360 Extreme Explorer Modified Version

[Mathwiz]

As I also reported in @roytam1's browser thread, for the second time this year Chase.com has upped their minimum required browser version.

The first time, they raised it to Chrome 95, but our browsers based on Chromium 86/87 still work as long as you override the user agent.

Now, they're raising it again. A trial-and-error search indicates the new requirement will be Chrome 109. That cuts out my old Android 6 phone, which topped out at Chrome 106.

But they haven't done it yet (it's just a warning at this point), so I can't yet say whether our browsers will fail or work if we override the user agent.

[UCyborg]

@NotHereToPlayGames
I've missed your post about GFLOPs. I suppose it's true GPU is heavily involved in actual games, more than in a web browser, even if they became a bit like game engines under the hood. Another difference may be a typical game engine is optimized to do one thing well while web browsers became a sort of Swiss army knives.

We haven't really seen how Chromium would perform in single-process mode on PC, if such mode existed. But there is a RAM saving trick on Android, if you opt to use a web browser using Chromium WebView instead of full-blown web browser, that will run in a single process or two at most in newer Androids if I recall correctly. Though WebView may have restrictions when it comes to certain functionality.

In any case, hardware resources in this day and age are abundant, have you seen computers they sell these days? It's not hard to see why they'll tell you to get on with the times if you're complaining about your single-core single-monitor system from 20 years ago. The world has changed since then.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2021/08/24/why-web-design-has-gotten-so-complicated/

Jeez, 'been looking at the computers a bit and compared one typical PC today sold in a store to mine - from AMD Phenom II X4 920 to AMD Ryzen 5 5500:

• 4 cores -> 6 cores
• 4 threads -> 12 threads
• single-core frequency: 2,8 GHz -> 3,6 GHz (with a 4,2 GHz boost!)
• TDP: 125 W -> 65 W

RAM: 4 GB DDR2 800 MHz -> 16 GB DDR4 3200 MHz

Similar with GPU, put AMD Radeon HD 4890 from 2009 against a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti from 2023. Not fair at all! Well, have a bit newer GTX 750 Ti ATM, but that's besides the point.

Back in high-school, I remember a class-mate saying 1 GB of VRAM is plenty and you hardly ever need it. RTX 4060 Ti has 16 GB of VRAM! Funny you mention consoles, there was a discussion at some point regarding consoles vs PC and there was an argument that you don't need to upgrade consoles, that was all in PS3/X360 era. Ha, 3 newer PlayStations were released since. Guess it's true in a way, you just buy a new one. But with computers, you're still pretty much replacing the heart as soon as you go into CPU upgrade, which tend to imply new motherboard and RAM, especially if there's such an age gap.

[NotHereToPlayGames]

1 hour ago, UCyborg said:

Jeez, 'been looking at the computers a bit and compared one typical PC today sold in a store to mine - from AMD Phenom II X4 920 to AMD Ryzen 5 5500:

• 4 cores -> 6 cores
• 4 threads -> 12 threads
• single-core frequency: 2,8 GHz -> 3,6 GHz (with a 4,2 GHz boost!)
• TDP: 125 W -> 65 W

RAM: 4 GB DDR2 800 MHz -> 16 GB DDR4 3200 MHz

That's just it.  We don't need top-of-the-line.  A mid to low level PC may require a RAM upgrade but computers really are CHEAP.

None of us here at MSFN live in a Third World Country and the shear REALITY is we could ALL have a brand new computer if we really wanted one!

Cost of computer in 1971 = $750.  That's $4,659 adjusted for inflation.

An Apple I in 1976 cost $667.  That's $2,949 adjusted for inflation.

An Apple II in 1977 cost $1,298.  That's $5,389 adjusted for inflation.

A Commodore VIC-20 cost $299 in 1980.  That's $913 adjusted for inflation.

A Commodore 64 cost $595 in 1982.  That's $1,551 adjusted for inflation.

An Apple Macintosh cost $2,495 in 1984.  That's $6,042 adjusted for inflation.

A Toshiba Satellite laptop cost $2,499 in 2002.  That's $3,495 adjusted for inflation.

A Toshiba Satellite laptop cost $330 in 2013.

 

Point is, computers are CHEAP.  This isn't 1977 where an Apple II cost 9.6% of an entire year's average wage.

[D.Draker]

3 hours ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

A Toshiba Satellite laptop cost $330 in 2013.

Is this a joke?

Toshiba Satellite more like one grand in 2013, esp. if you're in Western Europe.

https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/toshiba-satellite-u845t-s4165

[NotHereToPlayGames]

1 hour ago, D.Draker said:

Is this a joke?

No.

https://247wallst.com/special-report/2018/06/18/cost-of-a-computer-the-year-you-were-born-2/

[NotHereToPlayGames]

But computers are like cars - you can spend $18,000 for a brand new Mirage or Rio and get from Point A to Point B - https://www.cars.com/articles/here-are-the-10-cheapest-new-cars-you-can-buy-right-now-421309/

Or you can spend $58,000 for a Lexus and not get from Point A to Point B any faster - https://www.cars.com/research/search/?style[]=luxury&years[]=2024&sort=highest_price

[UCyborg]

Aye, you really get much more for the same price, even if just looking at the last decade. Though the phenomenon as it appears to me is that average MSFNer seems to have fixated himself on one particular point in history, even though the personal computing has been advancing ever since the 70s. And while Commodore 64 with the accompanying software may rust in a museum, XP and the accompanying hardware is supposed to be forever. 

