Anyone still using Windows XP as main OS?

[5eraph]

On 11/1/2015 at 9:37 AM, Guest said:

I like Firefox for its predictable popup and middle-click behavior, and superior download performance--interrupted downloads consistently resume. Video DownloadHelper plugin works well on YouTube.

I like Google Chrome because of its crash resistance and far superior memory handling. It has a native x64 implementation supported by Google (I run XPx64). And HD video works on YouTube. But the Video DonloadHelper plugin doesn't work on YouTube (I suspect by design since it's also owned by Google).

I keep both installed.

An addendum:  (Yes, I am Guest.  Look at the Edited line in the post above.)

Google Chrome has breathed its last on this platform...

HTML5 HD video on YouTube can be enabled in Firefox without using Flash Player by going into "about:config" and explicitly enabling "media.mediasource.webm.enabled".

Now, if only Firefox wouldn't slow down and die every time I have more than 10 or so tabs open, I'd be happy.  It really shouldn't happen with 4GB or more of system RAM.

[sdfox7]

2 hours ago, 5eraph said:

An addendum:  (Yes, I am Guest.  Look at the Edited line in the post above.)

Google Chrome has breathed its last on this platform...

HTML5 HD video on YouTube can be enabled in Firefox without using Flash Player by going into "about:config" and explicitly enabling "media.mediasource.webm.enabled".

Now, if only Firefox wouldn't slow down and die every time I have more than 10 or so tabs open, I'd be happy.  It really shouldn't happen with 4GB or more of system RAM.

How old is your processor? How fast is your hard drive? 4GB was common 7 to 8 years ago and is certainly not special now. My ThinkPad experiences no such slowdowns despite being over a decade old.

[5eraph]

Google Chrome was never as laggy as Firefox on this machine, so the amount of RAM is no excuse.

Current Desktop PC specs:

• Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L (rev.2.0)
• Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q9650
• 4 GB SuperTalent DDR2 800 RAM
• GeForce GTX 650 Ti 1GB
• System drive:  Seagate ST3500418AS (500 GB, 7200 RPM, avg. latency 4.16 ms)
• Storage drive 1:  Western Digital WDC WD20EARX (2 TB, 5400 RPM)
• Storage drive 2:  Western Digital WDC WD20EZRX (2 TB, 7200 RPM)

[sdfox7]

2 hours ago, 5eraph said:

Google Chrome was never as laggy as Firefox on this machine, so the amount of RAM is no excuse.

<truncated>

Chrome seems much more bloated than Firefox, or any browser I've used, in my opinion. It wasn't always that way; it was one of the lightest/ fastest and most efficient browsers when it was first released in 2008. Recently I've seen installs with 4,095.00 MB showing for Chrome in Control Panel. My own shows Chrome as taking up 5x the space of Firefox ESR.

[5eraph]

I'm running Firefox 45.0.2.  Maybe that has something to do with it.

Then again, it's almost time for you to migrate to ESR 45. 

[FranceBB]

Chrome is more bloated than Firefox, BUT it can divide its process. Dividing them, it's able to use all the amount of RAM needed (and it doesn't have a big, single process capped to 2GB of RAM as Firefox has, instead) and it's able to use every core on multithread systems.

[sdfox7]

10 hours ago, 5eraph said:

I'm running Firefox 45.0.2.  Maybe that has something to do with it.

Then again, it's almost time for you to migrate to ESR 45. 

EOL for 38.x.x ESR is 05/31/2016. If the past is any indication I will auto-updated to 45.x.x around that date.

[nostaglic98]

Personally, I have given up on Firefox these days given the insistence on "rapid releases" and the "Asstrails" user interface.

Until recently, Chrome seemed like the appropriate choice, with Pale Moon as an alternative on my Windows 7 system.

With the "impending doom" of Chrome on OS X Snow Leopard I switched over to Sea-Monkey, which is essentially Firefox and found it to be far more agreeable than other browsers. And its seemingly more stable, too.

[sdfox7]

9 hours ago, nostaglic98 said:

Personally, I have given up on Firefox these days given the insistence on "rapid releases" and the "Asstrails" user interface.

Until recently, Chrome seemed like the appropriate choice, with Pale Moon as an alternative on my Windows 7 system.

With the "impending doom" of Chrome on OS X Snow Leopard I switched over to Sea-Monkey, which is essentially Firefox and found it to be far more agreeable than other browsers. And its seemingly more stable, too.

I don't particularly care for the rapid release either; such is the reason I use the Extended Support Release (ESR) designed for schools, universities and organizations. Support for an ESR generally lasts for over one year but you still enjoy the security updates of a fully supported version.

I highly recommend Firefox ESR, and it has been the browser that IBM has approved for employees to use on its systems since July 2010: IBM names Firefox its default browser and Rational Firefox browser support direction

The current ESR 38.x.x is the version I use; its support lifecycle is May 2015 to May 2016. The next ESR will be 45 and will be supported May 2016 through May 2017.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/faq/

Edited April 16, 2016 by sdfox7

[5eraph]

20 hours ago, FranceBB said:

Chrome is more bloated than Firefox, BUT it can divide its process. Dividing them, it's able to use all the amount of RAM needed (and it doesn't have a big, single process capped to 2GB of RAM as Firefox has, instead) and it's able to use every core on multithread systems.

There are also security benefits to running each tab as a separate process, which was the primary reason I switched to Chrome.

Firefox usually has one process for plugins (Plugin-Container.exe) and another for everything else.  If a plugin causes mischief in a tab in Firefox then the plugin process is easy to close, but it affects all other tabs as well when it misbehaves and often locks the entire browser.

If a plugin or webpage causes a problem in Chrome, the tab can be easily closed.  The browser and the rest of the tabs remain open and stable.

Edited April 16, 2016 by 5eraph

[Stefan43]

So how is everyone doing? Still using XP as main OS? And now that Mozilla announced that Firefox supported will end (ESR until 2018) are you going to switch?

[FranceBB]

I'm still using XP and I'm not going to switch. It's October 2016; summer 2018 it's still far away. Besides, the compatibility layer may bring "fresh air" to XP in a long term run. As to the security updates, we'll be fine 'till 2019, so there's nothing to be worried about.

[dencorso]

Ditto.

[Stefan43]

23 hours ago, FranceBB said:

I'm still using XP and I'm not going to switch. It's October 2016; summer 2018 it's still far away. Besides, the compatibility layer may bring "fresh air" to XP in a long term run. As to the security updates, we'll be fine 'till 2019, so there's nothing to be worried about.

I wonder why the POSReady hack still works, because some companies need to pay Microsoft for Windows XP updates, which is strange because there is a free method.

[FranceBB]

@Stefan43... for the same reason why companies spend a lot of quids for softwares like Adobe Premiere, Final Cut etc instead of downloading a crack. Basically, if you work in a company and you run cracked programs or you use invalid licences, you can be fined up to 100k £ (worse case scenario). By the way, the XP paid support is called "premier support" and you can ask Microsoft here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftservices/support.aspx

Anyway, despite the fact that we are getting the POSReady updates for free, since the OS is slightly different (it has less functionalities), it would be interesting to know whether Microsoft has released different packages for the premier support compared to the POSReady ones. Think about it. Since in the POSReady version some functionalities are disabled, they can't be used by hackers as "gateway", but what about XP? Besides, it would also be interesting to know whether Microsoft would be interested in keeping the premier support after 2019 or not.

Edited October 20, 2016 by FranceBB