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Mozilla Mulls Dropping Firefox For Win2K, Early XP
CWmike writes "Mozilla is pondering dropping support for Windows 2000 and Windows XP without Service Pack 3 when it ships the follow-up to Firefox 3.5 in 2010, show discussions on the mozilla.dev.planning forum by developers and Mozilla executives, including the company's chief engineer and its director of Firefox. 'Raise the minimum requirements on Gecko 1.9.2 (and any versions of Firefox built on 1.9.2) for Windows builds to require Windows XP Service Pack 3 or higher,' said Michael Conner, one of the company's software engineers, to start the discussion. Mozilla is currently working on Gecko 1.9.1, the engine that powers Firefox 3.5, the still-in-development browser the company hopes to release at some point in the second quarter. Gecko 1.9.2, and the successor to Firefox 3.5 built on it — dubbed 'Firefox.next' and code named 'Namoroka' — are slated to wrap up in 'early-to-mid 2010,' according to Mozilla."
If you are still using windows 2000- BUY A NEW COMPUTER!
Is this a joke? Making firefox run on .NET and dropping Win2k compatibility?
That seems like something only M$ would do!
Did Mozilla get taken over by Microsoft or something?
I hate developing using old tools.
Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2000 are due for retirement on 7/13/2010.
As long as Firefox waits until after that date to yank support from non-test code, I don't see a problem.
It would be interesting if 3.5 were ready by June or earlier, and they had to decide whether to ship it before MS pulled the plug, or wait until July 13. The "workaround" would be to have a "final release candidate" shipping instead of a "released version," then "release" the very same code on 7/13.
If Microsoft discontinues support for those versions of Windows, why should Mozilla?
I don't get what feature is available in XP SP3 and above that would justify the change? Can anyone enlighten me?
Both Win2k and XP are in "extended support" mode, according to MS. I'm not quite sure how MS can justify this for an OS that is still being sold by MS.
The Mozilla foundation won't be the first to make this decision -- for example, recent iTunes releses haven't run in Win2k and Windows Defender won't install on Win2k (unless you edit the MSI file, after which it will install and run fine under Win2k).
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
...and stop supporting 2000/XP all together, we need to get rid of any MS destop OS that can run IE6.
What's the reason for this?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Whats in SP3 that is required to run Firefox? If there isn't anything, then it shouldn't be required.
Is this a joke? Making firefox run on neXt and dropping OS X compatibility?
That seems like something only @pple would do!
It used to be that one of the big selling points of Mozilla/Firefox was that it could run on almost any OS! Mac, Windows (95 and NT 3.51 and up), Linux, BeOS, OS/2, Solaris, and more!
To me this meant I could go to just about any computer, use Firefox, and have every web page render the same regardless of the OS. And I didn't have to worry about purchasing or learning a new OS just to browse a web site.
What happened to all of that?
I would almost think that with the economy as it is, Mozilla would want to keep Firefox as popular as possible by keeping it running on all these older computers out there that will NOT be replaced any time in the near future.
And personally, I'm still disappointed there is no Windows 9x version any more. Thank goodness for SeaMonkey 1.1.x and Opera!
Isn't this the merit of OSS, in that someone who needs Firefox to run on older Windows clients can maintain a branch that implements 1.9.1? I'd need to know "why" Gecko 1.9.2 doesn't run on older versions of Windows to make a value judgement as to weather or not this is a bad idea.
Particularly when it comes to security, too much backward compatibility can be a really bad idea, and it is partially MS-fault that everyone expects all general-purpose consumer Windows software to run on older depreciated platforms adding code complexity, inefficiency and a greater risk for security issues.
Apple users have dealt with (for a long time) that certain updated software might require a newer OS release than they have and the vendor left it up to them to make the call if upgrading the OS+software or sticking with what they have is the right call.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
You know those of us that will never get a SP3 for XP64 per MS "making it so". I know there are so few of us these days, but that's kind of beside the point isn't it?
Om, nomnomnom...
So Moz is only going to support the current shipping service pack for XP and Vista. Why? Is Firefox doing anything (better question SHOULD it be) low level enough for the current version to matter?
