Otter and Windows XP

Topic: Otter and Windows XP (Read 27774 times)

Otter and Windows XP

2015-12-19, 15:42:52

Hi, been lurking for a while, and finally joined to ask this as I couldn't find an obvious answer anywhere.
Why is there a separate download now for Otter updates for Windows XP?

I'm running 32 bit XP SP3 and I'm still using the normal exe update files and everything seems to be fine.
What is the difference with the specifically XP zip option?

When I check for updates now a mesage pops up saying that downloads may not be available for my platform, which never used to happen, and I now have to go to the delails page and manually select the download I want, when it used to just happen. I guess this is because I'm on XP, but why?

I really like the look of Otter BTW, although it still needs some functional additions before I would consider using it all the time, such as synchronisation, spell checking, and password storage. It is much nearer in look and feel to my beloved Opera 12 than Vivaldi is though.

Keep up the good work, and Happy Christmas and New Year to you all!
Cheers, Dave.

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #1 – 2015-12-19, 17:07:10

@DaveH, that separate option is needed for versions that do not have the newest Service Pack installed.
It's compiled using minGW instead of MSVC and it supports older APIs.
The issue with update checker most likely comes from issue with update metadata, which is still missing...

Quote from: DaveH on 2015-12-19, 15:42:52

I really like the look of Otter BTW, although it still needs some functional additions before I would consider using it all the time, such as synchronisation, spell checking, and password storage.

Well, at least that last two of these are planned for next release, hopefully they will both make it into beta 9. ;-)

Merry Christmas.

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #2 – 2015-12-19, 19:41:37

Thanks for the prompt reply Emdek, much appreciated!
Looks from what you say that I'm OK using the normal installer as I have XP SP3 installed.
Hopefully the update routine will return to as it was before soon.
Good news about the spell checking and pasword saving. Of course synchonisation is a lot harder as you will have to have some sort of server at your end to do it, but maybe one day!
Cheers, Dave.

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #3 – 2015-12-19, 21:27:48

@DaveH, most likely we will end up with ability to create extra backends for services that offer some form of cloud based storage etc.

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #4 – 2016-02-18, 20:08:50

Opera have just announced that they are dropping support for Windows XP and Vista.
Opera 36 will be the last that will run on XP. Opera Developer 37, released two days ago, will already install on XP, but won't run.
I assume this is because of Chromium dropping support, which has led to Google Chrome dropping XP and Vista support in April.
This will potentially affect all Chromium-based browsers of course, including Vivaldi.
How is Otter affected by this, if at all?

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #5 – 2016-02-18, 20:16:42

Otter isn't directly affected by Chromium, but XP is definitely getting harder to support. That being said, I'd seriously consider upgrading from XP to e.g. Xubuntu if Windows 7 and higher aren't your cup of tea.

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #6 – 2016-02-21, 16:00:05

@DaveH, we will try to keep support for XP as long as it is possible, but you really consider upgrade to something from this decade. ;-)

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #7 – 2016-02-26, 23:49:01

Thanks guys, and sorry for the delay in responding.
I do use Windows 8.1 as well on my machine, which is multi-boot, so I'm not quite a Luddite, I still just prefer XP for most of my computer use.
I hope Otter carries on working on it, but I well understand that eventually something will force support to be dropped.
I'm just gald that Chromium's lack of XP compatibility won't be the reason!

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #8 – 2016-04-21, 21:51:52

I am one of the Win XP SP3 users, that (hopefully) know what (and why) they are doing. Being a long time user of Opera 12.x, I had great hopes in Vivaldi and first heard about Otter on Vivaldi blog in April 2016, shortly after Vivaldi dropped support for Win XP (after Chromium did the same).

Although I also use Win7, nothing above it is my cup of tea (it will be Linux, probably Mint). So, please do try to support Win XP SP3 as long as at all possible. I think that there are more Win XP users that would be happy. The current ability to support Win XP seems to be almost unique to Otter now.

Otter surprised and impressed me! I feel that you lack public relations (at least there should be a Wikipedia article about the Otter Browser, I would say).

Thank you for what you are doing!
Borut

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #9 – 2016-04-22, 11:19:28

Firefox still supports XP and Vista at the moment, but no-one knows how long that will last.
Opera have said that they will continue to support Opera 36 with security patches for XP and Vista users for an unspecified period, but apart from Otter that's about it for now.
All the other Chromium based browsers will have to drop support now that Chromium 50 is the current version.

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #10 – 2016-05-16, 18:37:04

I just want to give a heads-up as one of my machines runs WinXP SP2 - The team is doing a brilliant job!

After a few months when I had no time to keep up with Otter developments, I dl'ed Beta10 today and I think it's ready now for most of my browsing.

Is there already a way to manipulate (context-)menus like the menu.ini in Opera? Couldn't find it so far.
What I need among other things is something like

Code: [Select]

Item, "Open in IrfanView" = Copy Image & Execute program, "C:\Program Files\...\i_view32.exe", "/clippaste"

so I can open & edit any image in IrfanView.

