Firefox is about to stop supporting Windows Vista

Firefox is about to stop supporting Windows Vista and websites are not working. Is there a cheap or preferably free solution?

I read your article about Windows 10 updates and that most PCs with Vista should be tossed in the trash bin. I really don’t want to do that. I bought my computer with a disability settlement, and I simply don’t have the money for upgrades. It is an HP Model m8530f with an AMD Phenom 9550 quad-core processor and 5GB of memory. I use it for writing, blogging, internet access, simple games, nothing intense. But I do need to do something because there is only one web browser I can use effectively, and some websites have begun to shun us unfortunate Vista folks. Please tell me how to do this. I am not stupid or illiterate, just a little on the broke side, and a bit (OK, a lot) of a procrastinator. Jeanne

Microsoft launched Windows Vista in January 2007 and stopped supporting it in April last year. Any PCs still running Vista are therefore likely to be eight to 10 years old, and showing their age. In particular, hard drives are increasingly prone to fail after about five years, or 50,000 hours use, so it’s important to keep good backups.

Vista was a pretty good operating system, at least after Microsoft released the Service Pack 1 update, but very few people still use it. Microsoft has since launched Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and several versions of Windows 10. It’s no longer worth software providers and websites spending money testing and adapting their code to make sure it works with Vista, so you’re likely to face increasing problems using it online.

You are also at a greater risk from malware. Microsoft no longer provides Vista security patches, and has stopped updating Microsoft Security Essentials. You should therefore install antivirus software that still supports Vista, though I’m not sure which still do, apart from Malwarebytes and Comodo. Whatever you have already installed should be OK as long as the supplier keeps updating the virus signatures.

You will also run into more problems with browsers. I assume that the one browser you can use effectively is Firefox. The bad news is that Firefox will stop supporting Windows XP and Vista in June. Mozilla says: “For planning purposes, enterprises using Firefox should consider May 2018 as the support end date for Windows XP and Vista.” You have only a few weeks left.

Hardware matters
The good news is that your 2008-vintage desktop PC looks powerful enough to run Windows 7 or a flavour of Linux. Indeed, according to HP’s spec sheet, you could upgrade your m8530f to use a faster but hotter processor and up to 8GB of memory. I assume you could also upgrade the Nvidia GeForce 9300 GS currently installed, and probably swap your fast 750GB hard drive for a faster SSD. You could even upgrade the 350W power supply to a 550W version.

If your HP m8530f continues to work correctly, you don’t need any of these upgrades. The point is that if it fails, you should be able to replace or upgrade faulty parts without junking the whole machine. This may not even cost very much. People often break up PCs like this and sell the working parts on eBay for “spares or repair”.

The 2.2GHz Phenom X4 9550 has a PassMark benchmark score of 2542, which still qualifies as “mid range”. It’s only about a third of the speed of a current 3.6GHz Intel Core i3-8100 (PassMark 8078), but it’s still faster than the 1.1GHz quad-core Pentium N4200 (PassMark 2022) used in budget laptops like the Asus VivoBook Max.

 ‘I bought my computer with a disability settlement, and I simply don’t have the money for upgrades.’ Photograph: Alamy

Windows upgrades
The bad news is that I don’t think your HP m8530f will run Windows 10. HP says it hasn’t tested products that were bought before August 2013, and it hasn’t written any Windows 10 drivers for them. Windows 10 might still run with the drivers Microsoft supplies, but you’d have to try this yourself, and my web searches didn’t find anybody who’d written it up.

Microsoft doesn’t support an upgrade from Vista to Windows 10. Trying it would involve doing a “clean installation” that deletes your current software and applications. I can’t recommend that unless there’s a good chance of Windows 10 working.

However, you could upgrade to Windows 7. The first and most obvious drawback is that you would have to buy a Windows 7 Upgrade or the full Windows 7 software. (For your purposes, they’re the same thing.) You might be able to pick up a cheap copy locally or from eBay, but it can be hard to identify a reputable seller.

