My favourite computer is running Windows-7 and Firefox 115.32.Oesr. Recently the Processing Forum has declared this as unsupported, shows in a miserable format, and doesn’t allow posting.
I understand that testing on all old versions of browser is not possible, but was it necessary to go this far? Could ‘you’ have put up a notice to the effect of ‘Not supported, some things may not work’. I’m sure most things will work. If anything doesn’t work the interested users will have a topic to list what doesn’t work and discuss any workarounds.
The ideal of Processing.org is programming education for all. ‘All’ may include people who can’t afford to keep changing their PCs (as Microsoft require). The forum should not be pushing people to buy new PCs.
This is posted using Firefox 140.4.0esr (32 bit) on an very old PC (over 15 years) running Antix Linux.
Can’t you upgrade to a newer Firefox esr version?
Security is unfortunately not the only reason; Discourse is pushing all kinds of fancy stuff that nobody (my opinion) is waiting for and that requires newer browsers.
I hear your frustration about the forum no longer working properly on your setup.
The forum is hosted on Discourse, and we do not control their software updates or browser support decisions. There is no intention on our part to push people to buy new hardware.
If you would like to raise concerns about browser support, the right place to do that is directly with the Discourse team: https://meta.discourse.org/
Thanks for taking the time to share your experience.
Thank you all for your comments. Something I’ve been meaning to do for a while is to load Linux on an old-Windows laptop. Now I have another reason to get on with that.
Try LInux… MInt Mate version (I use it on an old computer)… it works fine on old computers (and new too !!!) .
Very easy to install and use (simpler than windows !!!)
I can help if you need it (but it is so simple, you shouldn’t need any help). I can suggest some 10 minutes tricks to make it beautiful. You shouldn’t use the Cinnamon version on an old computer (it works but it is a little slower). you need to save your files on a USB disk for example before and a USB key to install it.
I use it for 10 or 15 years and I don’t feel to change for another linux distribution (I try sometimes but it works so well I come back to it each times). There is everything you need on https://www.linuxmint.com/
You may have it on a dual boot (windows and linux on the same disk)… but you don’t need it to test it before using it. You may start your computer on the USB key with linux mint on it and see (it doesn”t change anything on your hard disc).
tell me if you have any problem to try this : I can help you on a videoconference on another computer if you need it.
The only “tricky part” may be sometimes to tell the BIOS to start on the USB key.
It is different on each computer
We always manage to do it even if in some cases it takes a few minutes to find out how to go about it!
and something else about the Cinnamon version :
It is nicer (at first) but the “control center” (where you modify the parameters) is done better on Mate desktop (so if you don”t like to much the terminal like me…).