The situation with FF on Linux it is bad enough, in that they don't do security fixes for older versions, and new versions generally won't run on old Linux distributions but we understand that Moz Corp doesn't really give a crap about Linux, they make their coin on Windows. But now they are slashing Windows support. Only supporting XP SP3 isn't terrible, but if it is a prelude to dropping XP when 7 ships it will be a terrible thing.
Democrat delenda est
Let's get this straight: "Raise the minimum requirements to require Windows XP Service Pack 3 or higher," with no benefit, and no rationale other than for breaking compatibility for its own sake? If that's the case, I venture to say that Mozilla has seriously lost its way.
So, Microsoft ditched support for Windows 2000 and Windows XP pre-SP2? So what; the APIs are just the same now as they always have been. If anything, Mozilla should focus more attention to catering to users of OS versions that Microsoft left behind, where they have less competition...and chances are, the users of Windows 2000 are still using the OS that they are because they're frustrated with Microsoft's "support" policies and the further regressions (performance and usability issues, product activation) posed by newer versions of its products.
I'm seriously still bitter about them breaking compatibility with Windows 95 and NT4 a few versions back: One consequence was that the current version of Firefox was no longer capable of running off a version of Windows not unremovably inundated with Internet Explorer and its ilk. Short of a miracle of penetration from the Linux camp, how are we going to wean people off of a steady consumption of upgraded Microsoft products when we get attitudes and potential decisions like this?
Mozilla/Firefox needs more users and being inclusive is a far better option.
Look at it this way, do you want to give people more reasons to stick with IE?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
SP3 has been a bit crash prone for me on several computers. It's flat out unusable on my laptop. I'd really like to see Mozilla reconsider this one.
in mid 2010. So Windows XP will be 2 versions of Windows behind the current one. Windows 2000 a ten year old that is 3 versions behind. Is Mozilla still supporting Firefox for Debian Etch?
And why would people using XP, that don't even update their os with SP3 be interested in the most current Firefox. They can then still use 3.1.
XP x64 is based on the Server 2003 code base, not the XP x86 code base. Despite it's age, SP2 is the most recent service pack for the Server 2003 line. As long as it supports Server 2003 SP2, it will support XP x64.
I have a WinXP SP2 system at home, which for various reasons not of interest here, I am unable to upgrade to SP3. Chrome works just fine though, so maybe I'll just make that my full time browser on that machine.
Also running WinXP SP2 at work, as the admins haven't seen fit to make SP3 part of the supported environment. Looks like my Firefox install would have to plateau here as well.
This begs the question--are they TRYING to get me to quit using FF? XP SP2 isn't THAT old of an OS. I can't really understand why it would be dropped. I can understand Win2K, though I have a machine running that as well, since that one has been around a long time and the remaining userbase is likely small. Even so, unless there's an insurmountable technical hurdle supporting the newest OSes and the old ones, why bother? Near as I can tell from the article, Vista and Windows 7 have some *whiz bang!* features they can take advantage of. Hardly seems worth it.
I thought the windows service packs were more or less bug fixes and security updates - not new APIs or suchlike that make any difference to applications.
So... what does FireFox need from Win XP SP3 that isn't in SP2?
What possible dependancy of SP3 could firefox need?
To make code work even in Win2000 is trivial, unless yourequire the latest 1gig of new APIs. Even then stop being lazy, find portable libs to use.
At least windows GUI api changes are extras, and not changing the core. Old APIs should always work, either by keeping old copies, or by layered emulation.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Wine for Windows!
(Well, there might be by then ...)
http://rocknerd.co.uk
What possible components can firefox need from SP3? WMP 11 ? Some obscure api somewhere? Or is it that not one can be bothered to keep a VMware XPsp2 system running to test with.
I bet there still will be more sp2 systems out there than PPC macs.
