LibreOffice v25.8.4 released

takeahike · 2025-03-27T16:20:27+00:00

LibreOffice v25.2.2 released. DOWNLOAD RELEASE NOTES

px_eliezer_

Can’t say.

I don’t have any MS Word files.

It does handle the files OK that had been made by LibreOffice.

OpenOffice does seem more basic than LibreOffice but it’s fine for me because my main need is that it gets to work quickly with no fuss.

takeahike

px_eliezer_ I’ve switched from LibreOffice to OpenOffice.

Nothing personal but this is not a good move IMO. Open Office’s last real update was in April 2014, and therefore compromises not only many features and improvements but also security. See LibreOffice vs. OpenOffice. When Larry Ellison and Oracle acquired it from Sun Microsystems in 2010 it was so abhorrent to me is that I decided that I would keep the final Sun version and never updated it–it remains on my system to this day. Similarly, LibreOffice loads very quick for me, in under two seconds, so unlike your experience that is not an issue for me (I tried to upload a video of the load but either my file was too large or the site does not support it).

px_eliezer_

takeahike

Thanks for the info.

I do not use it on my work machine, nor for anything crucial.

And it loads much faster than LibreOffice even though I had not installed a lot of the extra features of Libre (and of course Libre is an excellent product in its own right).

OpenOffice does have security and other updates, here are the notes for the most recent from a few weeks ago.
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OOOUSERS/AOO+4.1.16+Release+Notes

Thane_Bitter

px_eliezer_ It’s kind of a dead project?

Thane_Bitter

px_eliezer_ With libre office you can have it load with windows which can reduce launch times, on my litre cheapskate system without having that feature enabled it loads the launcher and then you pick whatever sort of project you want (document, spread sheet). Again each system is different and there are a lot of variables.

I find that libra Office is not as feature reach as MS but it gets the job done and no AI crap. Anyways these are tools, if it wasn’t for MS’s thrust to make everyone pay most people would be probably happy to use the version that they still have a physical copy for. I knew a teacher that had a classroom with 4 PET computers and a central floppy console for kids to use and type up reports, it wasn’t pretty, it used 5 ¼ disks which were very much on their way out but still could be found for next to nothing. I don’t recall what the program was but it was some sort of word processor and used without the need of a mouse just like the good old days. There was a printer but some sort of dot matrix unit. It would be rather dated and more of a curiously these days but it worked and at the time most kids did not have a home PC yet. Zero funding from the school of course he did it on his own, and at that time the education was knee deep with ICON computers (one per classroom, never worked well, cost a fortune). KISS as they say.

px_eliezer_

Thane_Bitter It’s kind of a dead project?

I prefer to think, OpenOffice is a mature project that does not need constant annoying tinkering and re-jiggering like Mozilla Firefox.

urbanriot

takeahike Open Office’s last real update was in April 2014

OpenOffice’s last real update was November, 2025.

and therefore compromises not only many features and improvements but also security

… their last update had security updates. 😐

takeahike

urbanriot

I suppose that it’s better if I spell it out for you. Per my link in the post you replied to:

LibreOffice is the successor to OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OpenOffice, which had its last major (emphasis added) update in 2014. There have been occasional minor updates since then, but OpenOffice has a history of leaving security issues unfixed so all users are strongly recommended to upgrade to LibreOffice, which is more actively maintained.

Similarly, I wonder why px_eliezer’s is a slow loader as my is truly lightning fast, much faster than MS Office or any other office suite I have that includes at least half a dozen others. Do you also have px_eliezer’s slow load problem? In any event, another open source alternative for general consideration would be OnlyOffice.

urbanriot

takeahike I suppose that it’s better if I spell it out for you.

Yes, thank you, I now understand how you feel.

If I were to reiterate what you write in more accurate terms, you prefer LibreOffice because it has more feature updates than OpenOffice and you have a perception that it has less security due to their delays in patching bugs that are patched sooner in LibreOffice.

Mind you, LibreOffice regularly introduces a long list of security issues much bigger than the small handful OpenOffice had so I’d say that last point was moot. You get updates, you get security issues. It’s a trade-off.

Since their last security update I’m not seeing any serious security issues to be concerned about.

With that being said I use both OpenOffice and LibreOffice. I use LibreOffice on my *nix systems that need Microsoft Office file compatibility while I use OpenOffice for quick and dirty documents and spreadsheets as my experience is the same as px_eliezer’s in terms of performance, OpenOffice just runs faster.

I also run a mix of Microsoft Office 97 / 2010 / 2024 for similar reasons on my systems. I have a Pentium 233 MMX with Windows NT 4 and Office 97 running under my desk that runs Excel faster than the bloated mess of current day Office on my high end PCs and I still use Office 2010 for a pop email account as it was peak Microsoft Outlook.

I noticed on the LibreOffice download page that they’re listing 25.8.4 as both their current and also their ‘still’ version which I’m not sure is a mistake or extreme confidence.

takeahike

urbanriot

Yeah, I also noticed the lack of an earlier “previous release branch” and that it is now the same as the “latest stable,” and must be an error. I usually keep both, so in this case what I did was just keep 25.8.3 as an uninstalled secondary. I do have an install on a separate drive of Windows 7 that has MS Office 2010, but it is only for posterity and not something I use in any real sense, using 11 exclusively. Actually, despite all my vigorous defense of LibreOffice, I actually use MS Office 2024 for all Word stuff, and don’t have any need for and therefore don’t even use Excel, PowerPoint, etc. Why this is I could not tell you, but is likely just a bad habit.

Thane_Bitter

px_eliezer_ It really shouldn’t but again thanks to MS’s want of integrating all sort of code and programs into documents it will generate vulnerabilities. And as much as MS copies competitors they also do the same. I have not used OpenOffice so I can’t tell you if they followed the same innovation first security second (though in MS’s case its more of a tertiary or lower concern) mentality. As long as it cannot execute code in documents it should be both functional and safe, for example MACROS was always an issue with MS office products.

The nice thing about an old POTS phone (1960 era with a ringer) is the satisfaction of slamming the receiver down after telling off a telemarketer, you don’t get that feature in a fragile thousand dollar smart phone (unless you want to buy a new one).

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