The second and less obvious drawback is that Windows 7 will only be supported until 14 January 2020. However, most businesses still use Windows 7, and I expect that most browser and anti-virus software suppliers will continue to support it after Microsoft support ends. This happened before, with Windows XP.

Note: I don’t recommend upgrading from Vista to Windows 8.1 – which will be supported until January 23 – because that also requires a clean installation.

The Linux option
GNU/Linux is well known for prolonging the life of hardware that is no longer a viable platform for Windows, and it supports all today’s major PC browsers. There are, of course, some drawbacks. The main problem is that Linux doesn’t run Windows software natively, and it doesn’t run programs such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, Apple iTunes, Intuit’s QuickBooks and most major games.

You can run some Windows software on Linux using Wine (originally from Wine Is Not an Emulator), but you may have to give up or replace some programs that are important to you.

The other problem is learning to use Linux. This is not as easy as its fans often claim, especially when something goes wrong. Of course, you would have to relearn some things whether you switched to Windows 10, MacOS or Linux, but Linux has the steepest learning curve.

Fortunately, you don’t have to commit to Linux to try it. You can use your PC to create a “Live CD” (or DVD or USB thumbdrive) that will run Linux without disturbing Vista. There are hundreds of options, but you might try Linux Mint – my usual recommendation for newbies – or Ubuntu Mate or Ubuntu Gnome.

Linux runs relatively slowly from a DVD so use a fast USB thumbdrive if you can. You can create one with a free utility, LinuxLive USB Creator.

If the experiment goes well, you can install Linux alongside Vista in a dual-boot configuration, so that you can load either at will. Lots of websites have step-by-step instructions. Read a few related to the version of Linux you decide to install.

You might also consider installing Ubuntu 18.04, codenamed Bionic Beaver, which is due to be released today. With this version, Ubuntu has returned to the standard Gnome 3 desktop instead of Unity.

Linux tends to change rapidly, but the LTS (Long Term Support) versions – such as Mint 18.3 and Ubuntu 18.04 – are supported for up to five years. After a decade of Vista, you may appreciate the stability.

(Source: The Guardian)

Kate Middleton's delivery of her third baby probably cost less than a typical birth in the US

Figures show procedure cost £5,670, while in America similar operation would amount to £7,749

It’s a boy!

The Duchess of Cambridge is officially a mother of three after giving birth to a royal baby boy earlier this week. All eight pounds and seven ounces of HRH Prince of Cambridge (whose name has not yet been announced) were welcomed in the Lindo Wing of St Mary’s Hospital in London, according to Kensington Palace.

“The Duke of Cambridge was present for the birth,” read a tweet from Kensington Palace. “Her Royal Highness and her child are both doing well.”

Fifth in line to the throne, the new prince’s arrival came at a lower cost than one might expect for a royal baby delivery – at least when compared to the cost of a similar delivery in the US.

For 24 hours in a deluxe room and a non-Caesarean delivery in 2015, the Lindo Wing charged £5,670 and that’s for luxurious maternity ward accommodations. the average cost of a normal delivery or a planned caesarean in the UK is just £1,755. If complications arise, it is still only £2,582 on average.

In the US, the average fee for a delivery without complications (and without a luxury ensuite and or deluxe room) costs $10,808 (£7,749) – which can increase to an estimated $30,000 when considering care given before and after pregnancy. That’s more than the delivery cost of both a royal baby and a non-royal baby in the UK.

According to findings by the International Federation of Health Plans, the US leads in total average hospital and physician costs for a delivery without complications. Delivering a baby costs $7,751 in Switzerland and $5,312 in Australia. Spain and South Africa both cost less than $2,000, charging $1,950 and $1,271 respectively.

Even though insurance typically covers most of the cost, American parents can still face a bill of roughly $3,000, while many Europeans have free maternity care.

(Source: BI)

Diplomacy on the menu: How food can shape politics

From caviar chosen in bad taste to presidents throwing up, food has over the years played a considerable part in diplomatic get-togethers.