Or even PPC linux for that matter.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
My beef with dropping the Firefox/XP support is that after re-partitioning, formatting, installing XP, updating that blank slate with SP1, SP2, SP3, and attempting to install all the assorted post SP3 patches I found that IE no longer worked for getting updates, or anything else for that matter. IE was hung solid. So I started to test to find out what caused it. No amount of wiping, installing, patching, hotfixing, or reinstalling any versions of XP, IE6,7,8 would fix the problem, but Firefox continued to work flawlessly no matter what I did to that poor laptop. In my case what caused IE to fail was exactly *SP3*! Had Firefox stopped supporting the XP OS prior to SP3 I likely would not have a working laptop for her right now, or at the very least I would be doing lots of much slower CD-R sneaker-net transfers back and forth. To this day IE, of any flavor, still doesn't work on that laptop, but at least its up to date with all its patches and, quite debatably, safe to use for perhaps a day or two. All I can say is 'Thank You Firefox!' You saved the day once again.
Remember, they're talking about a release of an app in the year 2010, and whether they'll support it on Windows 2000. Windows XP and Windows Vista have both been out for years already, and Windows 7 should be current by the time this move gets made.
So that's a 10-year-old operating system, four major releases behind, for which Microsoft won't even be providing security updates after July 2010 (unless they've changed their minds).
XP is another story, mainly due to the fact that Vista not only took forever, but has failed to catch on with the market. Fortunately they're only talking about dropping support for systems running on older XP service packs, not for a fully-updated system.
If Firefox 3.5 ends up rendering differently than Firefox Next and I will be pissed. The amount of browser to develop has ballooned in recent years and have fractioned development lines will not help one bit. For those wanting to say, "Just stop supporting it," well, it is just is not that easy is it? IE6 still has about the same market share as all FF versions combined on nearly all the sites I run. If Firefox 3.5 is left behind, it will continued to be used at a decent clip for several more years, making it one more PITA.... not to mention one more reason to recommend Chrome over FF.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
Windows 2000 is probably the best Windows server platform. It's lean and mean and it doesn't get in your way like the newer versions. It's still supported by all the major database vendors.
It doesn't support IPv6 or LDAP, but that is not important for a lot of applications.
Most of these commercial databases use web interfaces for their configuration. For obvious reasons these interfaces should be firewalled for local access only. This means you have to run the web browser on the local machine to configure the database.
Some of these web interfaces use powerful new web features like AJAX and SVG, so a web browser from 2000 will not work.
I'm not a Windows user, so I don't recall the exact details, but I remember reading, when SP3 was first released, that a good many Slashdot readers didn't want anything to do with it. Has something changed, or is it just that enough time has passed that people don't much care anymore?
the ones who would suffer most from such a move are those least able to afford new hardware -- kid you not -- i was at a school in march 2009 -- with old donated machines that were still running windows 98 (yes 98!!) and the 'new' machine was running windows 2000. i was trying to login to get my .mac webmail - which requires at least safari 3, mozilla 2, or ie7 - fat chance to get my webmail if i'm running on win2k - ugh. but i was able to DL & install (using win98) a copy of mozilla2 for win98 and get access to my webmail -- mozilla was the only link that made it possible to keep that old machine useful for a modern webmail app. cutting support kills old machines and puts them into dumpsters and landfills.
2cents from toronto
j
Many of the decisions being done at Mozilla headquarters seem to be done pursuant to an agenda which is at significant cross-purposes to the desires of the actual user. I'm a Firefox pusher, and install it on every machine I touch; but my enthusiasm has been greatly cooling off over the last year or so.
Search the bugzilla for "Quicktime" and "Windows 2000". FF3's new plugin security model makes the last QT plugin for Win2k unstable. And instead of looking for a workaround or allowing users to exercise discretion about the plugin, they simply put the plugin on a super-blacklist (you can't just whitelist it through the normal means, you have to tinker with the browser's xml configuration, etc.)
Basically, while the renderer may still work just fine in Win2k, the browser functionality in FF3 has taken a dive, and it's almost preposterous that they would even hint that the next version would continue to "support" it. Win2k support is gone, has been gone.
