https://www.neowin.net/news/firefox-115-is-out-the-last-version-to-support-windows-7-and-8/

Mozilla has announced Firefox 115 today and it’s a pretty big deal.
Aside from bringing several new changes, which you can read below, it’s
the last version of Firefox that will support Windows 7 and Windows 8
and 8.1.

Luckily for users of those very old operating systems, Firefox 115 is
an Extended Support Release (ESR) version, so you’ll continue to get
security updates for quite a while. Firefox 115 is also the last major
version of Firefox that will support Apple macOS 10.12, 10.13, and
10.14. If you use any of these systems, you’ll be migrated to Firefox
ESR seamlessly.

--
Zo

"Emulate your heros, but don't carry it too far. Especially
if they are dead."

On Tue, 04 Jul 2023 16:29:45 -0400, Zo wrote:
> https://www.neowin.net/news/firefox-115-is-out-the-last-version-to-support-windows-7-and-8/
>
> Mozilla has announced Firefox 115 today and it’s a pretty big deal.
> Aside from bringing several new changes, which you can read below, it’s
> the last version of Firefox that will support Windows 7 and Windows 8
> and 8.1.
>
> Luckily for users of those very old operating systems, Firefox 115 is
> an Extended Support Release (ESR) version, so you’ll continue to get
> security updates for quite a while. Firefox 115 is also the last major
> version of Firefox that will support Apple macOS 10.12, 10.13, and
> 10.14. If you use any of these systems, you’ll be migrated to Firefox
> ESR seamlessly.

Firefox (including Chromium) simply want to use Vulkan which is only
available starting from Windows 10. Claiming that it's for better security
is a big BS.

Zo <homenet@newsbill.net> wrote:

> https://www.neowin.net/news/firefox-115-is-out-the-last-version-to-support-windows-7-and-8/
>
> Mozilla has announced Firefox 115 today and it’s a pretty big deal.
> Aside from bringing several new changes, which you can read below, it’s
> the last version of Firefox that will support Windows 7 and Windows 8
> and 8.1.
>
> Luckily for users of those very old operating systems, Firefox 115 is
> an Extended Support Release (ESR) version, so you’ll continue to get
> security updates for quite a while. Firefox 115 is also the last major
> version of Firefox that will support Apple macOS 10.12, 10.13, and
> 10.14. If you use any of these systems, you’ll be migrated to Firefox
> ESR seamlessly.

A bit concerned about a new feature in FF 115 that can regulate which
extensions can operate on which domains.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/quarantined-domains

Smacks of Google's Manifest v3 that cripples adblockers. There's no
information from Mozilla on qualifies a domain as immune to extensions.
It's Mozilla's choice, not yours. For now, there is an about:config
setting you can configure to disable this "feature", but such settings
are known to eventually disappear or ignored (deprecated).

extensions.quarantinedDomains.enabled
Set to False to disable.

The list of quarantined domains (i.e., domains immune to extensions),
currently empty (for me), is specified under:

extensions.quarantinedDomains.list

The claimed security protection of disallowing extensions to operate on
an excluded domain is not described. "new back-end feature to only
allow some extensions monitored by Mozilla to run on specific websites
for various reasons, including security concerns." Oh, security
concerns, uh huh. Apparently we will later get overrides on a
per-extension basis.

Currently I don't want any of the few add-ons that I've installed into
Firefox to get excluded from any domain, not even Mozilla's. I suspect
the only one that may eventually run afoul of Mozilla's choices on
immune domains is uBlock Origin.

On 7/4/23 16:46, JJ wrote:

[snip]

> Firefox (including Chromium) simply want to use Vulkan which is only
> available starting from Windows 10. Claiming that it's for better security
> is a big BS.

Chromium a kind of Firefox?

On 7/5/2023 1:23 PM, what wrote:
> On 7/4/23 16:46, JJ wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>> Firefox (including Chromium) simply want to use Vulkan which is only
>> available starting from Windows 10. Claiming that it's for better security
>> is a big BS.
>
> Chromium a kind of Firefox?
>

There was a kind of "conspiracy to de-support Win7".
What that means is, the management of the companies
are cut from the same cloth.

Both companies announced their faltering brain power at
the same time.

There is of course, nothing to do, to make a version run on
Windows 7 and Windows 11 at the same time. The OSes share
too much in common.

