Getting people to keep up with the lates updates can be difficult. Just ask those still using Windows 7 even though it supposedly isn’t as secure as its successors. Microsoft has been trying to push Windows 10 on users even if a loyal few have decided not to upgrade.
For Google, the answer to getting people to update seems to be pulling support. The G Suite team announced that users using Google’s Chrome browser version 53 or lower will no longer be supported by the company’s email platform, Gmail.
This means no more Gmail support specifically for Windows XP and Windows Vista users. That’s because both of these were only supported up until last year when Chrome was at version 49. Once Microsoft pulled the plug on them in April and November respectively, Google did as well.
What does this mean exactly? Gmail will still be accessible but no longer maintained for now. But that can become a problem very quickly, says Google.
- If you continue to use older versions of Chrome Browser now that support has ended, Gmail will be more vulnerable to security risks and users will not have access to new features and bugfixes.
- Gmail will continue to function on Chrome Browser v53 and below through the end of the year. Users who remain on Chrome v53 and below could be redirected to the basic HTML version of Gmail as early as Dec 2017.
In the announcement post, Google reiterated once more that they “strongly encourage you to migrate to more secure and supported systems.” In fact, they warn these Windows XP and Windows Vista users that Chrome rarely even makes these kind of announcements since the most current browser version is always the only one officially supported. But they were concerned about security risks, so here’s the heads up. You should still be able to use IE or another browser to get to your Gmail (we think), but this sounds like just another reason to bite the bullet and move to Windows 10.
