Firefox XP support will shift to ESR 52, drop in mainline past 51

[cc333]

5 hours ago, mixit said:

And in the particular case of Firefox, which has been losing market share with no trend reversal in sight, I somehow doubt that shaving off a still significant percentage of users will result in all those users immediately upgrading their OS just to continue to use Firefox...

Well, I'm certainly not upgrading my OS arbitrarily, especially when everything else works fine (including, I might add, my antivirus (Avast)).

If/when the time comes, I'm sure someone will recompile Firefox and distribute a fork for XP (I'm hoping someone does this for OS X Snow Leopard 10.6, as that is probably my favorite modern OS X version, and is sort of like Apple's equivalent of XP). Given that there's still about ~8%-10% market share, it only makes sense.

Fun Fact: My local community college's counseling office still uses XP on their check in computer

I'm not seeing plain XP in the wild nearly as much as I used to, but it's still fairly common.

c

[jaclaz]

23 minutes ago, cc333 said:

Well, I'm certainly not upgrading my OS arbitrarily, especially when everything else works fine (including, I might add, my antivirus (Avast)).

... which is good , think about the good MS guys (whose work is actually to upgrade your OS arbitrarily, particularly when everything works fine  ) they would all need to find some new activities ...

jaclaz

 

[mixit]

50 minutes ago, cc333 said:

(I'm hoping someone does this for OS X Snow Leopard 10.6, as that is probably my favorite modern OS X version, and is sort of like Apple's equivalent of XP)

You could try this workaround to see if it works on 10.6 as well. I have to say I detest this type of disabling of working programs for idelogical reasons. There's not even any profit to be made from this for them. Not that a profit reason would be any better, but at least there'd be some sort of a point to it.

[cc333]

Indeed?!

I'll have to give that a try. Such arbitrary crippling of programs is wrong.

I'm not surprised, though. Apple has been doing this sort of thing, in one for or another, for DECADES now, so the precedence is set.

c

[Dibya]

Any one here is willing like me to beat Good MS Guys ?

I generally don't beaten someone ever in my life. I never  did so in my life seriously but i wish to beat Good Ms Guys.

I never like to quarrel with some one . I hate that most . Today i really wish   to beat ms peeps.

I hate them . They are worser than anything . Master mind of brainwashing . If they wanted money for supporting xp we 500million xp user may have donated some for more 12 support . isn't we?

What more they should do to move from my good xp to hell 10?

Hey firefox peeps , why don't you make xp compatible if it work ? have you taken some nice amount from MS?

It not only should go to firefox even to cromium , there browser should work . I don't know what is the use of GetThreadID & Asquarelock Exclusive in a browser . This iids lying around doing nothing only to prevent xp.

In internet it is flooded with wrong information , Some one wrote he is getting more fps in nfs most wanted under 7 than xp . Which is never possible .I believe here also many diehard xp gamers are here like me. Someone said in web it is impossible run office 2010 in xp . Someone is telling windows 7 is running faster on p3 pc rather than Xp. It is impossible .

I really hate such crack head peoples.

Edited October 1, 2016 by Dibya

[Flasche]

Regarding Firefox 52 it is currently categorized under the nightly builds, and one can download 52.0a1 from this site. https://nightly.mozilla.org/

[sdfox7]

On 9/30/2016 at 2:35 PM, mixit said:

You could try this workaround to see if it works on 10.6 as well. I have to say I detest this type of disabling of working programs for idelogical reasons. There's not even any profit to be made from this for them. Not that a profit reason would be any better, but at least there'd be some sort of a point to it.

What I find interesting is that many of these developers claim they need to strip the legacy code, all in the name of keeping install package sizes at a "manageable" size. It's an ironic argument because, if anything, new programs just keep increasing!

The XP code in these programs likely adds a negligible/trivial amount to the size of these programs. None of these programmers are going to reduce their program size from 11,000 to 1,000 lines just by removing XP code. Granted, that article is years old, but it is relevant in terms of efficiency.

