Comments on: Firefox 2 end of life: what about Windows 9x users?

By: martin

martin — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:52:50 +0000

@Zippy: You can find some nice stats at http://marketshare.hitslink.com/

If you choose browsers -> browser versions from the menu at the left you’ll get the numbers you’re looking for; right now, about 25% of all Firefox users are still on version 2.0

By: zippy

zippy — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:10:48 +0000

does anyone have any stats on the global usage today of Firfox 2.0, trends, etc? I’ve been googling and can’t locate any good #s.

By: Henry

Henry — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:14:09 +0000

“Firefox 2 end of life: what about Windows 9x users?”

What about them? 95, 98, and ME are a terrible design, and should not be used anyway. Every single 98/ME box I see anyone using is INFESTED with spyware and crap, and barely runs — they just are afraid to replace it. As Rob says, I would pump it up to 256MB of RAM and put Ubuntu on; if you can’t then run Xubuntu if you have ~128MB or so, and Damn Small Linux or some other light distro if it’s even less than that.

OSX? Well, 10.2 and 10.3 aren’t THAT old, but the way OSX is, in general if you for instance build on 10.4, the app will only run on 10.4 and up.. there’s apparently not anyone with a 10.2/10.3 box to build on I suppose (or it’s missing features firefox now needs.) Where I work we sell tons of surplus PCs and Macs.. if the Mac isn’t new enough to run 10.4 or 10.5, I have many people see they have Ubuntu for Mac installed and comment “Huh I was going to put that on anyway.” Personally if I were going to run Ubuntu anyway, I’d just get a PC, but *shrug* they like the Mac hardware even if they aren’t going to run OSX on it.

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 14:13:13 +0000

Without sounding too arrogant, the decision to not support decade-old, insecure operating systems is a smart move.

It makes no sense to invest time and energy in making an application secure which runs on a platform which has more holes than swiss cheese and/or has had commercial support terminated for the operating system.

The alternatives are:
1. spend a couple of hundred dollars to buy Windows Vista (on existing hardware). Not the most ideal circumstance.
2. pony up about $500 for a new computer (or buy one this week, on Black Friday for cheaper).
3. purchase a used system from someone with Windows XP or Vista.
4. install one of many distributions of Linux (probably Ubuntu for beginners) on the current hardware or onto a used system obtained from a friend or a discount dealer or a recycler.

Any one of those 4 would lead to a situation where the user could use a modern and secure Firefox. I like the suggestion of having Opera as an alternative.

Inevitably, the decision leads to a change in the way users experience their computer, and to an extent, that is a good thing. Technology changes all the time, and it is important for users to maintain a certain level of agility to keep pace with that technology.