World leaders and politicians often work long hours, negotiate difficult situations, spend a lot of time talking to people and maybe even have a few sleepless nights. But certainly, like the rest of us, they always have to eat.

There are two big meetings between leaders this week and a lot of thought has gone into the menus.

North Korea's Kim Jong-un is meeting South Korean President Moon Jae-in in the first talks between the two countries' leaders since 2007. A flat sea fish to remind Mr Moon of his hometown port city of Busan will be served, but so too will Swiss rösti, a nod to the school years Mr Kim is said to have spent in Switzerland.

Whet your appetite. WH announces menu for Tuesday night's State Dinner for French Pres and Mme Macron: pic.twitter.com/AHzVE9iUlN

— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) April 23, 2018

Over in the US, French President Emmanuel Macron is making the first state visit by a foreign leader under Donald Trump's presidency. The Trumps served up the best of American fare at the state dinner, with a few French touches.

Unifying menu
So is serving Mr Kim, who is believed to have a love of French cheese and wine, a Swiss dish a conscious ploy on the part of the South Koreans to win him over?

"It's certainly part of the tactics," says Johanna Mendelson-Forman, an adjunct professor at the American University in Washington DC and an expert in the field of culinary diplomacy.

"The whole menu is fascinating," says research consultant Sam Chapple Sokol, who argues that food at the summit is, literally and figuratively, setting the table for positive discussions.

"Because it calls upon all the regions of both Koreas, it's a unifying menu. So, the goal really seems to be unification on the table."

John Dory, a reminder of home for South Korean President Moon Jae-in

He points out that the North Korean government has never actually confirmed that Kim Jong-un lived in Switzerland, and so, "it is a little bit of a gamble, and almost an assumption on the part of the menu designers that this is the one Swiss dish to serve".

He adds: "Who knows, maybe he's never had it before, or maybe he's more accustomed to fondue or raclette."

Food faux pas
Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called food "the oldest diplomatic tool" in fostering relationships. It is used in the hopes of improving co-operation but, as Mr Sokol explains, things don't always go to plan.

In 1992, then US President George HW Bush was visiting Japan as part of an Asia trip. At a state dinner, in between the second course (raw salmon with caviar) and the third (grilled beef with peppery sauce), he made history by becoming the first sitting president to vomit on the prime minister of Japan.

The food was reportedly not to blame, with US media at the time quoting the president's men as saying it was "just the flu".

Caviar. Maybe not for a socialist president

"There obviously was no malintent there," says Mr Sokol, "but I think that probably set us back a few years and he's still made fun of by people in Japan."

There are other unfortunate diplomatic examples too.

When former US President Barack Obama hosted his French counterpart François Hollande for a state dinner, the White House menu featured caviar from Illinois.

As part of a fancy state affair, this isn't unexpected. But for Mr Hollande, whose socialist government was careful not to spark further French resentment towards the wealthy "caviar left", as they were dubbed, this couldn't have been great for optics back home, according to Mr Sokol.

Breaking of bread
"Food is a tremendous, tremendous, powerful tool," believes analyst Dr Maria Velez de Berliner. "Whoever controls the access to food, they have control of the room."

This certainly proved true for UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1979. In a European Council meeting with French President Giscard d'Estaing, who wanted to break for dinner, she refused to end the session before a decision was made.

Margaret Thatcher: No food till we agree

Unsurprisingly, she managed to make Mr d'Estaing more amenable to her proposals as the evening dragged on.

Ms Mendelson-Forman argues that food in diplomatic situations also has the capacity to break down barriers.

"Food humanises people - it humanises your adversaries," she explains.

During the 20 months of negotiations for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, tensions were high and the talks nearly collapsed at least five times, according to the New Yorker.

Negotiators had always eaten separately but on the 4th of July, America's Independence Day, the Iranians extended an invitation for the two sides to break bread together - with no shop talk allowed.