Over the last several years, I have watched Microsoft Office and Adobe Reader grow to monstrous sizes without any discernible (in my eyes) increase or improvement in performance.

Microsoft, and others, do not understand the following concept: by removing compatibility in newer products, it keeps people on older products with the compatibility!

[mixit]

No eleventh hour saves, it seems: "This was approved so we'll be moving forward."

Some points made by Mozillians to explain why they're doing this, ranging from technical issues to some rather curious ideology.

"We're currently leveraging Google's chromium sandbox library for content security, and they decided to drop Vista support from their library at the same time they dropped XP support from it. So we've had to rope Vista in as well."

"Supporting XP is actually become quite a problem for our releng teams in that data center testing hardware doesn't support XP anymore. So for example we currently use AWS for most of our testing, but have XP tests running on old hardware we have to maintain ourselves in a data center. It's issues like this that push us to move XP out to an extended support release where we can decommission most of our automated testing associated with it."

(Why not reduce their "burden" by dropping Linux & macOS instead of XP & Vista since the latter still have more users combined and greater platform similarity to newer Win?)
"One reason would be that we want to support competing and alternative OSes rather than contributing to a future where Windows would be the only viable desktop OS choice.
Also, XP and Vista are dying while Mac and Linux are not. To compete with multi-billion dollar companies like Microsoft, Apple and Google, we need to focus on the future rather than burning resources by clinging to the past."

 

[Jody Thornton]

Can you really disagree with that though?  The ESR release will run on XP and Vista for quite some time.  Besides newer mainline versions will likely lump in together stuff that XP won't want or need anyway.

Isn't being able to run Windows XP until 2019 good enough?  Would you REALLY want to still run it past then? It will be 18-year old software then.

And before you say I'm being disparaging with my remarks to XP users, yet you're thinking, "Wait, didn't this guy fret over security issues when XP ran out of support two years ago?".  And yes, you'd be right.  Windows XP x64 Edition was likely one of the best environments on my HP xw8200.  It was a perfect match. .... but that was two years ago, and things change.

Windows 8, when tweaked (and even Vista to an extent) are WAY BETTER environments to perform daily work on.  And you have to adopt the mindset that times move on for hardware too.  I used to be one of those that HATED how much bloat the Component Store (WinSxS folder) took up in Windows Vista and higher.  I HATED when others said, "15 GB is now the norm for an OS installation and HDD space is plentiful, so get used to it."  Because in my mind, even XP's 3 GB footprint was too much.  .... but then I realized, wait!  The Component Store actually makes sense.  It really does cure DLL Hell, and so what if it's a bloated method of doing this?  It works.  And now with Windows 8, I can clean the wasted space in The Component Store quite easily.

Plus hardware has come a long way.  So an OS REQUIRING 2 GB of RAM is really no big deal.  It used to irk, and then I asked, Why?  So what?  So I no longer am bothered that RAM and disk requirements are higher.  I would never use less than 4 GB of RAM nowadays any way.

Go to the Windows 8 forum on here, and see all of the effort that NoelC (who seems quite brilliant in a lot of ways, and has a very sensible approach to things) is putting forth to getting the most out of Windows 8.1.  It really is quite a notch above XP.  I'm not saying don't use XP.  But saying it's the most secure OS out there, or wanting to use "XP Forever" is a stretch.  Saying that since no security apocalypse has maligned XP over the last two years, that means that security concerns are FUD, I can't agree with that.  We have nuclear power plants in Pickering, Ontario and I do believe they pose a certain level of danger.  Is that any less true because there hasn't been an explosion yet?

Again, it's just a change of mind, and I feel that I've learned to see Windows NT 6x as having merit, and I suppose that I'm starting to understand why Windows XP is rightfully being left behind.  No harm meant, but I will express my opinions likewise.

