Mozilla is done with Snow Leopard

[redheeler]

So Snow Leopard users are ****ed, basically.

I wouldn't say so. Firefox ESR 45 is good for support into 2017, and after that there is the possibility of someone compiling Webkit to work on Snow Leopard. I've seen a Snow Leopard version of Leopard Webkit available already, but right now there doesn't seem to be any need to keep it up-to-date.

Running TenFourFox in Rosetta is another possibility, although one that should be avoided if possible due to the performance hit the PPC emulation causes. TenFourFox Intel would be a good way to solve that problem, although as the blog post said there are problems that occur on both PPC and Intel Snow Leopard building Firefox after ESR 45, meaning TenFourFox is pretty much stuck on ESR 45 and will only be able to port over some of the new features in later versions.

 

[MysticCow]

No. But, just like PowerPC users, at a certain point you have to adapt to the limitations.

I used TenFourFox G3 version 38 on my MBP at Starbucks over the weekend. It's no slower than T4Fx on my PowerBook.

Obsolecence and app developers abandoning us came for PowerPC long ago. It not going to be any different for the early Intel crowd.

Yep. I honestly felt (and obviously Apple did also due to Universal Binaries) that PPC would be supported for quite a while. As we've seen, developers dumped PPC builds fairly quickly and just did Intel-only apps.

When App Store hit, it didn't help, because everything there had to be Intel-only.

So BOY was I wrong...

Running TenFourFox in Rosetta is another possibility, although one that should be avoided if possible due to the performance hit the PPC emulation causes. TenFourFox Intel would be a good way to solve that problem, although as the blog post said there are problems that occur on both PPC and Intel Snow Leopard building Firefox after ESR 45, meaning TenFourFox is pretty much stuck on ESR 45 and will only be able to port over some of the new features in later versions.

If you're on Snow Leopard, TFF is going to be the only choice. There isn't another choice. Yeah, it can be compiled for SL (there used to be a very old Intel version of TFF), and Kaiser said he isn't going to do it. That means unless someone is willing to repackage it as an Intel TFF, you're stuck in Rosetta with the performance hit that comes with it.

 

[redheeler]

If you're on Snow Leopard, TFF is going to be the only choice. There isn't another choice. Yeah, it can be compiled for SL (there used to be a very old Intel version of TFF), and Kaiser said he isn't going to do it. That means unless someone is willing to repackage it as an Intel TFF, you're stuck in Rosetta with the performance hit that comes with it.

Not necessarily, as I said Leopard Webkit can be (and has been) compiled for Intel Snow Leopard. There just doesn't seem to be much motivation to keep the Snow Leopard version current right now.

There's also the option of simply sticking to Firefox ESR 45 past the end of support, which is doable, especially considering TFF will be based on that version for the foreseeable future.
[doublepost=1459200288][/doublepost]

Yep. I honestly felt (and obviously Apple did also due to Universal Binaries) that PPC would be supported for quite a while. As we've seen, developers dumped PPC builds fairly quickly and just did Intel-only apps.

When App Store hit, it didn't help, because everything there had to be Intel-only.

So BOY was I wrong...

Apple dropped PPC/Universal binary support from Xcode not long after the release of Snow Leopard (edit: Xcode 4 in June 2010). That probably had the biggest impact on PPC app compatibility.

 

[jbarley]

There's also the option of simply sticking to Firefox ESR 45 past the end of support, which is doable, especially considering TFF will be based on that version for the foreseeable future.

My plan exactly, for the one laptop still running Snow Leopard in our house.

 

[gooser]

the day will come when i get a chromebook just for internet browsing and then i will use my old macs for everything else. no big deal.

 

[ferretex]

My plan exactly, for the one laptop still running Snow Leopard in our house.

Seems the most considered solution from what I've read in this forum, but I insist. Although SeaMonkey seems to be based upon Mozilla, would it be another option to consider? What do you think?

 

[eyoungren]

Seems the most considered solution from what I've read in this forum, but I insist. Although SeaMonkey seems to be based upon Mozilla, would it be another option to consider? What do you think?

No. Not maintained any more. Stable versions are totally out of date. Plugins and addons are limited. Why would you use Sea Monkey instead of TenFourFox?

