F*ck Brave

[Mæstro]

Some do not want to upgrade operating systems, for they are content with what they have already. It is not absurd to prefer older software for its appearance, function, lack of telemetry, sentimental value or for any other reason at all. Insisting that someone update is like insisting someone throw away one’s wardrobe. Some do not like the latest fashions or features, and would rather mend their old, adequate clothing still, for they are attached to it. A computer is like one’s home to many of us, and everyone has the right to keep his own dwelling cosy.
(Mind that this is not about security risks or of technical inability to backport some features. Users on older operating systems know and tolerate these hazards and losses. I believe that making things accessible to as many people as possible is right, and that graceful degradation is a wonderful thing.)

[Moonchild]

Some do not want to upgrade operating systems, for they are content with what they have already. It is not absurd to prefer older software for its appearance, function, lack of telemetry, sentimental value or for any other reason at all. Insisting that someone update is like insisting someone throw away one’s wardrobe.

And that is perfectly fine, but those same people should then also be content with having an equally-dated collection of software running on it.
And that, in turn, becomes a problem when dealing with software that provides connectivity of that preferred O.S. to something that is not static, i.e.: the Internet.

So their choice will then be: Use the old O.S. and the latest provided version of software for that O.S. and be content with what they have, or upgrade. Can't have your cake and eat it too.

[Mæstro]

Older versions of software are indeed well enough in themselves. (This is part of my point!) The problem comes, as you have hinted in the net not being static, as websites like to reform themselves for no good reason, creating needless pressure and contrived losses in function. We have all seen sites break in Pale Moon after shifting from a sensible structure into a flaming heap of JavaScript, and this is not Pale Moon’s fault. I would prefer a static internet where things remain about as they were 20 years ago, and sites would work in any browser. Only security patches would then be needful, and the user who clings to an older version is mindful of the risk in declining these. My point is that the user with an old browser, not the webmaster who has revised the site, is in the right here.

[daemonspudguy]

I feel like you are seeing everything through a particularly rose-tinted sense of nostalgia. The web has been "dynamic" for many years. Only it used to use Adobe Flash. Or Java web applets. Or, even RealPlayer. Unless you think the web was best when all of those security risks and pieces of bloatware were a requirement, of course.

[daemonspudguy]

Also, as a webmaster, I will not spend any amount of my time making sure my website works with fucking IE 7. I have better things to do.

[Mæstro]

I cite that time, for HTML 4·01 had come out in 1999 and stayed in place for a long while, and upgrades to web browsers had come at a rather slower pace than since. A good site, using valid HTML, should display in IE7; it will not surprise you to hear I like the Any Browser campaign. A 20-year-old site still renders in any browser, of any age, without anything stupid happening. Most modern sites can achieve what they must without excluding users who prefer older technology.

Off-topic:
Please edit your posts instead of double-posting if you have something to add, or wish to respond to more than one post. There is no sense in padding the thread.

[Moonchild]

The web has been "dynamic" for many years.

Absolutely. However there is a lot to be said for the web moving away from the html-css-js trifecta towards unwieldy blobs of js that are doing (or supposed to be doing) everything; from document structure to styling to dynamic content handling. js is particularly unforgiving when it comes to that (especially with the over-use of "strict" everywhere) and by design will completely abort execution on error in most cases, making it not only large and mis-managed, but also extremely fragile. And that is what Pale Moon is at the receiving end of at the moment and that is absolutely not Pale Moon's fault.
That has nothing to do with biased points of view or nostalgia, either.

And if you want to talk about modular plugins versus "bloatware" -- the bloatware we have now is real bloatware: mammoth browser engines that do not allow one to actually control which parts are on or off. everything being in the core meaning that everything is always-on. Including all the APIs you will never in a 1000 years be using with your browsing. Tell me, what is better: a flash plugin that is loaded on-demand (and unloaded after a delay of non-use) when a website requests it... or an overly-complex piece of javascript and layout engine to somewhat approach the same functionality that is always on, always-exposed and always present?

