kangax said:
Thomas said:
kangax wrote:
Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
kangax wrote:
Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
Csaba Gabor wrote:
[...]
This combination functions nicely, thank you very much.
However, my way of detecting the transition point (of the
image going between tall and short, by virtue of div height
changing), by using window.onresize, does not work nicely
on onlder FF (1.5, for example) because the window's resize
event only fires when the mouse button has been released,
at which point the image will right itself.
JFYI:
Firefox 1.5 met its end-of-life on 2007-04-13 CE with version
1.5.0.12. Firefox 2.0 met its end-of-life on 2008-12-18 CE with
version 2.0.0.20. (Firefox 3.0 is going to meet its end-of-life on
2010-01-31.)
Per Net Applications data as of September 2009 CE, the market share
of Firefox 2.0 rates at 1.24%, of Firefox 1.5 at 0.14%.¹
Looking at stats of my employer website (Sep 11, 09 - Oct 11, 09), I
see that FF2.0.20 constitutes about 1.72% of all Firefox clients.
However, that's 1,475 visitors — a rather large number that
would be a shame to just stop supporting.
No, instead it would be a shame to support them any longer, for the
reasons mentioned above and that you snipped.
Let's just list those 'reasons':
Earlier Thomification: >
This is very hand wavy without a link to the specific issues.
Security issues is sort of a cousin to terrorism in that
when people cite it, they expect others to bow down in
front of them and solemnly nod in agreement. But it turns
out [citation: personal research] that most people who cite
security without stating (a) specific concern(s) are
unaware of the issues themselves.
Critical in most situations is taken to mean that if
something is not done, harm (bad consequences) will follow.
So let's consider the class of people who still have FF1.5.
These are people who have lived with this browser, one
way or another, without suffering bad consequences (or if
they did, they have put up with the consequences). In
short, these changes are self evidently NOT CRITICAL to
this class of people.
How can this be? After all, FF and other vendors are
making 'critical' fixes all the time. Generally, for a
malicious agent to take advantage of insecurities requires
that one actively navigate to a specific site for the
exploit to be applied. For conservative users, the risk
is therefore small. In addition, if one makes it past
a certain time, just as there is a decline in support of
the older browsers, so will malicious agents also target
obsolete browsers less and less, since their success
ratio/profit would be commensurately lessened.
'Critical security issues' may be a valid reason for an
arbitrary user of a current browser to upgrade, but it is
a false reason for a user of a long time obsolete browser.
For my own part, I have not suffered any infestation as a
result of my use of FF 1.5 (that I am aware of).
This, of course, is not a reason.
Oh, yes yes yes! Thomas, Thomas, Thomas, how can I thank you
for pointing this out to me? I will change my behaviour right
away, just on the strength of your (non) argument and command.
Do you really think that somehow I have escaped noticing that
FF 1.5 is obsolete, and that your dogmatic telling me not to
use it is going to change my behaviour? You do not know my
circumstances (I say that with surety as your past assertions
have a dismal track record) nor my reasons. In fact, there
is good reason for change, but it is not for what you cited.
In point of fact, I am not developing for FF 1.5 per se, but
I am developing on a machine that has FF 1.5 (which I do use
for my everyday browsing), and therefore would like to be
able to see the pages with that browser.
Secondly, though there have been many changes from FF1.5
to FF3, I was pretty happy with web sites in general at
the time that FF1.5 was current. What I am saying was
that already at that time, the web was well developed. The
conclusion is that for the vast majority of presentation,
THERE IS NO COMPELLING (ie. business) REASON NOT TO DEVELOP
FOR FF1.5. The post FF1.5 model is warranted if there is
a business reason to cut off obsolete users. Fiddling
with bits and image presentation might be such a reason.
Cross domain window communication (that is coming back!)
between cooperating pages might be another.
