Firefox updates, add or not

[PtBetsie]

All the pc's at the center are older P4's and don't have the modern computing capability. At best they will have 1G RAM in them and 2.2 gHz processors. All are running Windows Xp. They have firefox installed and we get lots of notifications on updates including the last one for security. Although we keep the windows updates added as received, can we stick with Firefox 3? Size of the new updates are always bigger and bigger which can be a problem on not up to date pc's.

[LochLomonder]

I would definitely recommend updating Firefox, since a lot of these updates plug security holes. Failing to do so may leave vulnerabilities on your systems which could be exploited.

As far as running the program is concerned, I find Firefox to be a lot less "lardy" than Internet Explorer, and would likely work a lot better on older systems. If you're concerned about the amount of disk space the install consumes, it might be worthwhile cleaning down the PCs to ensure there's not a lot of superfluous junk on them taking up space unnecessarily.

[PtBetsie]

Thanks for the info. It looks like Monday will be a busy day.

[jlreich]

Definitely keep it up to date.

[Sylvander]

1. "All the pc's at the center are older P4's and don't have the modern computing capability. At best they will have 1G RAM in them and 2.2 gHz processors. All are running Windows Xp"
(a) Trying a Puppy_Linux on one of these [the oldest?] is a MUST!
Puppy makes older hardware seem like new.
Probably faster than the newest and latest.
No need to install; just boot it off the "live" optical disk...
And [if you want to save changes/configurations/new_package_installs] make a pupsave file somewhere handy.
Ideally the storage should be fast to read/write.
Perhaps a dedicated partition on an an internal HDD.
Otherwise a Flash Drive would do.

(b) Right now I'm copying to folders in the root of the XP->NTFS partition on my son's laptop...
The pupsave files I made on my own PC for 6 different Puppies.
I'm pleasantly surprised to see that they work just as well on his laptop as they do on my 2003 desktop.
Also copied 4 of them to a 4GB Flash Drive [to give him to try?]

(c) Also made him a MultiPup CD-RW holding 4 Puppies, complete with boot menu [it uses GRUB], but it isn't able to see the pupsave files.
Must look into that.
Probably GRUB unable to see things on NTFS or ext3.

2. These Puppies [running on old hardware] have little or no problem with the latest Firefox versions.
If the Firefox is an installed extra [not natively included]...
It loads fast if the pupsave is held on a fast medium [internal HDD]...
And slower if on a slower medium [USB 2.0 connected].
In which case, the thing to do is to REMASTER the optical disk so as to include the additions [Firefox included] into the ISO file, and thence to the SFS file, which should then be copied beside the pupsave on fast a medium.
That way it [in the SFS] gets loaded into RAM at boot, so doesn't need loaded from the pupsave [loading from a slow medium, so slowing the action].

[PrntRhd]

I was not aware you had to run Puppy Linux to use Firefox.
A MUST?


PtBetsie,
I agree with jlreich

[Sylvander]

1. "A MUST?"
No way! As I'm sure both you and I well know.
[I run Firefox quite successfully on Win2000Pro on old hardware]
The point is that PtBetsie was saying that there were problems running Firefox on older hardware running XP [seems to be a bad combination].
Older hardware running Puppy_Linux is normally an OUTSTANDINGLY GOOD COMBINATION...
...That has as a by-product, the fact that Firefox will run rather well.