Apparently I'm going to be kicked off the boards (Discourse upcoming incompatibility){New cheap PC posts moved out}

[Guilty_Conscience]

This is my first SDMB post; I apologize for the likely errors.

The OP appears to be running Firefox 115 ESR on a Mac, perhaps running MacOS 10.13. (Apologies if this has been stated explicitly; I haven’t read all the posts). I’m in the same boat, and received the same banner message. I’ve looked around for browsers that support MacOS pre-10.15, and stumbled onto Firefox Dynasty. This is a project run by someone apparently out of love (or lunacy, I suppose) that takes recent releases of Firefox and ports them backwards in operating systems. I’m typing this using Dynasty 136.0.3 and MacOS 10.13.6, and it’s working perfectly. And no banner, and according to the Discourse Feature Test, all three new Discourse features are supported.

I’ve only been running Dynasty for a few days, so it may have bugs I haven’t encountered, but it might provide the OP with an alternative to purchasing a new Mac. YMMV, but I hope it doesn’t. I’d be interested to know if the OP or anyone else tries Dynasty, and what they think of it. PS I am not the potential lunatic referred to above.

[Guilty_Conscience]

Oops, I probably should have provided a link, although a search engine for Firefox Dynasty should provide a hit. The link is https://github.com/i3roly/firefox-dynasty/releases. I recommend avoiding the “b” or “Build” releases.

[thorny_locust]

Hello @Guilty_Conscience, welcome to the boards, and thanks!

I’ll add that to my list of things to try.

[DrDeth]

@Cugel

“We are, that is us, the people who maintain the software, are changing it so it won’t work for you. This is obviously your fault.”

Yeah, I got the same message from my old Mac. But why will they no longer support? Too many extra hamsters or something?

@bump

Griping about this is like griping that your old tube TV doesn’t handle digital TV.

Really? Explain why you can’t support stuff you already are supporting? An old tube TV was never able to get modern stuff.

@wolfpup

That’s often how sites determine whether the browser is supported or not, but according to the discussion in the Discourse thread linked in the OP (under “learn more”) someone wrote a fairly simple HTML script that allegedly tests for the three features Discourse will be requiring, which is allegedly the test that Discourse is doing before putting up the warning.

This gets closer to “why” (thanks!) but again, since it has always worked before now, why cant it work?

[LSLGuy]

Discourse has chosen to make their website newer better fancier. That entails using new features of the ever-evolving HTML5 standards. Only later / latest version browsers can do this.

Browser developers in turn depend on OSs. The latest browser versions don’t run on old version OSs. Because the OSs themselves continuously evolve and improve. And latest version OSs don’t run on old version hardware since hardware continuously evolves and improves.

Since hardware, OSs, HTML, browsers, and websites are all continuously changed, improved and updated, once you the user choose to stagnate any layer in the stack you own / control, pretty soon some now-obsolete component is going to prevent you keeping up.

We can bitch about it, but we can’t stop it.

As the Borg almost said:

Whining is futile.

[DocCathode]

@DrDeth

Really? Explain why you can’t support stuff you already are supporting? An old tube TV was never able to get modern stuff.

Yes, and outdated browsers and operating systems can’t get “modern stuff” either.

When they switched to a digital signal for television, they switched to a digital signal. They no longer broadcast the old signal. I could not afford a new television at the time. Fortunately, the government issued discount coupons that allowed me to get a signal converter for my CRT television. Why did they stop supporting my old television?

[thorny_locust]

@Shalmanese

The window for buying a new machine is closing by the minute.

I. Do. Not. Have. The. Money.

I understand that the amount of money we’re talking about is pocket change for some on this board. But I’ve said before in this thread that I cannot buy a new computer right now, however cheap other people think it is.

[Max_S]

@thorny_locust

I might be able to get in on the iPad, which does take 16.7; but it’s a lot harder for me to browse the boards on the smaller screen, and a lot harder for me to type any responses.

If you sign up for email notifications you can use the tablet to subscribe to topics and reply via email. You can still browse the boards in html mode, you just can’t log in or post or search.

~Max

[Reply]

@Guilty_Conscience

I’ve looked around for browsers that support MacOS pre-10.15, and stumbled onto Firefox Dynasty.

Hey @Guilty_Conscience, welcome to the board! We don’t often see newcomers these days.

Great tip on that browser, and glad to have you with us Hope you’ll stick around.

[Reply]

@LSLGuy

Whining is futile.

But damn, it feels good, no?

@DocCathode

Yes, and outdated browsers and operating systems can’t get “modern stuff” either.

The stuff they’re adding seems pretty minor, and IMO doesn’t really justify cutting off old users when there are folks actively complaining.

I say that as a web dev, but not one familiar with the Discourse source code. It’s possible there is reason this is critical for them, but if so, they haven’t specifically discussed it (of course, they’re under no obligation to). But at first glance it just looks like any other run of the mill update, one that doesn’t even add any user-facing features (but will make future development easier).

It may not have been clear to them early on that this would affect so many old Mac and Windows users. At first they thought it would only affect a few old iPhone users, until more and more people came out of the woodwork and started replying.

Back on the official Discourse forum, I’ve been imploring them (not very successfully) to try to limit the damage caused by the change, or perhaps postpone it until a workaround can be put in place. One of the co-founders mentioned they’ve been thinking about making a “basic HTML” mode that would allow very old browsers to continue to post without needing the latest browser and Javascript features. But so far most of the other devs there seem unmoved; they would rather keep Discourse modern than support older browsers.