 

[ferretex]

No. Not maintained any more. Stable versions are totally out of date. Plugins and addons are limited. Why would you use Sea Monkey instead of TenFourFox?

Last version is from March 2016 (SeaMonkey 2.40). Mainly because it will run natively on my intel CPUs and not via virtualization with Rosetta - PPC.

 

[roadbloc]

It's not just Snow. They're killing all support from 10.6 to 10.8. What truly surprises me is their stats on 10.6 usage. Do people just never upgrade or is there really that large of a deluge of 206-2007 Macs?

I know that Lion was the version of OS X that put me off upgrading OS X for good. I really didn't like the direction the OS was going. I can obviously only speak for myself, but I don't think Lion was well received at large and put a lot of people off.

 

[eyoungren]

Last version is from March 2016 (SeaMonkey 2.40). Mainly because it will run natively on my intel CPUs and not via virtualization with Rosetta - PPC.

That's very interesting. The last time I checked up on Seamonkey it had an issue where you could not change the home page as well as some other bugs. Glad to see I was wrong and it is still under development.

If that's something you want to proceed with, then by all means do so. If it's stable and secure - why not?

That said, neither Seamonkey nor any other from of the Mozilla code (Flock, Netscape, Mozilla, Navigator, etc) have ever been as customizable as Firefox/TenFourFox. I practically live in my browser, so I want it to look and behave the way I wish it to. I can't get that with anything other than FF/T4Fx.

 

[Sepultura]

You'll only need SL if you have a Core Duo mac (early-mid 2006). All Core 2 Duo macs (late-2006 onwards) can run at least Lion. This isn't always great - as the Macs with the lower-end chipsets (Intel GMA 950 is noturious) have bad graphics performance and are often sluggish under Lion.
However if you have a slightly newer mac (mid-2007 iMac / 2008 or newer MacBook) then you can run El Capitan and have browser support for years.

Lion performance is atrocious on the White Intel iMac's, even with maxed out specs. As redheeler said, support for 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8 is being dropped all at once.

 

[headsh0t95]

Lion performance is atrocious on the White Intel iMac's, even with maxed out specs. As redheeler said, support for 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8 is being dropped all at once.

Well, for many maybe not an option, but you can install Windows 7 using boot camp and update to Windows 10 for free. That way you'll have support for years to come!

 

[Sepultura]

Well, for many maybe not an option, but you can install Windows 7 using boot camp and update to Windows 10 for free. That way you'll have support for years to come!

That is what I said on the other page. Windows 10 would actually be usable and up to date on the White Intel iMac's, unlike Lion. That said, it just seems funny running Windows as your main operating system on an Apple computer...

Both my White Intel iMac's are dual booting with Windows XP for older games. If I get desperate, I'll go to Windows 10.

 

[eyoungren]

Well, for many maybe not an option, but you can install Windows 7 using boot camp and update to Windows 10 for free. That way you'll have support for years to come!

Not if you're stuck on a Mac that can only run Snow Leopard max. Again, the whole reason for this thread.

Sure,you can get Win7 on a SL Mac. But not Windows 10.
[doublepost=1459372914][/doublepost]

That is what I said on the other page. Windows 10 would actually be usable and up to date on the White Intel iMac's, unlike Lion. That said, it just seems funny running Windows as your main operating system on an Apple computer...

Both my White Intel iMac's are dual booting with Windows XP for older games. If I get desperate, I'll go to Windows 10.

But if you are using a Mac that is limited to Snow Leopard max you can't run Windows 10. Win7 max!

And if you have a Mac that WILL run Windows 10 then this thread is irrelevant to you because you can install a version of OS X higher than Snow Leopard.

Strikethrough to show I was wrong. You can install Win10 on a Mac running Snow Leopard.

 

[0248294]

Not if you're stuck on a Mac that can only run Snow Leopard max. Again, the whole reason for this thread.

Sure,you can get Win7 on a SL Mac. But not Windows 10.

Pretty sure you can run Windows 10 on any Intel Mac with enough effort. The 8 Bit Guy ran Windows 10 on a Core Solo 2006 MacBook after all.

