End of Firefox Support for Windows 2000

Nonsense.

 

For me, it's not the new software (OS) that drives the change, but rather the hardware that seems to fail after 4 or 5 years. I've had many computers, and most of them seem to die or have problems after that amount of time. So I buy a new computer roughly every 4 or 5 years, and of course, with it comes a newer OS. What could be more natural?

 

I'm no expert, but is there anything built by humans made to last forever? Some things may last a great amount of years, but not exactly forever.

Your clothes won't last forever. Your cars won't last forever; some of the car parts won't last more than a year or so, or even less if the mechanic "screws" something. Your CDs won't last forever. Your gadgets won't last forever.

Heck, not even the sun will last forever... I won't last forever either.

Microsoft won't last forever either. Fortunately... or not, you won't be around to complain about it.

Maybe by then, even open source collaborators got sick and tired of collaborating to open source projects and there won't be any...

Enjoy while you can. And, if to enjoy you must adapt, adapt... or don't...

 

And that is why since there are alternative to bloating the pocket of whoever, I'll choose from the alternatives

 

For me, it's been the opposite. I've had one PC fail since I've started. That was an early 95 unit that was on its last legs when I got it. The only hard drives I've had fail were 2GB and smaller, aka very old. I've worn out lots of CD and floppy drives, several monitors, and more keyboards than I want to remember. Beyond that, I've yet to have any PC that came with 98FE or newer fail, covering many makes and models. My hardware runs 24/7. Granted, my hardware is older, but it makes me question if the newer hardware is designed to fail, or if the newer operating systems wear out the hardware faster. No, I have no evidence to support this, just as I can't explain the long running durability I've observed with my hardware, none of which I bought new and none of which is/was high end equipment.

 

I don't think newer hardware is really designed to fail sooner, but I do believe that it's much cheaper made nowadays. That may account for the difference. Honestly though, if I can get 5 years out of a PC, then I really don't mind spending the money on a new one when the old one fails.

 

It's about time.

 

Free hardware? That must have been a long list to Santa.

 

OS? Hardware?

 

I absolutely agree. It is not designed to fail sooner, but in the old days computers had gold contacts where there is now copper or even copper plated tin, it is much cheaper and almost as effective but oxidizes over time. Just one example. It's an unfortunate side effect of trying to be more cost efficient.

All of this talk of 5 years from a PC. I can't even imagine. In the 90s and early 2000s I upgraded every 6 months as the pace of speed increases almost doubled in that time frame back then. Things have slowed since then but as a gamer/enthusiast 2 years is about the maximum for a machine for me. My parents get it at that time. And honestly it is still a better machine than some of the average new ones at that point in time.

I look forward to when Firefox pulls out all of the stops and puts out a release version of a 64 bit browser and we can put all of this outdated stuff back in the box it came in and move on.

 

Yep, you can say that again...

 

Say, anyone know how this will affect Seamonkey?

 

Things used to be made to last but it didn't take long for money-grubbing corporations to figure out that's not where the profit is. It's all about the $$. Simple really.

 

Thanks, that's basically what I've been trying to say. We live in an era of enforced obsolescence.

 

http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.apps.seamonkey/browse_thread/thread/4dbd921b2565f33a

 

It is all about the $$. "Money-grubbing corporations" are in business to make money. They will sell whatever the consumers will buy. If consumers won't buy the well-made, long lasting, expensive computers, then they either:

1. keep selling the long lasting computers to no one & go out of business, or
2. start selling cheaper, short-lifetime computers that consumers will buy.

Basic supply & demand.

 

Not completely. With many other goods that's true, but not here.
Regarding #1,
Most people don't buy computer hardware. They buy a complete computer, with an OS. No matter how well the hardware is made, the OS has an end date. Paying more gets the user no more supported lifespan than they would if they buy the cheap stuff. The user can't rely on the hardware being able to run th next OS properly.

Regarding #2,
That's where we're at now, 2nd rate hardware made in sweatshops by virtual slaves with employers who view them as little more than "animals". Purchasing these supports that business model and creates that kind of jobs. This business model isn't limited to China. It's sponsored by domestic companies who would do the same thing at home if they could get away with it. Our laws don't allow that, yet.

The law of supply and demand isn't the driving force here but it is used as an excuse. The real law governing this is much more fundamental. That law is:

What goes around comes around.

The laws of supply and demand have been bypassed by planned obsolescense policies that void them. If Microsoft would sell upgradable, modular operating systems that weren't made to become obsolete in a few years, then hardware quality would be a legitimate factor. The laws of supply and demand would apply and people could buy a new PC when they wanted one or when hardware advances made it worthwhile. The total number of computers own by users is steadily growing. It's not like they'd go out of business, but that isn't good enough to satisfy corporate greed.

 

Your perspective is interesting. You see it as kind of like a corporate conspiracy to give OSs lifetimes. I guess I see it as natural advancement which is directly related to hardware techology advances. XP is closing in on 11-years-old, how much have hard drives changed in that time? Look at the evolution of serial & parallel ports, USB ports, Geeze- could you even buy a bluetooth mouse when xp first came out? At some point the user needs to hack it himself to keep it running.

My point- I've got no problem whatsoever with people running really old systems. My dad has an Apple IIe THAT HE STILL USES FOR REAL. But he's not looking to Apple for updates so he can sync his ipod to it.

 

I was thinking about writing a long, rambling post on economics but decided against it. Suffice it to say it's a big misconception that supply and demand still drive the market. Greed does.

 

"Greed Does"

I agree 1000%

 

You can hate the system all you like - I agree that we've moved far beyond simple supply and demand (we always were beyond this.) Whether MS does it out of greed or not doesn't really effect anything - newer OS's have newer technology, which leads to both performance and security benefits.

Firefox will now be able to take advantage of the former, leading to significant performance gains. Palemoon boasted an average of 25% increase on all benchmarks when it first started using a new compiler. So we can hope to see something similar to that just by cutting out this old essentially dead OS.

 

Just got a (free) kernel update and will get a new (free) OS in April.

 

So you reckon Firefox should keep compatibility for a version of Ubuntu from 10 years ago and sacrifice any possible performance gains by removing said compatibility? Price has nothing to do with this topic.

 

Re Palemoon Browser: http://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=484&p=2072#p2072

 

I think what he's saying is that if you hate the system there's a really great system available to move to that allows for you to continue to get patches etc without paying money.

Palemoon cuts out OSX support and uses a newer compiler. It also compiles with SSE instructions.

The thing here is that new compilers take advantage of new optimizations. New optimizations = faster and lighter programs. By cutting 2000 support they can now use newer optimizations.