I’m running an old computer with win7, and I’m experiencing troubles to publish here in the reflector.
It seems my browsers (Firefox and Chrome) don’t meet the current requirements by Discourse.
I tried using alternative browsers like Edge or Vivaldi, but in all cases the reflector window has difficulties : with some of the browsers I can only read the articles, with some others I cannot even read them.
Is there any browser compatible with my old pC which can be used to compose and publish articles in the reflector?
I’m currently using my mobile phone which is my only way to publish nowadays!
This isn’t answering your question…but I’d recommend installing a modern Linux distribution which will then allow you to use a recent browser. It’ll run perfectly well on your older machine.
There are a few options for you. Depending on how your PC was made, it may have a digital licence in its BIOS. If so this means you can update it to Win10 and the installer will find the digital licence and activate Win10. That gets you a step forward but again you are borrowed time to some degree as Win10 will eventually get to the same state as Win7 is. But that keeps you on Windows.
Or you can buy a new machine with Win11. I wouldn’t do that.
Or do what Alex suggests and install Linux. That is the cheapest option but does have the issue of you learning how to do things in Linux and finding some programs have no Linux comparable counterpart.
My Win10 PC was a 2013 vintage machine that I had upgraded with more RAM and a big SSD. It was fine and dandy and despite being 13 years old was more than fast enough for what I did at home especially as I could always sneak jobs that needed real fast computers onto the machines at work. When I decided on a retirement timetable I knew I wouldn’t have the big machines any more so I bought a 3 year old ex-business Dell Desktop (i7-12700, 32MB RAM, 2TB SSD) for not much money from eBay and installed Linux. Oh boy is it fast in comparison to an i7-3440K ! Not as fast as my 40x CPU servers I had at work but “fast enough”. I also installed a small Win10 VM as my UK walking software is Windows/Android/Mac only. That is all the Win10 VM does, everything else can be done on Linux apps.
So this is a big change and it took some time to get the new machine set up and data and files transferred over. But I try to do everything using Linux and just use the VM for walking software. I still have the old Win10 machine as that has some specific SQL tools that are used for updating associations. It’s booted once a month and used and shutdown. Slowly I’m replacing that software with software I’m writing that will run on Windows or Linux.
If I were you, I’d buy a shiny ex-business PC and switch to Linux. That leaves your old Win7 machine to be used as you move to all Linux. What to buy? Any modern Dell or HP business desktop will do, they’re well made. Mine is a Dell OptiPlex 7000 in a SFF case (about 28x15x10cm).
But no matter what you do, it will be disruptive for some weeks.
You can check if your PC has a digital licence by running a command prompt as Administrator and executing the following and see if you get a big long string of numbers and letters. If so then you do. If you get an error or blank response, you don’t.
wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey
…hi Ignacio, thank for beginning this tread, I too have the same issues as you! Learning a lot though this discussion, especially Andy’s contribution. Thanks all.
Lot’s of good advice on the suggested use of Linux. Windows 7 should not have access to the Internet anymore in my opinion.
But the important question apart from browsing the Reflector is:
Windows only software that you must run? Logbook/Cat control ?
Because for many tools there are great Linux options.
But please give us an idea on the specification of your current system.
RAM
SSD drive yes/no
CPU 64 bit yes/no
And hardware recommendation wise I would also go for a refurbished business pc. But not a laptop but a small formfactor PC.
Somthing like a HP Prodesk G6 or newer Series
If you are lucky you can find refurbished ones even with 16GB RAM
I use Windows 7 64 bit on both my machines without any issues. As others have said, Supermium is the browser to use for the Reflector. Linux isn’t for everyone.
The end of life for Windows 7 was the 14th January 2020.
So 6+ years without security updates. I would say you all are in luck that nothings bad happend.
And running a Antivirus or similar “protection” tools will not help because the security flaws can be on a system level and these tools will not even notice them.
In times of AI that can code analyse and find security flaws way more efficient than humans I find it most important to be running a secure system as good a possible.
Also Linux OS have progressed a lot. And with WINE a compartibility layer for Windows software is available.
Keep the current computer and install Linux. Mint would be a good choice as it is based on Ubuntu but with a bunch of extras added e.g. media codecs (software that interprets and aids playback of music and video formats basically) etc to make life a bit easier particulalry for newcomers. You could try a smaller, lighter OS like Pop! if the computer cannot run Mint smoothly.
Recycle / donate the Windows 7 computer (a hackerspace, charity etc could certainly make use of it so it doesn’t go to WEEE) and purchase a used computer. Lenovo laptops are a good option for Linux. Run Windows 7 in a VM - Virtualbox is a good free option to run occasional Windows software in, or you could try Wine or Bottles to run them natively under Linux.
Purchase a new computer with Windows X (X being whatever the latest version of 11 is). Not the cheapest option though. Recycle/donate your current computer - per option 2.
If the computer you currently use is used for anything important e.g. banking or anything personal/private, take the computer offline at your earliest opportunity that you are able to afford to do so and run a supported, patchable operating system and discontinue using the Windows 7 machine online for anything important.
Linux isn’t the most beginner-friendly OS, but really that is if you want to be more of a power user. For the everyday tasks it is a superb option for browsing and office tasks e.g. Libre Office is up there with Microsoft Office. GIMP is a good Photoshop alternative, patching is easy as it is GUI’ed under the software manager and so on.
In that case one way forward could be to:
1.) Add a SSD and install Linux there
You can swap SATA connectors between the drives to test it without changing your system. Or go dual boot so that you can give the Linux experience a try.
As already recommended there are distributions that have a very similar user experience as Windows. So it really depends on must-have software that you use right now and either finding a way to replace it. Or find a way to run it.
For your choice of distribution I would go with a popular choice as chances of finding help are of course bigger. And a good balance of software (in the App Stores aka Package Manager) available is a factor as this is the best way to install software on Linux.
If you ask me for a good balance between user experience and brand new software I would recommend Manjaro (in the KDE Plasma version).
This was my choice for my laptop years back and it works really well and I have the power of the AUR available to latest software versions.
