Mozilla has announced that Firefox 144 will be the last release to support 32-bit x86 Linux. It’s another nail in the coffin for old 32-bit PCs, though Firefox’s Extended Support Release will keep them alive until September 2026.
Nearly all modern desktop computers and servers using an x86 processor are using the modern 64-bit architecture (also known as ‘AMD64’), starting with AMD’s Opteron chips in 2003 and becoming more common throughout the 2010s. Many operating systems and applications have already dropped 32-bit x86 support, including Ubuntu, Windows 11, macOS, and Fedora. Debian was one of the last major holdouts, but the latest Trixie release put an end to that.
Now, Mozilla is preparing to make the same move. The company said in a blog post, “Mozilla has continued to provide Firefox for 32-bit Linux systems long after most other browsers and operating systems ended support. We made this choice because we care deeply about keeping Firefox available to as many people as possible, helping our users extend the life of their hardware and reduce unnecessary obsolescence. Today, however, 32-bit Linux is no longer widely supported by the vast majority of Linux distributions, and maintaining Firefox on this platform has become increasingly difficult and unreliable.”
Firefox 144, due to be released on October 14, 2025, will be the final version for 32-bit Linux. Firefox 145, scheduled for November 11, 2025, will require a 64-bit Linux distribution. You can check if your PC is affected by running uname -m in a Terminal—if you see i386 or i686, you’re on a 32-bit x86 CPU.
The good news is that Firefox Extended Support Release will remain available for 32-bit Linux distributions with version 140, and Mozilla is promising security updates on that version until at least September 2026. Firefox ESR is already the final supported option for Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1, and macOS 10.12–10.14, but those operating systems are stuck on version 115.
It’s not clear if there will be any other options for a web browser on 32-bit Linux after Mozilla finally ends support. Google Chrome stopped supporting 32-bit Linux in 2016, but the open-source Chromium project still works for the moment—Debian’s software repository has up-to-date i386 packages, for example. GNOME Web or KDE Konqueror might be other viable options, depending on how long their underlying WebKit engine supports 32-bit platforms.
If you have a 32-bit PC, you’re running out of actively-supported operating systems and web browsers, and unsupported software could open you up to security vulnerabilities. All good things must come to an end, unfortunately.
Source: Mozilla