Chrome Ends Support For Windows XP And Vista

Well it had to happen eventually. But last week Google officially announced that support for its Chrome browser on older (legacy) operating systems has finally happened.

The news came the day after Google rolled out the latest version of the browser, Chrome 50, with the following blog post:

“Today, we’re announcing the end of Chrome’s support for Windows XP, as well as Windows Vista, and Mac OS X 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8, since these platforms are no longer actively supported by Microsoft and Apple. Starting April 2016, Chrome will continue to function on these platforms but will no longer receive updates and security fixes.”

The end of support for Windows XP was always inevitable but for some people for whom Windows XP is still the last word in operating systems, it may well have come as a bit of a hammer blow, as Chrome still allowed a certain degree of security on the internet for the 15-year-old OS.

But it isn’t like XP was being singled out. In much the same way that Microsoft are no longer supporting Internet Explorer anymore, Windows Vista, and older versions of OS X have also lost official support from the internet giant as well.

Google’s decision to continue to support XP long after Microsoft had cast it aside was partly down to the sheer size of XP’s user base, which even now still numbers in the millions. But now even they are encouraging people still using the 15-year-old OS to upgrade.

“If you are still on one of these unsupported platforms, we encourage you to move to a newer operating system to ensure that you continue to receive the latest Chrome versions and features.”

While the end of support for XP may come as a bombshell for some, Google had signaled their intention to kill it off back in November.

Of course, Chrome will continue to work as normal on any of the above listed systems, but the it will no longer receive security updates or new features, meaning that if security vulnerabilities or exploits are found, there won’t be a fix coming down the road.

Chrome 50, the new version of the browser, comes with new support for push notifications and a nifty new feature that allows preloading of webpages to speed up browsing.

As an aside, Google also listed 20 security fixes as part of it latest update.