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #11 – 2016-06-17, 11:11:54

@scriveyn, you can modify context menu but currently there is no documentation for that, note that this specific action is not doable yet.

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #12 – 2016-07-12, 09:32:37

Please keep Windows XP support as long as you can.

You could even try Visual Studio 2010 to build your Windows binaries. Visual Studio 2010 is the last to support XP but it supports newer systems as well. Google Chrome used to be built with VS 2010 until Google dropped the support for XP. Visual Studio produces faster and smaller binaries than MinGW.

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #13 – 2016-07-24, 08:38:35

@palacs, I'm not sure if Qt has still support for VS 2010...
Plus our codebase won't compile there since it has very outdated C++ standards support (even VS 2013 requires patch).
We can keep outdated builds of legacy QtWebKit, but these haven't been updated in long time, which makes them less secure.
I've asked maintainer of revived QtWebKit, they are interested in proper mingw support, nut supporting XP might be no longer possible.

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #14 – 2016-08-21, 23:20:06

Weekly #137 doesn't work in XP.
I'm getting "The procedure entry point SleepConditionVariableCS could not be found in the dynamic link library KERNEL32.dll".
Is that it, no more Windows XP support?

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #15 – 2016-08-22, 12:57:06

Quote from: DaveH on 2016-08-21, 23:20:06

Weekly #137 doesn't work in XP.
I'm getting "The procedure entry point SleepConditionVariableCS could not be found in the dynamic link library KERNEL32.dll".
Is that it, no more Windows XP support?

have you downloaded the "ZIP package for Windows XP or later, 32 bit, legacy QtWebKit (42.4 MiB);" currently linked on otter-browser.org?
works fine on my SP3

@Emdek & co.: thanks for providing seperate packages for XP; this makes it one of two modern browsers still available on this old OS, with the other one being the now bloated Firefox; Chromium and its clones and derivates (Chrome, Vivaldi, post v15 "Opera" et al) all dropped XP support several months ago.

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #16 – 2016-08-22, 13:29:53

Thanks, yes that still works!
I thought the separate download for XP was only for those without SP3.
It is using an older and presumably now out of date version of QtWebKit though, which presumably will now always be the case.
As a matter of interest, both Opera and Slimjet still have forks for XP (36 and 10 respectively) that they have said will be maintained with security and stability patches for as long as possible. No new features though of course.
Slimjet 10 is based on Chromium 50, but sadly they weren't able to go any further than that and keep it working properly on XP.

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #17 – 2017-04-14, 15:41:14

To i ja się podłączę z prośbą. Również jestem użytkownikiem Windows XP. Będę go używać, dokąd się da.

Dlatego zwracam się z wielką prośbą. Dokąd będą możliwości, proszę uprzejmie, daj szansę użytkownikom Widows XP

Pozdrawiam serdecznie. Miłych świąt.

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #18 – 2017-04-14, 20:21:37

@kwaku1, będziemy wspierać tak długo jak się będzie dało, spokojnie. ;-)
Także życzę wesołych Świąt.

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #19 – 2017-06-12, 17:06:39

I've finally managed to build test package using msys2 but it turns out that it doesn't work under XP anymore. :-/
There is still a chance to get updated QtWebKit for that platform but we will have to wait some more for another chance...

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #20 – 2017-07-10, 19:58:45

And there is finally good news, I've managed to build XP compatible binaries using MXE, thus bringing Qt 5.6.2 and modern QtWebKit to that platform. :-)
Also there was change that should fix SSL errors, so the biggest remaining issue will be multimedia support (I'm still experimenting with GStreamer backend for QtWebKit under Windows).

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #21 – 2017-07-10, 22:08:24

Thanks Emdek, that is great news!
I'm sure all those who are still having to stick with XP for whatever reason will be very grateful indeed for all your efforts.

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #22 – 2017-07-12, 12:37:15

Hi
Error,
Windows XP package was updated to Qt 5.6.2 and revived QtWebKit (184)
Windows XP SP2 Flash error on all videos with close otter browser

No youtube video possible
Error stop point (0x0000003) location 0x6b94efca
otter browser 183 flash 26.0.0.131 is OK with Win XPsp2
thank you for your work

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #23 – 2017-07-13, 14:50:27

YouTube seems to be OK here, using the Flash Player rather than HTML5, but I think that's expected on XP.
The only thing that seems a bit strange is that when I right click on the video I see the nortmal right click dialogue rather than the Flash Player doalogue that I would expect to see.

Re: Otter and Windows XP

Reply #24 – 2017-07-13, 17:39:43

@Alex31, works fine here, Flash 26 (NPAPI variant) under Windows XP SP3.

@DaveH, locally I have build that can handle all popular codecs, including WebM and MP4, but I'll have to disable h264 support before publishing due to legal reasons...