Using Vulkan, is a so-so-thinly disguised ".NET ploy",
it makes you wanna face-palm. OpenGL, a mainstay of FOSS,
is still there and it still works (on both platforms). That's how
LibreOffice runs on Linux and Windows (and maybe even Mac). I'm not
even sure Vulkan is equally mature on all platforms (whatever
Apple calls their version, Metal ? ). Is writing for Vulkan and
Metal the same thing, or yet more divergence ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulkan

"Vulkan is comparable to Apple's Metal API and Microsoft's
Direct3D 12, and is harder to use than the higher-level OpenGL
and Direct3D 11 APIs. In addition to its lower CPU usage, Vulkan
is designed to allow developers to better distribute work among
multiple CPU cores."

the trouble is, you've already written your OpenGL code, and
the OpenGL would continue to run, everywhere. And I want to cry,
when a browser developer tells me they "want to save my CPU"<
when their advertisement for soap rails my CPU on one core
and causes the cooling fan on my Dark Rock cooler to spin
at full speed. They're such kind and caring assholes, those
web people. They have demonstrated their ability to save
on electricity (and RAM usage), before.

The computer draws 105 watts, every time there is a soap advert.

It's like when Microsoft "saves the planet" by turning off the
I-beam cursor in W11 Notepad, to "save electricity". Ooh, the
electricity we will save. (As far as I know, certain cursor
features are just a state machine in the GPU. The GPU can be
made to throttle down, like 2D clock not 3D clock, any time you
want.)

It takes a lot of technical talent, to make this stuff up.

Paul

what <not.email@all.invalid> wrote:

> On 7/4/23 16:46, JJ wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>> Firefox (including Chromium) simply want to use Vulkan which is only
>> available starting from Windows 10. Claiming that it's for better security
>> is a big BS.
>
> Chromium a kind of Firefox?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebGPU
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebGPU_API

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulkan
"Vulkan runs natively on Android, Linux, BSD Unix, QNX, Haiku,[24]
Nintendo Switch, Raspberry Pi, Stadia, Fuchsia, Tizen, and Windows 7, 8,
10, and 11."

Don't know why JJ thought Vulkan only runs on Windows 10, and up. I
heard about it about 3 years ago although it appeared back in 2016.
Perhaps the newest video games need the latest Vulcan drivers, and it
looks like the 1.3.x versions are for Windows 10 minimum. Don't know if
it's the games that are dictating the OS version, like you need a
minimum Vulcan driver, and that mandates the minimum OS version.

I don't play any games that use it, and never had any other software
that needs it. Other than crosswords, I don't play online games.
WebGPU is what is targeting the web browsers.

From the browser compatibility table in the 2nd article (Mozilla),
WebGPU is experimental, and available in Nightly builds, so it'll be a
bit more time before Vulcan aka WebGPU is available in a released
version of Firefox. It showed up in Chrome 113, and in Edge 114 (which
became a Chromium variant after Microsoft abandoned their EdgeHTML
rendered and Jscript interpreter for Chromium's Blink and V8).

On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 22:29:08 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:
>
> Don't know why JJ thought Vulkan only runs on Windows 10, and up. I
> heard about it about 3 years ago although it appeared back in 2016.
> Perhaps the newest video games need the latest Vulcan drivers, and it
> looks like the 1.3.x versions are for Windows 10 minimum. Don't know if
> it's the games that are dictating the OS version, like you need a
> minimum Vulcan driver, and that mandates the minimum OS version.
>
> I don't play any games that use it, and never had any other software
> that needs it. Other than crosswords, I don't play online games.
> WebGPU is what is targeting the web browsers.
>
> From the browser compatibility table in the 2nd article (Mozilla),
> WebGPU is experimental, and available in Nightly builds, so it'll be a
> bit more time before Vulcan aka WebGPU is available in a released
> version of Firefox. It showed up in Chrome 113, and in Edge 114 (which
> became a Chromium variant after Microsoft abandoned their EdgeHTML
> rendered and Jscript interpreter for Chromium's Blink and V8).

Same thing as why softwares are implemented with Win10 requirement when they
don't actually need to.

Yes, Vulkan is OS and OS version independent. But the fact is, their
implementers don't want or no longer want to support older OS versions -
even though they can.

So for Windows, Vulkan is practically available only for Win10+.

Those who are lucky enough, will have Vulkan enabled GPU driver which still
support Win7. But it's not the latest driver version.

"Zo" <homenet@newsbill.net> wrote

| Luckily for users of those very old operating systems,

It never seems to fail that when people mention
using older or "unsupported" OSs they feel compelled
to imply that anyone using them must be soft in the
head.

Win7 came out in 2010. 8.1 came out in late 2013.
10 came out a bit less than 2 years later, in 2015. It's
now 2023. So... 8 years old is current but 9 3/4 years is
"very old"?

