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This is unfortunate for sure. Is this forum in dire need of the three new features (relative color syntax, subgrid, and lookbehind regex)?
Discourse (or someone on their forum) states that:
The design choice is to be optimized for the latest technologies without being stuck in extensive support for “old” software
Does that jive with the broad reach that GODOT strives for?
Any chance this forum could opt out of this update?
I don’t think the forums are self-hosted, so it’s likely a bit more difficult to opt-out of an update like that.
Besides, NOT updating can be a horrible idea in terms of security.
If you still use iOS 15, as far as I’m aware, the last iPhone that only supports up to 15 is the iPhone 7, which would be incredibly out of date at this point unfortunately.
If you do not use Apple products and still see this message, it likely means you are running an incredibly out of date browser and I would be worried about your security online.
If security was the issue I wouldn’t have posted.
The update is pure sugar and nothing more. (Or at least that is the way I read it). I recommend following the link and giving it a quick read.
I am running an outdated browser. Its going to be 2 years old in July. (How the time flies).
Thanks for your concern about my security but that is not relevant to this matter.
This isn’t really just about your security but the security of the website itself. You can make the choice of not updating, but if the website stops getting updates, that puts others in danger as well who use the forums, as more time passes, more security fixes will be ignored.
The point likely moot since this forum is run on Discourse and updates are almost certainly out of this forums control. (I don’t know for sure)
It is entirely possible to skip a fluff update and then catch up if there is a further update that has a security aspect.
If so, however, there is still the matter of whether this forum should be run on a vehicle that promotes shiny and new over broad reaching.
Godot seems to choose the latter over the former to a large extent.
I don’t want to sound like ‘that guy’ but I honestly think that it seems fair a mere matter of preference ditches what also is a mere matter of personal preference.
Aside from old iOS, which, being in this forum, you probably have a computer, there’s a genuine amount of choices nowadays in terms of browsers. They basically cover any use case and there’s a wide array of theming in them to have them feel like ‘home’.
Since almost all browsers are free, using a discontinued one over the other is merely a matter of personal taste, just as it is to have some fancy color features.
So your suggestion is to use a different browser?
I’ll see if I can find one that works.
Just as a point, the browser I use isn’t “discontinued”, it is abandoned by the forum software. Same difference from a practical position I suppose.
Apart from personal preferences and setups, yes, Godot forums is run on Discourse, which is a great engine to host a forum.
As you mentioned, they could possibly skip an update like this, but to then get the next security update, they would have to install it anyways, so that argument is a bit trivial in my opinion:
You’d have the same problem some time down the line.
While I can agree to your point that a forum might not need it (now), this is the risk of running outdated software. As a software developer there is always a technical debt increase and future headache in skipping updates.
It’s a bit off-topic, but I’m curious, might I ask what browser you’re running and why?
Firefox 115.23 because that is the latest version that still supports Windows 7.
It will be 2 years old the same month that Discourse “improves” this forum.
The argument isn’t any more “trivial” than the update Discourse is implementing.
Also isn’t any more trivial than updating when security is the reason.
Its a shame the Discourse github didn’t have a person flair this improvement proposal with “Breaks Compatibility”.
However I just now notice that there is an Firefox ESR release from April 29, 2025. This is the version I have now and still have the incompatibility notice. So whatever ESR does, does not satisfy the Discourse update.
Sadly, Windows 7 is an OS that is facing discontinuation by major apps and platforms. As big of a fan as I too am of Firefox, I’ve found this fork of Chromium for Windows 7. More inclined to the side of security and privacy, privacytests.org provides a good repertory with helpful details.
In any case, apart from hardware requirements, updating Windows is becoming practically a requirement for many software choices. If you don’t like Windows 10/11’s bloat and telemetry, the Enterprise LTSC versions get rid of that, “if you can get your hands on one”. As for the Windows 7 experience, I use StartAllBack which lets me get the best of both worlds.
Pushing forward is inevitable at some point. I think that wide accessibility has some limits and should be more about the platform and not about the version.