Slashdot Mirror


Chrome Will End XP Support in 2015; Firefox Has No Plans To Stop

Billly Gates writes "Microsoft is ending support for Windows XP in 2014. Fortunately for its users who want to keep browsing the web, Google is continuing to support Chrome until at least 2015. Firefox has no current plans to end support for XP. Hopefully this will delay the dreaded XPopacalypse — the idea that a major virus/worm/trojan will take down millions of systems that haven't been issued security patches. When these browsers finally do end XP support, does it mean webmasters will need to write seperate versions of CSS and JavaScript for older versions if the user base refuses to leave Windows XP (as happened with IE6)?" Update: 10/29 17:31 GMT by S : Changed headline and summary to reflect that Mozilla doesn't have plans to drop XP support any time soon.

10 of 257 comments (clear)

  1. Article says the opposite? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The article says they have no plans to end support for XP, how in the world did the summary end up saying exactly the opposite?
    Or is now even blatant lying ok as long as it might work as clickbait?

    1. Re:Article says the opposite? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Timothy is on duty.

    2. Re:Article says the opposite? by unixisc · · Score: 5, Informative

      The Chrome article states that support will end in 2015 - a year after Microsoft ends its support. The FireFox article states that their support will continue (indefinitely).

      More basic than the browsers - will the antivirus guys like Norton, Kaspersky, ESET, et al continue to support XP?

    3. Re:Article says the opposite? by Derek+Pomery · · Score: 5, Informative

      My initial guess was the article submitter was unclear on "continuing support indefinitely" but then I RTFA'd and I saw:
        "We have no plans to discontinue support for our XP users."

      I mean. How much more clearer can you get? Yeesh.

      --
      -- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"' /. ate my old sig. Bastards.
    4. Re:Article says the opposite? by Dishevel · · Score: 4, Informative

      I still have no idea what the editors here do.

      --
      Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
  2. Linked article says exact opposite by arobatino · · Score: 5, Informative

    The linked article, posted 20 hours ago, actually says

    Neowin asked Mozilla, the creator of Firefox, if it has any plans to end support for XP and Johnathan Nightingale, VP of Firefox at Mozilla stated, "We have no plans to discontinue support for our XP users."

    and basically the same for Chrome.

  3. Firefox is continuing support by Sockatume · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the fine article:

    Neowin asked Mozilla, the creator of Firefox, if it has any plans to end support for XP and Johnathan Nightingale, VP of Firefox at Mozilla stated, "We have no plans to discontinue support for our XP users."

    --
    No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  4. And where does it say this? by R.Mo_Robert · · Score: 5, Informative

    The first link says that Mozilla plans to continue supporting Firefox on XP; it gives no end date, so they presumably mean indefinitely (though practically probably not much longer than a few years--for example, they supported Windows 2000 until Firefox 12 in April 2012, a bit over 2 years after its EOL; on the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if they went a bit longer with XP given its larger user base). The second link says Google plans to continue Chrome support on XP into at least 2015. Neither one of these links talks about Firefox or Chrome ending support for Windows XP. In fact, both mention the exact opposite, at least for the foreseeable future, so I'm really wondering where the author of this summary got this information.

    --
    R.Mo
  5. Re:Someone could fork the project by Joce640k · · Score: 5, Informative

    No need, the linked article says they're going to keep on supporting it.

    (In a huge headline font...)

    --
    No sig today...
  6. We Love XP by AndyCanfield · · Score: 5, Informative

    Most manufacturers would give their eye teeth to have a product that their customers love as much as our users love Wincows XP. It does everything that our people need done, it is stable and secure and simple and they know it well. As tech support I know it well, too; on XP I don't have to search for "Where did Microsoft put the device drivers THIS TIME!"

    But the problem that Microsoft faces is that they hire programmers, and programmers are change agents. If the program really does the job well, nobody will ever buy a new version. So they have to artificially destroy Windows XP in order to sell newer versions. Trojans, viruses, malware are all allies of Microsoft.

    Sort of like getting a new wife every eight years, whether you want one or not.