
Upcoming Firefox Support Changes (dropping Win2K, XP RTM, XP SP1) - jhack
https://blog.mozilla.com/futurereleases/2012/03/23/upcoming-firefox-support-changes/
======
mcot2
... but this support change allows us to significantly improve Firefox
performance on Windows by using a more modern build system.

Does anyone have any info on the new build system? Last I checked they still
used make which is installed via the mozilla tools.

~~~
jbrackett
Apparently the big change is to use Visual Studio 2010 for the Windows builds.

[http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2012/01/end-
of-f...](http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2012/01/end-of-firefox-
win2k.html)

~~~
JoshTriplett
In particular, the current version of Firefox kept struggling to link within a
4GB address space. Hence the comments about "having had to back out and
ultimately delay some important new features like SPDY": nothing about SPDY
itself, but it happened to push the link above 4GB and cause builds to fail,
so it got temporarily dropped.

------
atesti
I wonder why they don't apply [http://tedwvc.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/how-to-
get-visual-c-2...](http://tedwvc.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/how-to-get-
visual-c-2010-mfc-applications-to-run-on-windows-2000/) to fix it and keep it
runable on Windows 2000, even though Uniscribe might still show some bugs with
Arabic text, etc.

------
vgnet
See also: [http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2012/03/the-
end-...](http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2012/03/the-end-of-
support-f.html)

------
kijin
> _In the years since Firefox 3.6, we've make incredible improvements to
> Firefox, including . . . Firefox Sync_

This is off-topic, but Firefox Sync screwed up my bookmarks on more than one
occasion. Nowadays, most of my 5K+ bookmarks have taken refuge in Pinboard,
but Firefox 11 with Sync enabled still occasionally loses, duplicates, or
randomly reorders the handful of local bookmarks that remain. People used to
complain about this when Sync was first released as an add-on to Firefox 3.6.
They still haven't fixed it!

Overall speed and reliability, on the other hand, has improved beyond
recognition. Maybe I should thank Chrome for nudging Firefox to improve.

~~~
martey
_People used to complain about this when Sync was first released as an add-on
to Firefox 3.6. They still haven't fixed it!_

I did a cursory search on Mozilla's Bugzilla and did not find any bugs with
this issue involving a recent version of Firefox. Have you filed a bug (or
voted on an existing bug) about your issue?

~~~
kijin
Similar issues with bookmark synchronization have been raised over and over by
many people, on various versions of FF ranging from 3.6 to 9.x, on various
platforms (including mobile), all with inconclusive results: see bugs 721635,
718154, 627830, 622588, etc.

I wish I could contribute some definitive bug report, but it's really
difficult to reproduce the strange behavior and I often don't find out until
several days or even weeks later, by which time the logs are gone.

Unfortunately, the addons.mozilla.org thread where a lot of people reported
the same behavior seems to have been deleted when the Sync add-on for FF3.6
was removed.

~~~
martey
_Similar issues with bookmark synchronization have been raised over and over
by many people, on various versions of FF ranging from 3.6 to 9.x, on various
platforms_

Of the bugs you mentioned, only one of them [1] involves a desktop version of
Firefox later than 3.6.3. The reporter there is also syncing with his Android
phone and an iOS device. The developers who responded suggest that it might
have to do with the Android Sync implementation.

 _...when the Sync add-on for FF3.6 was removed._

The aforementioned bug notes [2]:

 _Most of the issues with bookmark sync occur as a result of using the old
Firefox Sync add-on and not the version of Sync bundled with Firefox itself._

This would seem to be confirmation that the old Sync addon had issues, but
that they should now be fixed. The fact that the majority of reported bugs
involving Sync involve Firefox 3.6.3 (or are resolved, like some of the bugs
you mention), and that there are none that I can fix involve versions 10 or
11, do not support your assertion that Sync has issues with bookmark sync that
"still haven't been fixed."

I understand you want to create a "definitive" report, but it would be good to
still go ahead and create a bug about your issue (where actual Sync developers
could help you debug it), instead of complaining about it on Hacker News.

[1]: <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=721635>

[2]: <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=721635#c3>