People who have no problem using an operating system that is ten years old (Windows 2000 went RTM Dec '99) probably have no problem using a web browser that is zero years old (Firefox 3.5, which hasn't been released). But by your logic, they'll instead want to use Netscape 5, aka Mozilla, also released ten years ago, to avoid further regressions (performance and usability issues) posed by newer versions of web browsers.
on the other hand - those who run win98 deserve thier fate - cut the chord... (muhaha) :-)
If your current browser does everything you want, don't upgrade!
They're not breaking compatibility, they're dropping it. That's a big distiction. There's likely very few places where this will result in concrete code changes. However, it will remove two substantial branches from thier test plan, which should free up resources for testing Firefox on Win7 and new Linux distros. If you must continue to use XP, then carry on using FF3.0 or FF3.5. If, after Moz has dropped security enhancements to the versions that they support on your system, you still have a compelling reason to continue using the old OS, you're so far in the minority that supporting you doesn't make sense for any company to pay attention to you. You'll just have to do your computing in a clean room...
This kind of policy will, in the long run, promote adoption of new MS OSes, thus increasing the MS revenue stream and line the pockets of the IE development team.
Balance that with less development resources on older OSes and of course this makes sense. But dropping XP support altogther should take a longgggg time.
Hopefully that will free up testing and dev resources to focus on stability and performance in the new codebase. Supporting operating systems that MS doesn't even support any longer would have been a drain on thier resources with limited gain. If they can weather the storm of initial criticism, they'll be happy they did it now. With luck, they'll then find more problems that pop up more common systems before they hit the wild.
No benefit? Do you have any idea how much effort is wasted testing these platforms? How many opportunity costs there are to supporting old stuff?
You can't say you "support" a platform these days unless your tests pass on it. That means you need it installed somewhere running test software, and someone familiar with the platform needs to be around to help you when things break, which they do. Supporting it also means crippling any software that wants to use APIs that later versions of the platform supports. You either need two versions of the code (one with the feature you want, one without, a serious nightmare) or you have to tell the users of Windows XP from *years* ago "so sorry, we can't use that important performance optimization. Some idiot somewhere is still running Win2k".
Platform support is a huge cost. Dropping it is an easy savings. Any organization that acts without regard to cost has never even seen the way, never mind "lost" it.
You'll still be able to download older versions of Firefox; they might even continue to provide security updates for them.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
I'd say if there's a reason, go ahead. But, don't do some artificial thing just to not work on SP3. Feel free to mention at install that it's unsupported though.
A server should be an appliance. You may use the browser to grab drivers and what naught but the only reason someone should be doing generic browsing on a server is if someone is on a terminal server. The Win2k version of that is rather dead. I can't see being worried about support for such a minute slice of users.
What I can't understand is dropping support for XP SP2. That is a massive percentage of PCs. Cutting that many possible users out of the pie is just nuts.
Win2K is the *only* version of Windoze that I *like*. :'-(
Win2K was the last "good" windows. Any other Windows after that assumes you are a criminal or a crook or whatever and is prone to label you a "pirate" if you make too many changes to your system (at its own discretion). I have had to reinstall countless of times my Win2K system in order to get rid of viruses, fuckups (self and externally induced) and just to plain spring clean the system. If I were using WinXP, I would have had to phone Microsoft each time to request a new license key and explain myself and yada yada yada and pray that they do not think I am a pirate (I am not, my system is 100% legal and I like to keep it such). Until Microsoft cleans up their activation policy, I refuse to upgrade and shall win2k become unsupported then I will finish moving my whole system to Fedora
Opera is willing to support you guys left out in the cold with a modern browser, going all the way back to Windows 95.
The same die-hards who refuse to upgrade their ten-year-old OS are incapable of not upgrading their browser?
No sig today...
Just because MS has abandoned W2K users is no reason for FF to do also. There are many W2K users that are perfectly happy with W2K and have no compelling need to upgrade both hardware and software, just to feed MS's insatiable appetite. If it aint broke don't fix it.
Make it stop bitching about msimg32.dll when it's running on a fully up to date version of Windows 95 and/or Windows 98 then.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
"You can't say you "support" a platform these days unless your tests pass on it."
Sure you can. Just reduce your testing to "Does it install?" :)
I use Windows 2K as my only Microsoft Windows desktop (Okay, it's always running in a virtual machine...)