Edited October 16, 2016 by JodyT

[dencorso]

Well, I, for one, think one can resist and remain using, say, XP SP3 x86 for as long as one's able to...
I've just decommissioned my last Win 98SE Athlon XP machine, after realizing I hadn't booted 98SE once in the last 12 months and didn't even notice it.
Nowadays I think running anything on a non-SSE2 processor isn't worth the while. And I've never ever come around to installing 98SE in my newer hardware.
That said, I do not think it's reasonable to expect anyone to continue supporting the OS I want to run, just because I'm a die-hard.
I do bellieve that adapting to the OS being dropped all around is part of the game, for those who intend seriously to keep using it.
There: I've said it!

[Way off topic] And, BTW, the sooner people realize the only way for our huge population to live suistainably on this world, in case there actually is one, involves embracing nuclear power, the sooner the world will have a chance to keep going. But that's not really a topic to discuss here, I do know. [/Way off topic]

It's great to agree to disagree... that makes for dialogue and understanding: there's no true democracy without dialectics!

[Dibya]

23 hours ago, JodyT said:

Can you really disagree with that though?  The ESR release will run on XP and Vista for quite some time.  Besides newer mainline versions will likely lump in together stuff that XP won't want or need anyway.

Isn't being able to run Windows XP until 2019 good enough?  Would you REALLY want to still run it past then? It will be 18-year old software then.

And before you say I'm being disparaging with my remarks to XP users, yet you're thinking, "Wait, didn't this guy fret over security issues when XP ran out of support two years ago?".  And yes, you'd be right.  Windows XP x64 Edition was likely one of the best environments on my HP xw8200.  It was a perfect match. .... but that was two years ago, and things change.

Windows 8, when tweaked (and even Vista to an extent) are WAY BETTER environments to perform daily work on.  And you have to adopt the mindset that times move on for hardware too.  I used to be one of those that HATED how much bloat the Component Store (WinSxS folder) took up in Windows Vista and higher.  I HATED when others said, "15 GB is now the norm for an OS installation and HDD space is plentiful, so get used to it."  Because in my mind, even XP's 3 GB footprint was too much.  .... but then I realized, wait!  The Component Store actually makes sense.  It really does cure DLL Hell, and so what if it's a bloated method of doing this?  It works.  And now with Windows 8, I can clean the wasted space in The Component Store quite easily.

Plus hardware has come a long way.  So an OS REQUIRING 2 GB of RAM is really no big deal.  It used to irk, and then I asked, Why?  So what?  So I no longer am bothered that RAM and disk requirements are higher.  I would never use less than 4 GB of RAM nowadays any way.

Go to the Windows 8 forum on here, and see all of the effort that NoelC (who seems quite brilliant in a lot of ways, and has a very sensible approach to things) is putting forth to getting the most out of Windows 8.1.  It really is quite a notch above XP.  I'm not saying don't use XP.  But saying it's the most secure OS out there, or wanting to use "XP Forever" is a stretch.  Saying that since no security apocalypse has maligned XP over the last two years, that means that security concerns are FUD, I can't agree with that.  We have nuclear power plants in Pickering, Ontario and I do believe they pose a certain level of danger.  Is that any less true because there hasn't been an explosion yet?

Again, it's just a change of mind, and I feel that I've learned to see Windows NT 6x as having merit, and I suppose that I'm starting to understand why Windows XP is rightfully being left behind.  No harm meant, but I will express my opinions likewise.

I also have 8.1 with aeroglass and classic shell . No way to leave . XP runs faster than 8.1 in every aspect on ssd.

Windows XP Forever

after few all will be seeing xp users running newer apps than 7.

[FranceBB]

@JodyT... I tried Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and Windows 10; yet, my favourite OS is Windows Server 2008 R2 for business related stuff, and XP as home and daily usage.

Anyway, Windows XP uses old APIs and is missing several functions, like the one which allows you to receive push notifications from apps/programs on your computer as it was your mobile. There are many other functions that have been added in newer OS, but many of them are actually made to have an OS as close as possible between mobile and desktop. Do you actually really need them in a desktop environment? No. Besides, I don't like the new Microsoft policy of a "packed Pc ready to use", which resembles the Apple style. They want to release an OS as simple as possible to use for the common users, removing and blocking certain things in order to prevent users from damaging the OS itself. One example? Microsoft did include the Classic style in Windows 10, but blocked it by purpose because MS guys wanted people to get used to a single UI...  Do you get where I'm coming from?  