1 hour ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

None of us here at MSFN live in a Third World Country and the shear REALITY is we could ALL have a brand new computer if we really wanted one!

Maybe not on MSFN, but stark differences exist even in supposedly first world countries. I watched a documentary by Simon Reeve recently, here's a part of it:

[UCyborg]

3 minutes ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

But computers are like cars

Oh yeah, you can't say Volkswagen or any other car manufacturer's been sitting on its a** in the last 20 years either.

It gets even more interesting when you go further into the past - I watched a documentary titled Cars of socialism recently, though I can't find it online. The cars they were driving back then...holy moly...there was one notorious model in the documentary that I forgot how it was called that emitted a shitload of smoke when it was running, not sure if it was manufactured in Eastern Germany or I mixed it up with the other model...and I thought my previous 2001 VW Polo was a stinker!

[Dixel]

3 hours ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

No.

https://247wallst.com/special-report/2018/06/18/cost-of-a-computer-the-year-you-were-born-2/

No.

The Toshiba Satellite C55D-B5244 ($469.99 as tested) is a budget ...

https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/toshiba-satellite-c55d-b5244

[UCyborg]

23 minutes ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

Or you can spend $58,000 for a Lexus and not get from Point A to Point B any faster

What about if you buy a Bugatti Chiron for 3+ million? It gets to 60 mph in 2,3 seconds. How sensitive is the gas pedal anyway? Some clumsy chump like me might kill himself the first minute. Not that I'll ever be able to afford it.

[NotHereToPlayGames]

51 minutes ago, UCyborg said:

XP and the accompanying hardware is supposed to be forever. 

[Mathwiz]

7 hours ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

A Toshiba Satellite laptop cost $330 in 2013.

Do you know how much the last computer I bought cost me? $10.41 in 2020. It was a Raspberry Pi 3B+. Heck, the cost of a keyboard, monitor and mouse  (especially the monitor) would dwarf the cost of the computer itself. It was so cheap I "splurged" and got a case for it for another $11. Sure, it doesn't run Windows - it runs (free) Linux - but it's amazingly powerful!

So I really think the cost of new hardware is a complete red herring. The real reason folks stick with their "favorite" Windows, be it 7, Vista, XP, or even 2000, is that M$ has made it a royal PITA to "upgrade."

First, you usually need a new PC. You might be able to upgrade one time "in place," say, from Windows 7 to 8, but why would you want to? And to go from 7 to 10, you're probably gonna need a new PC.

Then, how do you get all your apps and everything off your old PC and onto your new one? Gone are the 9x days when you could just pull the HDD out of the old PC. plunk it into the new one, and install the new Windows version. In fact, in all likelihood, the new PC won't even run the old Windows version! No, instead you need to buy special software to move everything over - and even then, it usually fails on at least a few of your apps.

And even if you get all that done successfully, M$ always manages to screw up something that was working fine in the previous Windows version. Did anyone really like the "Metro" UI that came with Win 8? Heck, you can make Win 7 look just like Win 98 if you want, so why did M$ forget that lesson and make that Metro monstrosity mandatory on Win 8? And with Win 10/11, it's the same story: you're gonna get the new UI whether you like it or not. Not to mention M$ dropping WMC with Win 10 (yes, I'm aware there's an unofficial way to keep it during an upgrade).

To be blunt, if you're gonna "upgrade" to Win 10/11, you ought to at least consider a Mac or Linux. Both offer a Windows environment that's probably as easy to port your apps to as the latest/"greatest" Windows.

[NotHereToPlayGames]

4 hours ago, Mathwiz said:

So I really think the cost of new hardware is a complete red herring. The real reason folks stick with their "favorite" Windows, be it 7, Vista, XP, or even 2000, is that M$ has made it a royal PITA to "upgrade."

Agreed!

Especially considering your keyboard, mouse, and monitors will carry over to that "upgrade".  Definitely easier than the software.

But even migrating software to me seems a red herring, it's really not "that" difficult to migrate software from one computer to the next.

Windows Updates are a much bigger PITA (of no concern to me, I don't install "updates", I do occasionally install hotfixes but doing so is not important to me, seen them BREAK software and printer installations WAY too many times).

 

Proof that cost of hardware is a complete red herring - compare your computer to your PHONE (I don't have one!) and track just how much that PHONE costs you compared to your computer.

And people will "upgrade" that phone every two years and not think twice!  Constantly tied to a multi-year contract, RENTING the phone month by month, because the "phone was free" when they signed the "rental agreement".

[NotHereToPlayGames]

6 hours ago, Mathwiz said:

It was a Raspberry Pi 3B+.

Sweet!  We have Raspberry Pi's running some of our factory equipment.

[UCyborg]

I wonder if web devs like what they're doing, especially those involved in constant employment of whatever new shinies the web browsers have to offer. And what about web browser developers, especially the ones in Google/Mozilla camp.