Frankly, it's the last version that doesn't require phoning home to install. It's also rock stable and quite fast compared to newer versions of MSWindows on the same hardware. Why upgrade?
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Let's get this straight: "Raise the minimum requirements to require Windows XP Service Pack 3 or higher," with no benefit, and no rationale other than for breaking compatibility for its own sake? If that's the case, I venture to say that Mozilla has seriously lost its way.
So, Microsoft ditched support for Windows 2000 and Windows XP pre-SP2? So what; the APIs are just the same now as they always have been. If anything, Mozilla should focus more attention to catering to users of OS versions that Microsoft left behind, where they have less competition...and chances are, the users of Windows 2000 are still using the OS that they are because they're frustrated with Microsoft's "support" policies and the further regressions (performance and usability issues, product activation) posed by newer versions of its products.
I'm seriously still bitter about them breaking compatibility with Windows 95 and NT4 a few versions back: One consequence was that the current version of Firefox was no longer capable of running off a version of Windows not unremovably inundated with Internet Explorer and its ilk. Short of a miracle of penetration from the Linux camp, how are we going to wean people off of a steady consumption of upgraded Microsoft products when we get attitudes and potential decisions like this?
Have you considered downgrading to a superior product like OS/2? As I understand, they still make ports for it.
Here's a link for the mozilla goodness.
http://www.mozilla.org/ports/os2/
No.
First, he already said that the API between Windows 2000 and Windows XP is identical.
Secondly, you can test for an API at runtime, check for a possible error or null pointer, and then decide what to execute. It's that simple, and requires no crippling at all.
XP corporate doesn't phone home to install, though you do have to pass WGA to get a lot of the updates, but there are ways around that too if you are really anti-wga. I used to hate XP and now its all I use because it was ultimately more stable than 2000 which I hung on to until probably 4 years ago. I mean it really is more of an update to 2000 than anything. If you hate the bloat you can turn it all off and pretty much go back to a Windows 2000 desktop if you like. You can even use nlite and strip out the stuff you don't want and get a lighter installation that chews up less RAM. My initial install was using like 128 megs at boot, thought I've since bloated it out to like 400 megs or so with AV software and a firewall and whatnot. XP isn't all that bad. If I could run everything as well under linux (photoshop cs3, reason, live, etc) I would happily make the switch again, but the gimp and audacity just isn't going to cut it for what I'm trying to do.
zosxavius photography
I already have SP4, code-named TrojanHorse-Conficker, so I'm safe. It's great 'cause I never need to connect to MS Update or update my virus scanner anymore!
SP2 is as high as it goes... is it going to look at the version only??? Oh dear, SP2 - not SP3 - erk...
I'll assume that it will look at the OS as well as version, and count x64 SP2 as good enough, but it is a concern...
To be honest, I am not ever going to understand people that a) Want to keep their old computers while b) Want to run windows on them. They are already getting all the apps incompatible with their windows versions. There are modern Linux distros out there that will run on their old computers, much faster than windows 95, and accept it, they are really much better than windows 95 (Yes, we are talking about 14 years of a gap here)... While the app support is actually better for these distros than for windows 95, as in firefox 3.5 will run on them without problem... But ok, since that's what you want, stick to your proprietary 14 years old OS and run your proprietary browser that allegedly runs in it (They probably just bother compiling it and do no tests whatsoever (who would really spend that much on 14 years old tech?) ) and be "happy"...
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
SP3 breaks some of my software that uses USB, it slows XP down a bit, and offers zero benefits to the user.
I'd rather never upgrade firefox again!
SP3 has been a bit crash prone for me on several computers. It's flat out unusable on my laptop. I'd really like to see Mozilla reconsider this one.
As far as I can tell, this announcement is for Firefox 3.6, not 3 or even the forthcoming 3.5. By the time security updates for 3.5 are discontinued, Windows OS VII will be out, and you might even have a new laptop by then.
Sure. I know you're kidding, but that's actually one of the most complex things to test a lot of the time.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
I see people citing things like bloat and performance problems with supporting legacy operating systems, but it should be noted that Opera 9 works on Windows 98, and is known for having good performance and low resource usage.