"It was the first time the Iranians and Americans looked at each other differently," says Ms Mendelson-Forman.

"They saw each other as negotiators first," agrees Dr Berliner, "and then they saw each other as people."

Within 10 days an agreement was finally reached, with both experts convinced it was made possible by the Persian meal the two sides had shared and the rapport it had helped foster.

It could be that this spirit will endure this week and in the near future.

The next big unprecedented diplomatic meeting on the calendar is Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un - could what's on their plates shape a breakthrough?

(Source: BBC)

Korea talks: The intricate theatrics of a historic meeting

The historic summit between South and North Korea has been a carefully staged affair of intricate theatrics.

There is symbolism in almost every aspect of the meeting, from food to flowers and from table diameter to the planting of a pine tree.

It is all designed to "signify the arrival of peace on the Korean Peninsula and the era of co-operation and prosperity," according to the South Korean committee in charge of preparing the summit.

The venue
The meeting takes place in the Panmunjom village in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). This in itself is already quite symbolic.

For the two previous summits, it has been the South's political leader who travelled to Pyongyang, the North's capital.

This time, the two sides' leaders meet at the military demarcation line and then walked to the Peace House for the actual talks.

The house is south of the border and it's been the first time a North Korean leader has ever crossed that line.

An honour guard of South Korean soldiers dressed in colourful traditional garb - rather than South Korean military uniform - lined the path of the two leaders.

The flowers
For decoration, their meeting room features flowers in traditional white porcelain vases.

But not just any flowers: peonies to symbolise greetings, daisies to stand for peace, and wild flowers picked in the DMZ.

The table
The two leaders sat down at an oval table exactly 2,018mm wide, a diameter to reference the year the summit takes place.

The chairs were also custom-made for the summit and they include a little dig at Japan.

Featuring a map of the whole Korean peninsula they also show the disputed Dokdo islands, controlled by Seoul but also claimed by Tokyo. Both Koreas are united in their dislike of Japan.

The decor
The symbolism in the room extends beyond the table and chairs.

The room is designed to feel like a traditional Korean Hanok house - with panelled windows made of paper.

The blue carpet is meant to represent the mountains and streams across the Korean peninsular.

And the large landscape painting on the wall is of Mt Kumgang, in North Korea. A South Korean government spokesperson said it was a mountain that many Koreans aspired to visit.

"Mt Kumgang is a symbol of reconciliation and co-operation between the South and the North."

The tree planting soil will in part come from the North's Mount Paektu

The pine tree
The afternoon featured a commemorative tree planting. The pine tree dates back to 1953, AFP reports, the year the Korean War armistice was signed.

Both leaders picked up shovels to ceremoniously plant the tree in soil brought from mountains in both the North and South. It was then watered by water from rivers in each of their halves of the peninsula.

There's a plaque by it saying: "Planting peace and prosperity."

The food
The dinner served to both delegations this evening will again be loaded with symbolism; every bite carries significant weight.

Produce and recipes will be from North and South Korea, from the two leaders' hometowns, and even sourced from the DMZ.

Not all symbolism is inter-Korean. The two little dots to the right are aimed at Japan

There will, for instance, be Pyongyang Naengmyun, famous cold noodles from the North, Swiss potato rosti because Kim Jong-un spent his youth in Switzerland, seafood from Moon Jae-un's hometown and the traditional bibimbab rice dish, with vegetables grown in the DMZ.

One of the desserts will again feature a map of the two Koreas - again with the disputed islands. The symbolism did not go unnoticed in Tokyo.

Japan's foreign ministry issued a "strong protest" over of the controversial mango mousse.

(Source: BBC)

Kim Jong-un becomes first North Korean leader to cross into South in 65 years

The leaders of North and South Korea concluded their first round of negotiations midway through talks on Friday after two hours of small talk, jokes and pledges to work together to bring long-term peace to the peninsula and make the world a safer place.

