Firefox 128 bumps system requirements for old boxes Firefox 128 is out with a relatively modest feature set – but it will also be the latest Extended Support Release (ESR) release, meaning that the end for Firefox 115 is coming into view. Firefox version 128 started to trickle out to users this week. Although most of the new features aren't very exciting, this version is …
<i<"While most of the computers at the Vulture Towers Irish Sea division run some form of Unix, we do occasionally boot Windows for a laugh, and we find Windows 7 considerably more pleasant to use than any later version"</i>
You see, that's the problem here: you're only an occasional user of Windows yet believe Windows 7 is superior to 10 because of some personal UI preferences. Since you are indeed just an occasional user, you don't experience the FACT that Windows 10 is superior to 7 because of superior stability, which only comes to fore during extended use. This is why World+dog moved to Win10 openly but why same World+dog is dragging its heels with Win11, an unproven technology who's 'advancements' don't actually seem justified.
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So YOUR singular experience is now the standard for judgment? How many hundreds of MILLIONS of users use Win10 and have never experienced your problems, but because you have it is the end of Windows as we know it?
I'm not in charge of overseeing a huge implementation of Win10 boxes, just 10. And surprise, I have NEVER experienced your problems. Can you provide a statistical analysis of how many Win10 users face day-to-day problems which cause a massive loss of time and productivity or are you just speaking anecdotally?
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I used 7 professionally for years, and at home until last month.
The user experience is a lot better than 10, which itself is a lot better than 11.
I am really suffering with an attack of 11 at work, that shitty notepad, and paint has gone.
As I work mainly remote due to long term illness I do my image editing now at home in Kolourpaint.
11 took away paint, notepad, tried really hard with Firefox, but succeeded with really crappy scroll bars with at least 3 styles in use.
The replacement to 7 runs Mint.
[Author here]
> you don't experience the FACT that Windows 10 is superior to 7 because of superior stability
You really weaken your own case with shouting about facts, you know.
Which is a shame, because you then went on to make something approaching a point:
> which only comes to fore during extended use.
Over long term use, there _may_ -- I remain not entirely convinced here -- but *may* be something to that. I was an early adopter of Win10, as I was of Windows itself, and as a one-time Windows power user who runs things by popping a dialog and entering a binary name, I actually did not mind Win8 and 8.1. Since I barely use the Start menu, I didn't care that it was a sad crippled thing.
However, saying that, I think MS has scored another own goal here: by first saying Win10 was the last version ever, then reneging and backtracking and releasing an update that's even more crippled, I reckon it is going to force a lot of people onto the LTSB.
https://www.theregister.com/Print/2015/07/16/windows_10_will_update_whether_you_like_it_or_not_unless_you_have_enterprise_edition/
> This is why World+dog moved to Win10 openly
You seem to have a rather short memory. There was a _lot_ of resistance to 10 when it was new.
That is certainly true about MS's claim "the last Windows" - a stupid statement in hindsight.
Statistically more users are satisfied with Win10 than they were with Win7. Lately, of course, some of MS's updates have destroyed that happiness so (someone) will need to re-analyize that data to see how much customer satisfaction has changed.
The problem with many Windows users here on El Reg is that Windows for them is a dual-boot occasional use - it is not their daily driver, Linux is far more popular here. When used as a daily driver the updates to Windows happens rather transparently in the background; if you keep your device powered on 24/7, as we do in my office, you'll find that you almost *never* have to deal with updates yourself thanks to Windows auto scheduling of applying updates after business hours. You come in, your machine rebooted overnight and applied all outstanding updates. You also get less problems when updates get applied on a regular schedule rather than a mass update of delayed installs.
Windows 11 is another discussion. I honestly do not see it making a large impact in market penetration before Windows 12 comes to replace it (Win12 is already being previewed on YT). IMHO Win11 will simply end up going down in history as the equivalent of Win8, an unloved stepping stone.
if you keep your device powered on 24/7, as we do in my office, you'll find that you almost *never* have to deal with updates yourself thanks to Windows auto scheduling of applying updates after business hours.
I haven't worked anywhere in the last 20 years at least that let its PCs update themselves directly. I'm no Windows admin but I understand that Windows for Corporations is centrally managed and updated are tested internally before being rolled out, leading to a more stable experience for end users.
[Author here]
> Statistically more users are satisfied with Win10 than they were with Win7.
[[Citation needed]]
> Windows for them is a dual-boot occasional use - it is not their daily driver
[[Citation needed]]
> Linux is far more popular here
[[Citation needed]]
El Reg is not Hacker News.
> if you keep your device powered on 24/7, as we do in my office
Environmental destruction is preferable to simply running Windows Update before you start work? I would respond with a judgement call but I think the editors would frown on my choice of epithets.
Secondly, I know people who feel very strongly about their machines rebooting without permission. I'm not keen on it myself but at least a Mac reopens all your windows and their contents (if the apps support that).
> IMHO Win11 will simply end up going down in history as the equivalent of Win8, an unloved stepping stone.
That's the only thing you've said I agree with.
you keep your device powered on 24/7, as we do in my office
... you work for an electricity company?
thanks to Windows auto scheduling of applying updates after business hours. You come in, your machine rebooted overnight and applied all outstanding updates
... and lost your work.
My kid is using Win11 at home (desktop) and school (laptop). It's invisible to him. His games use TPM for license protection, and won't install without it, to TPM is a plus for him.