Anyway, let's stay in topic and talk about Firefox.

Even though their decision is quite possible to understand, I wouldn't actually like to have XP moved to the ESR branch so soon. Maybe we should encourage people to have their say in the Firefox page, so that we can convince them to keep supporting XP.

Edited October 16, 2016 by FranceBB

[mixit]

@JodyT
I can't say I understand the need to proselytize at a subforum dedicated to using a certain OS when one has personally moved on from said OS and no longer considers it viable. But to each their own.

In this age of ubiquitous virtualization, people can (and do) run various versions of Windows, OSX/macOS, Linux/BSD, etc. side by side on the same machine and don't necessarily have a burning need for guidance in terms of what their preference should be. People here at MSFN, at least. So, if someone happens to prefer XP for most of their everyday needs, one would expect that's because XP does what they need (and/or doesn't do certain other things), not because it's the Jesus Christ of operating systems.

In any case, I think what we should do is ditch our houses and spouses if we've had them for more than 18 years. After all, do we REALLY want them anymore, when a newer and hotter option is available? I mean, I know this guy (who seems quite brilliant in a lot of ways, and has a very sensible approach to things) who got himself a hot new wife and he's certainly putting forth the effort to get the most out of her, if you know what I mean. (This is absloutely not a dig at @NoelC, one of my favorite posters here. Nor do I have any particular disagreement with his passion for 8.1. I just couldn't help this detour into logical extreme )

Yes, I really can disagree with the statement I bolded. The reason I bolded it was not because I think that Mozilla must under no circumstances abandon XP. It just sounds kind of delusional to see them aping Chrome in almost everything, and then talking about "competing with multi-billion dollar companies" as a reason for their decisions (while "leveraging" Google's code to the extent of being forced into platform-abandoning bandwagon because of it). And color me naive, but I'd expect the type of organization Mozilla claims to be to try a bit harder at providing choice for their entire user base, not decimating it because of perceived inconvenience. At least I personally wouldn't feel comfortable doing this to "15% of our several hundred million users", I would wait for the number to drop much lower than that. (At least if there are no actual signs of security XPcalypse in progress.)

EDIT: Oh, and did I miss something about people calling XP "the most secure OS out there"? I don't see anyone claiming that in this thread and frankly don't recall ever seeing such claims anywhere.

Edited October 16, 2016 by mixit

[NoelC]

Metaphor mix alert!  Metaphor mix alert!  Metaphor mix alert!

  For what it's worth, my actual wife of 37 years has white hair and I wouldn't trade her for the world.  Not even the whole solar system.

-Noel

[dencorso]

1 hour ago, mixit said:

Yes, I really can disagree with the statement I bolded. The reason I bolded it was not because I think that Mozilla must under no circumstances abandon XP. It just sounds kind of delusional to see them aping Chrome in almost everything, and then talking about "competing with multi-billion dollar companies" as a reason for their decisions (while "leveraging" Google's code to the extent of being forced into platform-abandoning bandwagon because of it). And color me naive, but I'd expect the type of organization Mozilla claims to be to try a bit harder at providing choice for their entire user base, not decimating it because of perceived inconvenience. At least I personally wouldn't feel comfortable doing this to "15% of our several hundred million users", I would wait for the number to drop much lower than that. (At least if there are no actual signs of security XPcalypse in progress.)

You forget Mozilla is the heir to Netscape, and Netscape has already proven they knew how to utterly sink a winner product... I guess they've kept alive both the knowledge and the urge to do it.

1 hour ago, NoelC said:

  For what it's worth, my actual wife of 37 years has white hair and I wouldn't trade her for the world.  Not even the whole solar system.

I'm 7 years short of reaching that mark, but except for that, I do fully agree, mutatis mutandis.