update to the new version, if they are "inclined" to do so. Mozilla has made similar pitches with previous versions, but was not very successful. Firefox 3.6 users still account for about 5.8 percent market share, according to StatCounter, while Firefox 6 users are down to about 1.4 percent.

The update offer is scheduled to be sent out on November 17. Mozilla has not said when it will phase out Firefox 3.6. Current Firefox users will be getting a silent update (like Chrome) in Firefox with version 10 or 11, depending on Mozilla's ability to implement the feature.

You can download Firefox 8 here.