This seems like a good opportunity for a fork.
than: quantity e.g. great than
then: time e.g. now & then
May be you should improve your English?
I don't think it's unreasonable to drop support for things from 13 years ago. "Seriously bitter" -- listen to yourself. You can remove IE from XP, try this: http://www.litepc.com/
You're welcome.
Isn't Windows Genuine Advantage part of service pack 3? I've been avoiding it all this time for just that reason. I'm certainly not going to install DRM just so I can use Firefox.
A bit of Googling says that you have to replace it with the version of msimg32.dll that came on the Win ME install disc.
Apparently, it's linked to the visual effects introduced that apply when you mouse over toolbar buttons and so on; I venture to guess that going to Tools>Appearance and unchecking the check box for "advanced visual effects" may avoid the warning, but I'm not certain (I don't have a copy of Win 9x to check it out.
Not for games. But the same Win2K system I have installed in 2000 still lives on. It has been ghosted between 8GB->20GB->40GB->120GB->250GB drives, then moved into dual hardware profile vmware/real system, then real hardware profile was deleted and it only lives in VM shrunk back to 40GB virtual disk file living on my 1.5TB RAID5 linux partition. And it still works just fine, dual booting Win98 DOS 7.0 and Win2K and I could still able to run all my Turbo Pascal crap back from 1990.
Now please someone explain to me what is so special about WinXP SP3 that Firefox really needs to work correctly? This reminds me foobar2000 when they dropped Win2K suport as well because of some lame excuse about some win api function.
There are often very good reasons to have a usable and reasonably secure web browser installed on a server system.
And without Firefox 4.0 support on Windows 2000, we shall undoubtedly in short time see droves of Win2k sysadmins jumping ship for Internet Explorer 8. Oh wait...
Seriously though, my soon to be previous employer uses IE6 because "IE7 doesn't run on Windows 2000". I don't think we're talking about the security-paranoid here.
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
The difference, of course, is that recent Firefox releases are quite a bit better in terms of features, usability, rendering capabilities, and stability than Netscape Communicator 4.51 and the then-sub-prototypical Netscape 5/Mozilla Milestone 4 were ten years ago. I can think of no like advantage Windows Vista has over Windows 2000.
If the support for the old version take too much time it's reasonable to stop supporting.
But, XP3 is too recent for a solid wall, even for firefox.NEXT. I think Win2k and XP0 should be put into automated testing only, ie install, run and got some sort of image. XP1 will still be needed because it's the last XP that could use 4GB of memory and it's the same API as W2k3-sp0. But Win2k and XP1 are close enough that killing the right services (and using a "Corp" key) will get you an OS that will work fine.
The core problem is that both XPsp2 and XPsp3 failed to (or were prevented to) install on significant numbers of machines. So I feel Firefox should not really be the rat that leaves the sinking ship. It should be more like the First officer who gets everybody out he can and limps to the last boat carrying a baby.
Captain Steve went down with the ship.
That's kinda normal, imho. If you *really* want to use a *completely* obsolete OS, then use the obsolete version of FX with it...
Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice - Grey's Law
If you think supporting older platforms is as simple as "test for an API at runtime, check for a possible error or null pointer, and then decide what to execute" then you've never written any serious desktop software with lots of users.
So what are the Mozilla people saying?
i) Firefox will be fine on these deprecated OS's
ii) Firefox will not run on these deprecated OS's
iii) Firefox may or may not run on these deprecated OS's
iv) iii) plus we don't care
v) iv) plus MWAAAAHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Tens of thousands of old and working computers head to the e-waste dumps in China and Africa every time Firefox dumps an old platform of Linux, Mac or Windows. I have a perspective of trying to keep very old hardware working in low income schools in the US, Guatemala, and Costa Rica.
The time to pull the plug really depends less on the OS and more on the browser ( and dependent plug-ins). The browser is the tail that wags the DOG and can render the hardware obsolete as web designers take useless leaps into bloatware.
People will tolerate their crusty old laptop that can only hold 25 minutes of charge, but as soon as too many websites become hard to browse, it's time to buy a brand new laptop.
