Mozilla ending support for Windows 7

Similarly, Windows 2000 and XP identify as NT5.0 and 5.1 respectively, and Windows Vista/7/8/8.1 identify as NT6.0, 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3 respectively.

Incidentally, this is also why drivers often are cross-compatible along certain Windows versions.

Forcing an upgrade treadmill on your users just to shake them down for a few extra advertising dollars in the world we live in today is dangerous and stupid.

> If you don't like newer Windows, that's fine, don't use Windows.

I don't believe that Windows 11 was at all necessary to achieve this security nirvana.

My practical threat model (and presumably most peoples') does not involve any of the threats that updates and patches guard against.

Took me hours to get Firefox because everything else refuses to work. That was because I remembered the Mozilla download site directly.

Then, programs screaming end of support and security and vulnerability and what not.

WHAT IS THE THREAT MODEL HERE?

I come from a place which got high speed internet only 2 years ago. Until then, EVRRYONE USED TO DISABlE WINDOWS UPDATE, because data was precious and guess what happened, nothing.

You actually believe if I use Firefox with ubo on windows 7 that suddenly malware would jump on my machine, turn it into a bot and destroy data?

What about using office tools like excel or say libreoffice.

If a windows 7 or xp is connected to internet and you don't use a browser, will it still get infected?

New! = better

I would not. Windows 10 has improvements to the compositor, scheduler, settings and seemingly other things that make it faster in many applications, even on low resource systems. It has other features (like HDR, DirectML) that make it far better for some more cutting edge apps.

One could argue the "stock" config of Windows 10 and 11 is really trashy... Which is true. But its not really a fair argument, as OEMs loaded Windows 7 systems with bloatware (where Microsoft is doing more of that these days).

Which is why most places are dropping W7 this year. Microsoft's last extended security update was this year. The age is kind of irrelevant, if Microsoft wanted to support it for another 5 years, then places like Mozilla would continue as long as people used it.

I have statically compiled binary here running from RHEL AS 2.1 (2005) running on el7, it would probably run on newer releases I just haven't tried it.

I get -all- kinds of bullshit even trying to get a same-age winamp (5.666) working on a modern windows.

Keep wasting resources on CI, testing, coding shims for missing OS features, and making releases for the benefit of the 12 people worldwide who depend on the W7+Firefox combination?

There's no need to target specific OS versions. Yes, MS has added new APIs, but the old ones are still there and function perfectly fine; and chances are that the users on W7 are not going to care about any new features anyway, so if Firefox doesn't have the same features when running on W7 vs. a newer version, it doesn't matter.

I have written apps that will run on anything from Win95 to 11. A minimalist web browser happens to be something I've been working on too.

Microsoft's backwards compatibility its is greatest advantage, but only if you take advantage of it.

That's because there's little value in doing so, and as that article shows, it's also very difficult to, due to the tiny attack surface. The exploit shown there requires things that people wouldn't normally do (or even find it easy to, due to NATs) even with a newer version --- like exposing a share over the Internet --- and there have already been plenty more exploits found in the file sharing code of newer Windows too.

So, yes its planned obsolescence particular when random buffer overflow/etc kinds of bugs get found in these older OSs fixing them isn't some huge lift for ms/whoever since most of the time its just a one line fix. And in the cases where the bug exists across multiple versions, its likely because its old untouched code so fixing it in the newer OS also fixes it in the older ones if someone figures out how to `git cherry-pick` or equivilant.

I've said it before and I will say it again, the major OS providers should be on the hook for security fixes for the lifetime of the product its been licensed to run on. That means if I want to play games on a 25 year old computer, i shouldn't have to worry about whether some 10 year old bug means I'm going to be exploited the second someone passes an image over that exploits a bug in the jpg decoder.