Indeed. There are many reasons why *can* might not be possible/
practical. In my case there are two driving forces against. First,
my machine with FF1.5 is maxed out on hard drive space, and there is
no amelioration prospect till the end of the year. I do not have the
liberty of installing additional (or even replacement, which always
increase in size) apps. Secondly, I have a GM app which turns
textareas into emacs buffers (so that emacs editing commands are
available for each textarea) which will not work on FF3.5 (without
significant porting).
In this case, it is not arrogance, but an informed design decision.
I haven't ever heard someone admit to being arrogant (at the time).
Though I have known a few people who commented that they were arrogant
when they were younger.
Your problem.
No, and <
http://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/> pp., among
others, tells why. In a nutshell:
Ah, there it is, the reference to the original
critical security issues mentioned at the outset.
Specific references are always appreciated, thanks.
| Firefox 1.5 is no longer supported and the last update, Firefox 1.5.0.12,
| is affected by several vulnerabilities fixed in newer versions of the
| program. All users are urged to upgrade to the newest version of Firefox.
These vulnerabilities are listed in the Advisories for Firefox 2.0, 3.0 and
3.5.
In fact, people still using the old versions would probably be bothered now
and then with a built-in dialog that tells them (why) to make the update
(and assist with doing that), for a good reason. Even their default home
page would say so (both in Firefox and IE). Ignoring all those hints and
recommendations, and disabling automatic security update, and not updating
manually then, is stupid at best.
Besides the reasons I've given above, there is a general reason
not to switch which is that things tend to break when you switch.
And if you have something that is evidently sufficiently working,
you have to make a pretty strong argument for change. And "It
will be better for you" is a weak argument along with "you'll
have security issues" when both have been shown to be consistently
false based on personal experience over the course of many years
and upgrades. In short, false claims of smooth upgrades in the
past and crying wolf causes some to be skittish about change.
I can say all the above because I know myself and my behaviour
with regards to web surfing. If my machines are used by others,
whose behaviour I would of course not know, in that case I am
obliged to have the latest upgrades.
The advantage would be to me.
Indeed. I hooked all the event handlers I could
think of to the image, containing div, window, and body,
and none of them fired while the window was being
resized on FF1.5. Furthermore, I didn't detect
mousedown.
I also came to this conclusion, that I could implement
the desired functionality with a window.setInterval (polling),
but I figure that it's not worth the effort, as this
was a minor detour in the first place.
Then we do agree after all.
That's not my read. In any case, it's
not what one says, it's how one says it.
Here's what I read (ie. It's roughly what filtered through to me):
I don't know the answer to your question, but since you're using
FF1.5+ maybe you're not aware that it has been obsolete for a long
time, and for good reason. Nobody should be using it. Don't you
use it, either. You are stupid (beacuse you have been using it).
Thus, I'm telling you to not fix the problem you asked about.
Here's what filtered through to me from kangax:
I don't know the answer to your question, but the number of people
using FF1.5 is small, though possibly significant to you. On
second thought, you might be able to address your problem via
polling (ie. timer) if you really want, but isn't the
functionality as it stands sufficient?
Thus, I suggest not fixing the problem you asked about.
Oh, I would say there is a huge amount of
effort to guard against exactly that.
But the cost for the upgrade is 0 (in words: ZERO) credits in this case
Not at all, as discussed above. There is always a potential
liability with an upgrade including data loss and app compatibility
There is however one (eventually) compelling reason for upgrading.
More and more sites will remove support for older browsers. For
example,
FF 1.5 as of about two weeks ago is no longer able to see facebook
messages, nor search for persons on facebook. This is functionality
that was there. It seems strange to me to remove functionality that
was earlier working - I have to wonder if it's an accident of not
testing an upgrade or a conscious descision, but it happens. Facebook
is just the most recent example that I noticed. The more FF1.5
degrades, the less I will be using it. But it's not a bad idea to
keep
a copy around so that I can avoid these types of situations, where
practicable.