The low income schools I've helped mostly use Ubuntu 6, 7 or 8 and some XP SP2 and even some W2k. Heck it runs, and stays mostly virus free if they don't use IE version anything.
For starters, Does anyone on slashdot know of any well written and tested steps to get Firefox 3 working on Ubuntu 6.06 ??
We need some type of "e-waste prevention and recomendation" checklist on an offical firefox website. That would be great. Something like Pentium 3, 256MB RAM, best choice is Ubuntu 7.10 FireFox 3.05, Flash Player 9, blah blah blah. Here's a link to download them:
thanks for the helpful posts thus far, good luck on the taxes, or evading them.
So stop it. It does sound much too much like MS...
Sir, your post is one of the strongest cases I've seen in a while for installing Linux on their boxes. Installing Firefox on that machine in but putting a bandage over a gaping wound. Unless the machine is too old to get the Conficker worm, it is probably already part of the botnet.
Then why don't they just state that instead of saying the minimum requirements is Windows 95?
In my case, there is some good amateur radio software out there that won't run on any Windows higher than Win98. There is also some games that don't run on NT based Windows at all.
To be perfectly honest, I've not found a modern graphical (xserver) Linux distro for older PCs that performed better than Windows 95, on older hardware, feel free to point me to one though.
In all honesty, I was replying to the great grand parent who claimed Opera would run on Windows 95 without an issue and I accept the fact that Firefox doesn't officially support Windows 95 or most browsrs these days (although I actually got Firefox to run with a few tricks).
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Its always funny when I hear businesses cry poverty but they always have enough money to pay excessive bonus's, private jets, first class travel and expensive functions.
Its humorous when I see these same people talk about the need to tighten the belt but quite happy to waste money on something that ads NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING to the bottom line of the company. So instead of upgrading the hardware during a recession - the best time to upgrade equipment as it allows YOU to have leverage over large vendors: management has decided to line its own pockets.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
Security updates end for Windows 2000 in 2010.
Windows XP goes to 2014 (I think). But you really should have SP3 installed if you are going to use a browser on anything but a LAN disconnected from the internet.
Makes sense to drop these.
You can install KernelEx http://x86.neostrada.pl/KernelEx http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?act=ST&f=91&t=130936 and install some (not all) 2K/XP applications under 95/98. You certainly can install and run FireFox 3.
I have some educational games that only work under 98 so I have an old notebook that runs that. It would be nice to have the latest version of FF running but it's good enough that cygwin runs and I use ssh as a thether to the network.
Let's get this straight: "Raise the minimum requirements to require Windows XP Service Pack 3 or higher," with no benefit, and no rationale other than for breaking compatibility for its own sake? If that's the case, I venture to say that Mozilla has seriously lost its way.
What they did by breaking code to switch off "Awesomebar" without requiring extensions already proved they'd lost their way. For me, it's really simple. I'm not upgrading my fucking operating system to support a web browser. That is THE most replacable piece of software I have, apart from possibly simple text editors. They can drop support, stop testing, do whatever they like but I won't be upgrading other software to meet their minimum requirements. Firefox USE to be an awesome browser. Every day I use it a little more begrudgingly due to features not found in other browsers.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
When Win9x support was dropped, it was in order to end the dependency on legacy code and to enable new features. And I am sure that a complete Mozilla build on Win9x was pure hell.
This discussion does not mention software issues at all, but merely the level of effort for official (paid?) support. So I would not be surprised if Firefox continued working on Win2k for a while. Will their compiler -really- check OS level?
Who cares how old it is or how many versions behind it is? The only thing that matters is how many people use it.
The mistake you are making is that you think Mozilla shares your goals.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
They should move to Linux then.
At least you can have a modern OS and browser then.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
So what the hell have I been testing for the last 7+ months?
Shiretoko to be named Firefox 3.5
As recently proposed, the version number of the Shiretoko project will be changed to Firefox 3.5 before the upcoming fourth beta release. The process of changing the version number will have an effect on many systems, and will be co-ordinated by Sam Sidler (ss on irc.mozilla.org). Add-On developers should stay tuned for announcements about what this means for their extensions and themes hosted on addons.mozilla.org. We expect to be able do this with a minimum of inconvenience to our community.