OSs don't "age". It just reaches a point
where people building new functionality don't bother to
backport it. Then people writing software want the
convenience of that new functionalty, so they stop supporting
older systems. (I once had a program fail... I think it was on
Win98... because an idiot programmer decided to use the
unnecessary FlashWindow API, which was new at the time.
So in one frivolous, ignorant move he broke his software
on 95/98.)

95 to Active Desktop was a big leap, adding system controls
like listview, treeview, FileOpen dialogues, etc. Since then,
not so much. It's just lots of gradual changes and dramatic
window dressing fashions. Things like SSL moving to TLS was
a real, relevant change, for example. Sometimes those things
can't be backported. More often, MS and other companies just
don't want to.

MS actually did backport up to TLS2 for XP
and 7. But few people know and the update on XP requires
spoofing that you're running a kiosk system, like an ATM. MS
regularly reach a point where they refuse to support their individual
customers and only sell support, at high prices, to corporate
customers. Win7 isn't out of support if you've got the money
and will to pay MS.

In short, this is software. It can be updated. It's not like an
old car with a good engine but a rusty chassis.

Newyana2 wrote on 7/7/23 10:33 pm:
> "Zo" <homenet@newsbill.net> wrote
>
> | Luckily for users of those very old operating systems,
>
> It never seems to fail that when people mention
> using older or "unsupported" OSs they feel compelled
> to imply that anyone using them must be soft in the
> head.
>
> Win7 came out in 2010.

Umm! I brought this HP 6730b Laptop, second hand, in 2009 and it came
with Win7 (WOW32 or whatever it's called) pre-installed.

--
Daniel

Daniel65 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
> Newyana2 wrote on 7/7/23 10:33 pm:
> > "Zo" <homenet@newsbill.net> wrote
> >
> > | Luckily for users of those very old operating systems,
> >
> > It never seems to fail that when people mention
> > using older or "unsupported" OSs they feel compelled
> > to imply that anyone using them must be soft in the
> > head.
> >
> > Win7 came out in 2010.
>
> Umm! I brought this HP 6730b Laptop, second hand, in 2009 and it came
> with Win7 (WOW32 or whatever it's called) pre-installed.

Well, that must have been a very new 'second hand', because Wikipedia
says:

"Released to manufacturing July 22, 2009
General availability October 22, 2009"

'Windows 7'
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7>

On 7 Jul 2023 14:44:32 GMT, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
wrote:

>> Umm! I brought this HP 6730b Laptop, second hand, in 2009 and it came
>> with Win7 (WOW32 or whatever it's called) pre-installed.
>
> Well, that must have been a very new 'second hand', because Wikipedia
>says:
>
>"Released to manufacturing July 22, 2009
> General availability October 22, 2009"

only the laptop is second hand.
If I buy a second hand computer in a computer shop today the latest
windows version is already pre-installed. If you like it or not.

Frank Slootweg wrote on 8/7/23 12:44 am:
> Daniel65 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
>> Newyana2 wrote on 7/7/23 10:33 pm:
>>> "Zo" <homenet@newsbill.net> wrote
>>>
>>> | Luckily for users of those very old operating systems,
>>>
>>> It never seems to fail that when people mention
>>> using older or "unsupported" OSs they feel compelled
>>> to imply that anyone using them must be soft in the
>>> head.
>>>
>>> Win7 came out in 2010.
>>
>> Umm! I brought this HP 6730b Laptop, second hand, in 2009 and it came
>> with Win7 (WOW32 or whatever it's called) pre-installed.
>
> Well, that must have been a very new 'second hand', because Wikipedia
> says:
>
> "Released to manufacturing July 22, 2009
> General availability October 22, 2009"
>
> 'Windows 7'
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7>
>
I brought it from a mate who was a Computer Reseller/Installer-type tech
so, maybe, he got it under the "Released to manufacturing" situation
..... or other!!

--
Daniel

"Daniel65" <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote

| I brought it from a mate who was a Computer Reseller/Installer-type tech
| so, maybe, he got it under the "Released to manufacturing" situation
| .... or other!!
|

That would make sense. Vista got very bad press,
especially with the new and bloated hardware requirements.
As you may remember, early Vista was also sold in a
"looks like XP" version that made people mad, because MS made
a backroom deal with Intel to help them dump a lot of 915
chips that couldn't support Aero. And the general public thought
Aero was the new part of Vista, so people felt cheated.
Microsoft must have made a bundle on Win7 updates to Vista.
And I suppose Intel also made a bundle selling new hardware
to the unwitting customers who'd bought a machine that
couldn't support Vista/7 properly.