Kim Jong-un, regarded last year as an international pariah after conducting his sixth nuclear test, promised a “new beginning” and hailed a new era of peace. South Korean President Moon Jae-in urged “bold” decisions that would be a “great gift” to humanity.

When they broke for lunch a few hours later, the South said the two leaders had so far discussed "denuclearisation and a permanent peace" - but there were no further details.

They re-emerged having eaten in their own countries for a ceremonial tree planting ceremony, which was laden with symbolism.

Kim and Moon planted a pine tree - standing for peace and prosperity - on the Military Demarcation Line, an area synonymous with confrontation and division over the past 65 years.

The pine is a transplanted specimen said to have been seeded in 1953 - the year the Korean War ended - and soil and water from the North and South were used to bed it in.

Their historic meeting began at 9.30am local time as Kim emerged from the Panmungak, the North's symbolic building 80m north of border, with a large entourage including his younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, sweeping down the wide staircase to make his way to the Military Demarcation Line that separates the two countries, where President Moon Jae-in waited to greet him.

With wide grins, the two men shook hands as they met for the first time, and Kim became the first North Korean leader to cross over to the southern side of the Demilitarized Zone since the Korean War ended in 1953 .

“You have come to the South, when will I be able to come to the North?” asked Mr Moon.

“Maybe now is the right time for you to enter North Korean territory?” quipped Kim, and in an unscripted move, the two men held hands as the stepped back over the divide into the North.

The images, broadcast live around the world, were highly emotional for the divided Korean peninsula, which never formally ended the Korean War of 1950-53. In a vast press room a few miles from the location of the talks in Panmunjom, South Korean journalists gasped and applauded.

The meeting of the two leaders was only the third in the history of the two nations, and it has raised hopes of finding an eventual solution to international tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missiles programmes.

In a guestbook at the Peace House summit venue, Kim wrote: "A new history begins now - at the starting point of history and the era of peace."

The reclusive Kim, 34, appeared nervous at first as he met Mr Moon and accompanied him along a red carpet to inspect an honour guard.

But he later relaxed, quipping that he hoped Mr Moon would enjoy the cold noodles speciality he had brought from the North and promising that he would no longer interrupt the South Korean president’s sleep with early morning missile tests.

Kim was "flooded with emotion", he told Mr Moon as their talks began in a grand meeting room in the Peace House in the village of Panmunjom on the southern size of the demilitarised border zone.

"I feel like I'm firing a flare at the starting line in the moment of (the two Koreas) writing a new history in North-South relations, peace and prosperity," Kim told Moon as they sat at a table, which had been built so that exactly 2018 millimeters separated them, to begin their closed-door talks. He urged “candid” and “future-orientated” talks.

“I’m so filled with excitement because of the meeting at this historic site. And I was truly moved that you have come all the way to receive me at the Military Demarcation Line,” he told President Moon.

Kim Jong-un's message in the guest book: 'A new history begins now - at the starting point of history and the era of peace' CREDIT: GETTY

Mr Moon responded that “It was your bold and courageous decision that has allowed us to come this far.”

After two hours of private talks, Kim’s security convoy left to take a lunchbreak in the North, with twelve guards jogging alongside his black Mercedes limousine.

A spokesman from Seoul’s presidential office briefed reporters that their interactions had been amiable, with Kim expressing his admiration for the South’s high speed rail, and Mr Moon making Kim Yo-jong “blush” when he said she was now a celebrity.

"The two leaders had a sincere and frank dialogue over the denuclearisation and the establishment of permanent peace of the Korean peninsula and development of inter-Korea ties," Yoon Young-chan, a spokesman added.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attend the inter-Korean summit at the truce village of Panmunjom CREDIT: REUTERS

The meeting was also replete with grandiose statements of intent. “We should value this opportunity so that the scars between the South and North could be healed,” Kim was quoted as saying. “The border line isn’t that high; it will eventually be erased if a lot of people pass over it.”

But as the talks prepare to resume, little has been revealed of actual progress towards resolving one of the world’s most pressing security threats.

(Source: Telegraph)