XP Home can be as good as Pro ...

Still the fastest Windows virtual machine, so I'll keep it in the near future. Anyways, it sure has become off-topic.

 

The main things that might eventually kill XP for me would be the lack of an up-to-date browser and failing harware support. Still a few years off yet! After that ... Linux probably.

But to return to topic! I'm fairly convinced that most if not all the security hardening that can be done in Pro can also be done in Home, either with tools or reg edits.

 

I assume both Chrome and Firefox will be dropping XP support soon after MS does.

 

I doubt that, I don't think there would be any particular reason to make them incompatible with XP. I can't think of any browsers other than recent versions of Internet Explorer which won't run on XP - and in the case of IE it was done specifically to encourage people to upgrade to a newer version of Windows.

 

Because of the lack of security updates, and because Microsoft will not fix bugs. I don't see why they'd continue to support it for more than 6 months after.

 

I don't know about Google, but I wouldn't think that Mozilla would stop releasing XP compatible versions of Firefox.

I remember a year ago when some people were predicting the demise of Firefox itself in around 12 months.

It doesn't seem to be going anywhere does it?

 

It's not so much about continuing to support XP, but the fact that a single version of a browser will support XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8, unless they specifically code it to not run under XP. That seems like an unlikely prospect, because unlike Microsoft they have no financial reason for doing so.

 

Thanks for the link.

 

I wouldn't call late 2014 the near future.

 

I'm not mad and your right, Linux is probability the way to go

 

I'm probably headed that way myself, especially since I mostly game on my mobile device these days (cheap as dirt games, great graphics, no constant hardware treadmill..yes sir, I'll take that). It's also, in my opinion of course, far easier to secure say, Ubuntu, without having to throw money at and worrying about compatible 3rd party solutions. MS is still a good company at the end of the day, despite my seeing them go backwards. However, the days of "Windows makes the world go 'round" are quite over.

 

A probable eventual move to Linux informs my choice of hardware upgrades. I recently bought a Brother printer in the knowledge that it's supported with Linux drivers.

 

I'm going to run my x64 Win 7 box for as long as I can, but Ubuntu will probably be the way forward for me eventually. There have been x64 versions of Firefox & SeaMonkey for Linux for quite a while now I believe. Plus Jeff Chen claims that a Linux Maxthon browser is in development.

 

Linux is a great replacement solution for XP users.
especially Mint.

but if you are like me and are a Illustrator/Photoshop user then you are pretty much stuck with Windows.

 

I would miss Paint.NET but there is a Linux fork of that (somewhere).