I remember running several games on Windows 2000 that were marked-as Windows XP ONLY. One that stands-out was Battlefield 2: when I loaded the game disc, it popped-up a warning that Windows 2000 was unsupported, and proceeded to install anyway. It worked fine.
The reality is, some companies may even do cursory testing on these unsupported platforms; the "unsupported" mantra means they don't have to do thorough testing, and they don't have to handle support calls.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
Would you like.. no.. YOU WILL bow down to your OS overlords at Microsoft [Cancel/Allow]
"You can't say you "support" a platform these days unless your tests pass on it."
Um, Mozilla is still a FOSS project, yes? So support is basically on a best-effort, volunteer basis anyway, right? It's not like they're promising Firefox will work for sure on Vista, and it's not like I get my money back if it doesn't. I could seem them saying "Hey, we're not going to go out of our way to fix problems that only show up on Windows 2000", but the use of the term "support" seems strange. They're taking away the nothing they already promise.
So, like, if someone submits a patch to fix a bug that shows only up on Win 2000, does that mean the patch will be rejected?
"Supporting it also means crippling any software that wants to use APIs that later versions of the platform supports. "
Firefox already runs on several different platforms, including the radically different Windows and *nix, and the fairly different Mac OS X and traditional *nix, plus all the many *nix variants. It's already multi-platform all over the place, and already implements a great many things internally because they can't depend on the host OS providing any given function. They don't even appear to use the Windows native common dialogs; they appear to implement their own. So there isn't much difference across Windows versions that should matter to Firefox, I would think.
One thing that may be an issue, though, is the build toolchain. I don't know what tjhe Mozilla people are using, but I know Microsoft drops support in their compilers and other tools for old versions of Windows just like they do with everything else. So maybe it's a question of having to run two different toolchains to target older platforms. I could see where *that* would be a pain.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Making claims like yours are easy without backing it up. Look through Mozilla's Gecko 1.8 source code. This is exactly how they do it.
My Netgear USB wireless adapter's encryption doesn't work in SP3.
Actually, W2k is getting security fixes until 13.7.2010, as the extended support phase covers them:
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3071
As I have one W2k box (mostly for playing some older games every now and then, but also for some random surfing and other lightweight use; the hardware isn't very new and shiny either; 650 MHz Slot-A Athlon etc), I can confirm still seeing a fairly steady trickle of fixes every now and then.
Regarding worms and viruses, I have yet to see any on that machine, even though the OS installation is now quite a few years old and in semi-active use.
Everyone who makes generalizations should be shot.
I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it's not always as easy as that. Or indeed, it's *usually* not as easy as that.
You say I need to backup my claims? What about your claim that it's always that easy? But fine, I'll give you an example: support for file descriptor passing in Phusion Passenger, a Ruby on Rails deployment platform. File descriptor passing is supposed to be a POSIX standard, but apparently it requires different code on different platforms. Fixing it on one platform (MacOS X) breaks it on another (Linux) and vice versa. Fixing it on 32-bit Linux breaks it on 64-bit FreeBSD, etc. Look at ext/apache2/Utils.h function writeFileDescriptor(). Look at the announcements for the 1.0.x releases to see the history of struggle. Had it not been for testing, this problem and the fix would never have been found. Simply checking for the availability of the API is not enough.
The minimum requirement IS Windows 95. You need Windows 95 or newer to run Opera. Opera runs on Windows 95.
Clever signature text goes here.
My company put off upgrading from w2k to XP until this year. You cannot surf the web with IE6 on w2k at all. Just about any site with any complexity crashes the browser. We had to install firefox so people could surf the web.
Looks like anyone sticking with w2k will be forced to use Opera. Not sure why Mozilla wants to do that though.
Well, this really doesn't help to reduce the IE6 marketshare.
Firefox should help us to eradicate this backwards browser from the net. Dropping support in the OS that IE6 runs doesn't help.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.