[moonbat]

Off-topic:

to somewhat approach the same functionality

They don't even do that. Flash was used for all kinds of cool animations and menus, or interactive games. Many of those are long gone with no replacement despite all the promises that HTML5 was supposed to provide.

[daemonspudguy]

Tell me, what is better: a flash plugin that is loaded on-demand (and unloaded after a delay of non-use) when a website requests it... or an overly-complex piece of javascript and layout engine to somewhat approach the same functionality that is always on, always-exposed and always present?

With the plugin option, even if you have the browser on your platform, the plugin isn't guaranteed to be available for the platform. I myself had this issue when I first started using Linux 10 years ago and couldn't play games that for whatever reason needed Unity Web Player. So, it depends. But that's just my opinion, of course.

[therube]

It is not absurd to prefer older software for its appearance, function, lack of telemetry, ... or for any other reason at all.

My thought.

Insisting that someone update is like insisting someone throw away one’s wardrobe.

Funny you mention that. Just this morning I was thinking... you know it's rather absurd the people "have" to wear clothes (in the summer time). [I'd much rather not. Now how's that for a wardrobe .]

Running_Naked2.jpg

.
When I first read, some time back now, that Edge was going to be dropping support on Win7, my first thought was, hmm... in the beginning (of Edge), they specifically went out of their way to note that (Chrome) Edge was coming to Win7 (& knowing, even then, that Win7 was close to EOL). (And that seemed, awkward, to say they'll support an OS knowing that it would relatively soon be out of support.)

And then there is the fact that there are still supported Win7 versions (& will be for a bit longer too).

And then, the 'ol little thing like why would one even want a Chrome browser on ones computer .
So that Chrome (& Edge &...) are dropping support... like who cares.

That said, what Chrome does, Mozilla, the followers that they are, well... follow. So you can be sure that not too far after, Firefox too will be unsupported on Win7. (And what a quagmire it is to block updates in FF - today. Simply a PITA.)


Full disclosure: I use Win7 .

[daemonspudguy]

I don't see much of a difference between begging for XP support years after it stopped getting updates and the same for Windows 7. It's been almost 3 years since Windows 7 stopped getting updates. It's time to use something that actually gets security updates.


But that's just like my opinion, maaaan.

[Mæstro]

There is nothing wrong with either if done politely and understanding that programmers are busy and might have not the time, or else always the technical ability, to backport everything. (Even if they are not, third parties can often help: see the Pale Moon rebuilds for XP.) Asking when one is in need is not evil. A beggar is not a highwayman.

Why is it ‘time to use something that actually gets security updates’? For security, presumably, but somebody who keeps to an older system, especially a Windows system, by choice is surely aware that there are hazards involved and guards himself accordingly, tolerating the risk involved. Calling something an opinion (‘judgment or belief not founded on certainty or proof’) is in order when admitting one can be mistaken. It cannot replace giving the imperfect reasons for one’s beliefs. Judgments can differ if based on different founding beliefs or undefined, intuitive concepts, but one should understand what these are.

Ironically, protective measures can often conflict with the artificial problems I have mentioned before. For example, I browse disabling JavaScript by default as a security measure, and this has been wise practise even when XP was young. However, your web site (as an example) is mostly text, and has no reason to use JavaScript, but it fails to render as anything but a blue void unless one enables scripts or uses workarounds like mirroring. This is poor design, even if common practise today, for a site thus becomes harder for interested readers to access without any gain in function.

[daemonspudguy]

My site won't have any support for ass old browsers beyond coincidence to begin with. I don't think using ancient web browsers and operating systems as main is a good idea, and I'm not going to make it work with them. Fact is, even ignoring JavaScript it probably wouldn't work as it is hosted on GitLab Pages and uses HTTPS. So, I don't care. I also don't want my website to look like a sad sack. I like how it looks and works. As it's built on a Hugo theme forked from a Bootstrap variant, it uses JavaScript because that's just how Bootstrap works.