Home (games) and Enterprise (green screen) were always bigger markets than small business (IBM PC), and now that MS is a major player in those areas, small business (and instrumentation) are no longer targets. It sucks to be me, but my home and enterprise contacts aren't feeling the same pain.
never had problems with windows 7 stability. ran for months at a time with not restarts or reboots. usually only rebooted when updates required it. update to 10 was mandated by company and app upgrades that won't work on 7 or early win 10 versions. had to upgrade a user with 1607 recently as at least one app required it. that was fun.
> the best version of Windows MS ever produced
You'll have to define "best". "Best" for what? For instance, IMHO the "best" version concerning UI and customization possibilities was XP. Win7 had some minor UI improvements in some places (like a "sudo" feature), but also several regressions, and the beginnings of the general dumbing down of the UI.
Later Windowses might be stronger-better-faster under the hood, but as a user wanting to get work done, I struggle with their constant intrusive initiatives: Finishing a very urgent document? Windows will happily interrupt you to tell you you haven't used "System Notifications" (WTF is that anyway) for a while, would you like to turn them off, right now? No, for Pete's sake, I want to finish my work! Get lost! *
TL;DR: From a user's point of view, recent Windowses are going downhill fast. Too much "we know what's best for you".
* Happened to me yesterday
Linux has been my daily driver for decades, but there have been increasing amounts of Father-Knows-Best-ism in mainstream Linux distros.
I suppose it's an increasing-level conflict between what I and what the kernel-, UI-, and app-designers consider "useful features" and "sensible defaults," as the designers attempt to appeal to MS-Windows users and to OS X-users, by mimicking what those users have become used to.
I hate systemd and its designers' philosophies and (successful) political manueverings. I have done Arch and its variants, and am thinking of going to Gentoo.
[Author here]
> 7 was the best version of Windows MS ever produced.
Nah. It's all been going downhill since Windows 2000.
I mean, I liked NT 3.51. That was fast, efficient, and nearly bulletproof. But in 1995 I didn't need USB, or FAT32, or PnP, or any of that stuff. NT 4 was a step backwards in every way except UI.
I'd like some parallel universe Windows NT 5 that was built from NT 3.51 and bypassed NT 4 & the decision to move the GDI into the kernel.
But just considering reality and what we got... No, the rot and the bloat set in with Windows XP.
The only redeeming thing about XP today is that there was a 64-bit version, it still works, it's still usable, and by the _cringe_ it goes like stink on 15-year-old kit. I am tempted to try it on one of my newest BIOS-based machines. XP64 stomps on all the BSDs and any Linux except Alpine (and maybe Tiny Core Linux) in terms of responsiveness.
"I mean, I liked NT 3.51. That was fast, efficient, and nearly bulletproof. "
YMMV as they say...
I found NT 3.51 to be much slower, less efficient and *really* flakey in comparison to Redhat Linux - on Pentium & Pentium Pro machines at least. Hardware support was pretty poor as well relative to Redhat, at least for the hardware I had to work with. At the time I was working on CPU & I/O intensive applications that ran for 8+ hours solid at the time - so I was paying close attention to what the compiler was producing and crashes were *expensive* in time and money. That was with GCC 2.7.x - a compiler noted for *not* producing fast or efficient binaries in comparison to the alternatives.
I'd agree that 3.51 was better than 4.0 for running code that you cared about - but 4.0 was nicer to use (when it worked).
> 7 was the best version of Windows MS ever produced
Really wish I could upvote you more, still mainly on 7 here at home and for me it was peak windows (especially for 64 bit environments)
Yes I do have 10 on a VM or 2 which don't support win11 thankfully, its going to be a close run race at work between 11 and retirement.....
I think crippling start menu was still passable for experienced users, as most of them don't use the start menu.
For me, crippling the taskbar was a much bigger inconvenience in W11.
Lately, disappearing settings and the culling of control panel has been a source of annoyance. I actually like file history, but the "modern" settings UI has disappeared and doesn't show up in search, but does still exist in control panel..
Windows hit it's "Power User Friendly" peak with WinXP, and each release since then has made it harder and harder to work under the bonnet; there were things you could do to an install (both good and bad) with XP that are impossible to do from within an active Win 7 system; but then again, Win 8 to present Win12, lock down the system even further, with Win12 giving all the tinkering options of an early Android phone; ie This, or nothing.
TBF, there were also a few things I could do with Win95/98 that I couldnt do with XP; but they werent deal breakers.
Win7 (I skipped Vista), was when my "Mauve Screen of Death" hack from Win3, stopped working; a mauve background with dark purple text was so much more relaxing than the standard BSOD.
A good use for old hardware is a basic machine that can do email and basic web surfing. For many low income families with kids that don't need more than that, the increasing demand for more modern hardware is a burden. So what if certain sites run a bit slower? It's not even a worry if some sites won't display at all since those will likely be the ones with useless visual frippery anyway.
I've got a bunch of old boxes running linux and W7 for this and that. All of them aren't connected to the internet so they don't catch colds and can continue on running a CNC router or taking data from something. Good, old fashioned sneakernet is how they communicate and that's all they need. The box I use for Solidworks is much more capable and also doesn't connect to the internet. I haven't had an issue with that machine in years.
It's like starting DOS from floppies. Click on icon: got get a cup of coffee, come back to see if it's started yet.[1]
I think it's fair to assume that FF developers are using SSD boot disks with modern processors. And it takes even more memory than Edge (and that's not a low bar to clear). Maybe if I installed Win7 on a new PC with a nice AMD cpu it would be competitive.
[1] Ok, I lie. It's an exaggeration for effect.
As the title, I have been plagued with stalled videos recently, as YT tried their latest attempt to inject adverts; causing the videos to just stall, and requiring multiple page refreshes to clear; sometimes a LOT of multiples!
Since the update arrived, all YT videos play properly again - without adverts.
ARRRH!!!
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