I don’t see those goals as mutually exclusive, since there are well-tested strategies for supporting both old and new browsers, but certainly supporting the old ones will take additional time and money. They’re not going to want to invest those resources unless there is sufficient demand, and who could blame them?

If any of you long-timers remember the early Discourse staff from the old days, this may be a good time to call in a favor, or maybe just drop by the thread and leave a friendly note?

May is just around the corner, so if they’re going to change anything, it will have to be soon. Otherwise you’ll be stuck with the alternative browsers, and we’ll just have to hope those will work for a bit longer…

[gnoitall]

There is another social dynamic involved here which supports @LSLGuy’s joking but accurate observation that complaining will be ineffective.

Individual posters complaining they’re being left behind don’t really affect decisions like this, because the poster is not Discourse’s customer. The forum provider is.

That provides a degree of separation. Any individual poster’s distress – even the loss of any particular poster – has no decisive impact on Discourse’s choices. As long as enough of any particular forum board’s population can deal, and the board continues to be a Discourse customer, losing a few posters has no effect on Discourse

[thorny_locust]

OK, I’m logged in on the iPad and am not seeing any warnings. So that workaround, at least, will presumably work.

I do have a bluetooth keyboard for it, though getting it linked and schlepping it around with the ipad is a bit of a nuisance.

[LSLGuy]

True At the same time, a large groundswell of protest, not here at SDMB but over on Discourse’s own feedback channels will give Discourse management an idea of just how disruptive these changes will be to their total user base. Of which SDMB is but one of many.

If they’re getting raked over the coals over there adding our users’ voices will be useful. If not, well at least we’ll understand why they’re moving forward; there’s no evidence visible to them that anyone will be inconvenienced.

[DrDeth]

@DocCathode

Yes, and outdated browsers and operating systems can’t get “modern stuff” either.

Look, my old computer has been able to view the SDMB for a long time. What I want is an explanation of why they are turning that off.

[LSLGuy]

How much detail from whom?

They want to change their app to use features that newer-ish browsers have and ancient browsers lack. Anything beyond that is technobabble for most users, and particularly those who are not current web development experts.

It’s just luck that this planned incremental change is one that obsoletes a lot of old browsers that are maxed out on their version that is supported by old OSes that are also maxed out on their version that is supported by old hardware.

Lots of incremental changes in support requirements have probably gone by unnoticed since SDMB joined Discourse 4+ years ago.

[DrDeth]

@LSLGuy

They want to change their app to use features that newer-ish browsers have and ancient browsers lack. Anything beyond that is technobabble for most users, and particularly those who are not current web development experts.

It’s just luck that this planned incremental change is one that obsoletes a lot of old browsers that are maxed out on their version that is supported by old OSes that are also maxed out on their version that is supported by old hardware.

That explains and answers my question- except are these small changes worth losing a lot of subscribers? Mind you- it isnt only the SDMB, other groups etc use Discourse.

[LSLGuy]

Couple thoughts:

We (or at least I) don’t know that these are “small” changes. They may well enable a very different and more modern look and feel and more importantly capability set. Right now Discourse is feeling pretty dated compared to the competition. Which may be costing them new users every day.

I have no idea how many subscribers we’re talking about. You could ask the Discourse support folks on their forums; this isn’t the place to talk to them. It would not surprise me to find that 2 or 3 percent of their users across all their sites are now using soon-to-be obsolete browsers. IOW, for 97-98% of their user base, this upgrade is a non-event.

Based on lots of prior experience, they probably assume that WAG 2/3rds of those currently running those soon-to-be obsolete browsers can & will upgrade once nudged. A bunch of the rest will upgrade eventually for other reasons unrelated to Discourse and some of those will come back. And some folks, especially the elderly and curmudgeonly (and skint) won’t upgrade and / or won’t come back. OK.

[Reply]

It’s just what @LSLGuy said:

@LSLGuy

They want to change their app to use features that newer-ish browsers have and ancient browsers lack. Anything beyond that is technobabble for most users, and particularly those who are not current web development experts.

This is exactly right. The particular changes they are implementing are:

• CSS relative colors, which lets them go from, say, green to dark green more easily. It’s a convenience function for developers.
• CSS subgrids, another convenience feature which makes it easier to make nested layouts, like maybe (my guess) thumbnail galleries or the “Onebox” link previews that you sometimes see when you paste a URL.
• Regular expression lookbehinds… this one is harder to explain. It’s like a way to ask computers to search for text only if it follows some other text, like “I want all instances of Deth, but only if it follows Dr”. There are other expressions that can do similar searches without this particular feature.

In all three cases, these are conveniences — shorthands, basically — that would otherwise be more tedious (but not impossible) to develop. It saves developers time. They don’t do anything for users (right away), but make it easier to develop newer features and layouts in the future.

@DrDeth

except are these small changes worth losing a lot of subscribers? Mind you- it isnt only the SDMB, other groups etc use Discourse.

I’d argue no, but you and I don’t work for Discourse, and I don’t know if any of their team will happen across this SDMB thread. Leave a comment on the official thread if you also don’t think these changes are worth cutting people off for…

(Edit: Oops, simulpost. LSLGuy is also right that we don’t know the full details. There may be a valid reason that they haven’t explicitly mentioned that requires them to make these changes on their particular timeline. It’s part of the discussion on the official thread.)

[Reply]

@LSLGuy

Right now Discourse is feeling pretty dated compared to the competition.

Out of curiosity, what competition might that be? Are there other newer/better/faster forum software out there these days?

I generally like Discourse well enough, but I’d love to see what the competition is up to…