[Mæstro]

Valid HTML should work in all browsers, meaning one must make no special efforts to ensure that any specific browser, old or young, can show the site. This is not coincidence, but why HTML standards exist, at least, before Google had got its hands on them. (I own that, out of ignorance, I cannot comment on how older browsers handle HTTPS, but I suspect that fanatic users have somehow got it to work.) Excluding users because one disapproves their browser or OS choice, whether by hostile or bad design, user agent sniffing or other means, can only annoy them with the webmaster as target of their ire, not convince them that it is safer to switch. Beyond this, it is not a webmaster’s place to govern what computers deserve to see his site.

Your site’s theming, as I can see it through a mirror, could be made without any JavaScript at all; it would not have been out of place on the 1990s web or Neocities today, if it used simple HTML and CSS. Using these over JavaScript makes it easier for others, whatever their browser or OS needs, to access a site. When a site fails to display, on the other hand, it does not work by definition.

(I should make clear that this is not an attack on you specifically, but declaring a real problem in modern web design, for which your site is a ready example. If you do not know HTML, but depend on outside software, then it is obviously the JavaScript-based tool that is incompetent, just as a FrontPage user is innocent for having made sites that only worked in Internet Explorer.)

[daemonspudguy]

My html knowledge is rudimentary, and even if it weren't having templates for everything and using Hugo is still my only choice because writing entire HTML pages out of whole cloth is not something I can do every time I want to post something. It works on every vaguely modern browser and that's good enough for me.

[Eduardo Lucas]

If I were a Windows 7 user (I'm definitely not), I would just install antiX Linux in a vm (takes about 2-3 minutes), and then open the PackageInstaller and do the one-click install of Brave or whatever I wanted, and keep using Windows 7 for as long as I want. antiX itself only uses about 150-200mb of memory, so you wouldn't even really notice it resource-wise. It has one-click installs for all your favorite browsers including Brave and Pale Moon, and they will update on Linux for as long as your computer runs. If your browser ever gets compromised, just throw away the vm and start over. If you set up the vm right, you can drag and drop between Windows and the vm, copy and paste, permanently share folders, make the vm window seamless - you wouldn't even have to notice you were using a vm particularly. And it would be much safer for your OS, as your browser and antiX would be constantly updated with security patches. Let the security-updated vm do the web browsing, let the Windows 7 do the gaming or graphics programs or office programs or what-not.

So, to any linuxer, if i leave older windows for home/personal use, i have to accept any linux distro in the transition instead of BSD, haiku or anything else? Do i also have to think the problem is really about the capabilities of windows 7 at all as an operating system and not about vendors offering APIs/toolchains/software? What about NT itself being completely different to linux as a kernel (i do not see any bug crashing my gpu driver or having to deal with buggy window managers or GUIs for example or regressions) and any windows after XP differences from linux distros? I think this gets a bit dogmatic in process but i don't want to be a polemic as well, just mentioning points here which are meant to challenge some of the same mainstream tech views which are so similarly criticized by us, including pretending security risks and obsolescence which are sometimes deliberately inflated to badly influence usage of certain OSes/browsers.

[daemonspudguy]

You don't have to. I used FreeBSD on my desktop for several months and it went pretty smoothly.

[andyprough]

So, to any linuxer, if i leave older windows for home/personal use, i have to accept any linux distro in the transition instead of BSD, haiku or anything else?

I don't use them and don't know much about them or if Brave works on them. If Brave works on them and you know how to use them then that's great.

What about NT itself being completely different to linux as a kernel (i do not see any bug crashing my gpu driver or having to deal with buggy window managers or GUIs for example or regressions) and any windows after XP differences from linux distros?

Not sure what this full sentence means. I do know that if everything was buggy, I would not use that OS or distro. I use them for work, don't have time for messing around.

pretending security risks and obsolescence which are sometimes deliberately inflated to badly influence usage of certain OSes/browsers

If that's true then you should be fine, although the OP still won't be able to continue using Brave, which is the topic. I was showing the OP an easy way to stay on Windows 7 and continue using Brave in a vm once Brave no longer works on Windows 7.