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Mozilla ending support for Windows 7

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Mozilla ending support for Windows 7

#41

Post by Dalewyn »

ororroro wrote: post #23
whoopdedo wrote: post #19

Windows 7 is 12.9% of Firefox installs and the second most used OS. https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/hardware

3rd most installs. Windows 11 identifies as windows 10 for reasons.

That's because the kernel identifies as NT10.0. Internally it's the same as Windows 10.

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.

Re: Mozilla ending support for Windows 7

#43

Post by Dalewyn »

Gigachad wrote: post #38
nikanj wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither Edge nor Chrome support Windows 7, so it's not surprising a lot of Firefox users are on Windows 7 - because the other options are no longer available on Windows 7

Steam also dropped windows 7 recently.

Dropping*

Formal drop is set to occur on New Year's 2024.

Re: Mozilla ending support for Windows 7

#44

Post by 1710522266 »

StillBored wrote: post #27
1710522266 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with old OSes not receiving security updates is that they will be vulnerable to new security vulnerabilities. Having a smaller attack surface (like older OSes did) is important for security. But ultimately, older, unpatched OSes are trivial to hack, even using an off-the-shelf toolkit like metasploit; attack surface size be damned. Also, a reason why there are fewer CVEs for older OSes is that we've gotte…

There is a big difference between win9x and modern battle hardened OSs that were sitting on the modern internet for a decade. As the parent points out for windows, and its similar for linux, the security exploits are largely in _NEW_ code being rewritten rather than the code which is being tossed, hence the recent huge privilege escalation bug in the linux kernel last week. So, yes its planned obsolescence particular…

I don't disagree with any of this :)

The only claim that I'm making is that in today's world, it is more secure to be on a system that's receiving security updates.

Re: Mozilla ending support for Windows 7

#45

Post by Dalewyn »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #37
Grom_PE wrote: post #35

That's a shame. Windows 7 is the last good Windows. I'm not convinced that later versions of Windows have some incredibly useful APIs that cannot be called dynamically and need to be used unconditionally. This chase after new APIs also makes the program harder to support in ReactOS and Wine.

Running a 14 year old operating system 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. But operating systems that old should be relegated to airgapped machines for historical purposes.

>dangerous and stupid.

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

Re: Mozilla ending support for Windows 7

#46

Post by Dalewyn »

worthless-trash wrote: post #34
LordShredda wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows is much more stable than the Linux abi, xorg, or the various spaghetti libraries on unix systems

I keep hearing this, but my experience has been the inverse. 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.

I run Winamp on Windows 11 and the only issue I've had thus far is it doesn't behave nicely with screen scaling above 100%. It otherwise runs perfectly fine just like on any other version of Windows.

Re: Mozilla ending support for Windows 7

#47

Post by asadotzler »

Dalewyn wrote: post #45
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running a 14 year old operating system 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. But operating systems that old should be relegated to airgapped machines for historical purposes.

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

drive-by system takeover isn't on your threat list?

Re: Mozilla ending support for Windows 7

#48

Post by cesarb »

asadotzler wrote: post #47
Dalewyn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

drive-by system takeover isn't on your threat list?

> drive-by system takeover isn't on your threat list?

How would that "drive-by system takeover" happen?

AFAIK, Windows 7 came with its network firewall enabled by default, so most services wouldn't be exposed to the network. And that network is often a local network, with another firewall separating it from the rest of the Internet. For many users, the only exposed attack surface would be the web browser itself.

Re: Mozilla ending support for Windows 7

#49

Post by Dalewyn »

asadotzler wrote: post #47
Dalewyn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

drive-by system takeover isn't on your threat list?

Nope. The machine's behind a router and its own firewall. Most JavaShit is disabled in the web browsers. Why would a drive-by attack be in my threat model?

Re: Mozilla ending support for Windows 7

#50

Post by wmf »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #6
mattl wrote: post #2

Why should these projects support things after the companies that make them do? Mozilla doesn’t support old Linux or macOS either.

If you want to get existential, why should Mozilla support users on any non-free platform? I imagine they're able to justify Windows because of the huge user base justified the additional engineering effort. The blog uses "we're the only browser still supporting Windows 7" as an excuse to stop supporting it, but to me that same sentence is also an opportunity and maybe even a moral argument to keep supporting older h…

Mozilla "works to ensure the internet remains a public resource that is open and accessible to us all", not to advocate free software.
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