 

[eyoungren]

Pretty sure you can run Windows 10 on any Intel Mac with enough effort. The 8 Bit Guy ran Windows 10 on a Core Solo 2006 MacBook after all.

Got a link or any info on that then?

If that's true (and I don't doubt you), then I retract my earlier statements as I was not aware of that.

Just getting Win7 on my MBP was a pain - and finding drivers after that was even more so.

 

[0248294]

Got a link or any info on that then?

If that's true (and I don't doubt you), then I retract my earlier statements as I was not aware of that.

Just getting Win7 on my MBP was a pain - and finding drivers after that was even more so.

The video in question by the 8 Bit Guy shows his 2006 Core Duo MacBook ran Windows 10 after some driver fidgeting.

 

[eyoungren]

The video in question by the 8 Bit Guy shows his 2006 Core Duo MacBook ran Windows 10 after some driver fidgeting.

Thanks. I will take a look later tonight!

 

[Gamer9430]

Got a link or any info on that then?

If that's true (and I don't doubt you), then I retract my earlier statements as I was not aware of that.

Just getting Win7 on my MBP was a pain - and finding drivers after that was even more so.

I just went from Vista to 7 to 10 on my 2007 ThinkPad T61 (just got it this week). It was a fairly seamless transition with the only issue being Windows Update on 32bit while in Windows 7. Besides that, and some Lenovo software not being compatible in Windows 10, everything works. The GMA X3100 has WDDM support, the fingerprint sensor still works under Windows Hello, and it's an x86 version which is great being that I only have 3GB of RAM. Edge works great, Firefox works great, chrome works great, everything works great! This T61 is from 2007 and features a 2.00GHz Core2 Duo T7300, 3GB of RAM, 160GB HDD, Windows 10 Pro x86, and a lovely new 9-cell battery I got today.

Anyway, point of this/TL;DR, I got a nearly 10-year-old ThinkPad that essentially is a late-07/Early-08/Late-08 (non-alu) MacBook running Windows 10 with full driver support (100% unsupported by Lenovo) and working Firefox among many other things. I know this isn't a solution to getting Firefox updated on SL, but it lets people know that there is another option.

 

[jbarley]

If a long time apple fan and a PPC one at that, has to turn to a Windows based pee-cee as an option then I'd have to say we are really in deep doo-doo here.

 

[Gamer9430]

If a long time apple fan and a PPC one at that, has to turn to a Windows based pee-cee as an option then I'd have to say we are really in deep doo-doo here.

Well like I said, just an option I'm not happy about this move either, but the writing has been on the wall that we're not going to be supported forever. However, being that we are the cockroaches of the Mac community because we simply cannot be killed off, I'm sure we can figure out a hack or solution to this.

 

[alvesik]

It's not just Snow. They're killing all support from 10.6 to 10.8. What truly surprises me is their stats on 10.6 usage. Do people just never upgrade or is there really that large of a deluge of 206-2007 Macs?

I'm not sure if this is a Mozilla issue or an Apple/XCode issue, either. There's probably more than enough blame to go around on that front, though.

I know actually about 5 non computer people who are still on Leopard because they never bothered to get the disk to upgrade. And back in the day it seems like I remember having to pay to go from SL to lion which I'm sure deterred a lot of non tech people I guess if you've been running something for that long problem free, why potentially upset it?

 

[headsh0t95]

Not if you're stuck on a Mac that can only run Snow Leopard max. Again, the whole reason for this thread.

Sure,you can get Win7 on a SL Mac. But not Windows 10.
[doublepost=1459372914][/doublepost]
But if you are using a Mac that is limited to Snow Leopard max you can't run Windows 10. Win7 max!

And if you have a Mac that WILL run Windows 10 then this thread is irrelevant to you because you can install a version of OS X higher than Snow Leopard.

Well even Windows 7 will be supported for a while as it is now widely used by companies. It is supported until 2020

 

[ferretex]

If a long time apple fan and a PPC one at that, has to turn to a Windows based pee-cee as an option then I'd have to say we are really in deep doo-doo here.

Absolutely.

 

[roadbloc]

If a long time apple fan and a PPC one at that, has to turn to a Windows based pee-cee as an option then I'd have to say we are really in deep doo-doo here.

Linux is an option too. Even BSD is an option.