Why is Firefox 4 not abandoning Windows XP?

Original author: Todd Bishop
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One of the most discussed topics in connection with the release of Internet Explorer 9 last week was the decision of Microsoft to leave support only for Windows Vista and Windows 7. This means that the new browser does not work with the old Windows XP operating system.

Many agree with Microsoft's decision - including PCWorld and Ars Technica's technology media . After all, Windows XP has been around for almost ten years. Ten years! Its musty security system only competes with the inability to support some of the most advanced graphics technologies.

Obviously, Microsoft has a commercial interest in getting Windows XP users to upgrade to new versions of Windows. Depriving them of the new Internet Explorer is one way to push people in the right direction. But it is also a very reasonable decision. Ten years by network standards can be equated to a century.

But here is the main problem: many of us did not catch the message. More than 40% of the Internet still uses Windows XP. And this is the first argument that Firefox Development Director Jonathan Nightingale made when I asked him about it. Paradoxically, the future Mozilla Firefox 4 supports not only Windows XP, but also Windows 2000, although even Microsoft itself has already abandoned them in a new browser.

“This is their own decision, but it definitely greatly surprised us, because according to our most reliable statistics, from 40% to 50% of the web is still on XP. It's too much for us to just drop them, ”Nuttingale said. - Yes, the development has become much more complicated, because XP has a different hardware acceleration system. There you need to use Direct3D instead of Direct2D on Vista and 7. That is, we had to do a lot of work architecturally, so that in both cases the result is of maximum quality. But you know what? We must do this. ”

It may not seem obvious, but the decision of the Open Source project to support Windows XP actually stimulates the development of the Web, he says: “It's not only that we want to make a good looking Firefox 4 on each platform. We also do this for web developers. If they create applications for only 20% of the web, then they will have to sit back a couple of years or make more native ones [Windows 7 - approx. per.] applications for those tasks that the web can do just fine, because they will think that most users will not be able to fully use their functionality. ”

Here is the official position of Microsoft on this issue, according to a company representative.
“The network is constantly evolving in everything from security to future HTML5 applications that developers are starting to create today. Therefore, browsers are required to support modern graphics and a security infrastructure that has advanced since 2001. Internet Explorer 9 is designed for a modern operating system to ensure that it works on the latest hardware and operating system innovations. In addition, web developers can now take advantage of the Windows 7 features (snap, jump list, pinning) integrated into Internet Explorer 9, which makes the web more native. Windows XP users have a fast, secure, reliable and secure Internet Explorer 8 browser. ”

Which philosophy will win? This will become known after March 22, when Firefox 4 is due out, in which it remains to clean up only the last small bugs.

We add that on Windows XP, not only new versions of Firefox continue to work normally, but also Opera, Chrome and even Safari. In general, the only company in the world that wants Windows XP to disappear is Microsoft. For everyone else, XP is a bountiful source of users and revenue. It would be suicidal for Mozilla or Google to say "we do not support XP." - approx. trans.

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