Google Chrome Will End Support for Several Windows Versions in Days (mashable.com) 71
Computers using Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 will no longer get the latest version of Google Chrome, beginning with the latest version, Chrome 110, which will be launched on Feb. 7. From a report: The new version is designed to run on Windows 10 or later.ÂGoogle support announced the move in October 2022. As with most programs whose updates won't work on older operating systems, you can use the older version of Chrome, you just won't get the newer stuff Google is working on.
Bogus (Score:3, Insightful)
The Win32 API has not changed in decades. All these claims of not working on current versions of the OS are just bullshit.
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It's worshipping at the altar of the new. "Developers" tend to be neophiles and google is a high church of neophile webshits, complete with the newestest and fastestestest hardware with the newestest software. It also means they're too condescending and snooty to properly test on old hardware and old software just to make sure they introduce no regressions. They've got the money, they've got the resources, but they prefer to let the laggards, meaning the rest of the world, suffer.
It probably is high time w
All aboard Windows Telemetry Edition! (Score:1)
Seems to me, Windows 7 and 8 were the last Windows versions before Windows 10, the Telemetry Edition. It doesn't matter whether the code could actually work on Win7/8, it's all about pushing everybody to start using the newer Windows so the powers that be can spy on everybody that much easier.
Re:All aboard Windows Telemetry Edition! (Score:4, Informative)
You're worried about telemetry but using Google Chrome?
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Re:Bogus (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a difference between "unsupported on platform X" and "refuses to run on platform X".
A deliberate decision has been made to block people on unsupported platforms running software that otherwise would almost certainly run just fine. That's where it becomes obnoxious
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> What's stopping you from continuing to run Chrome 109?
A 0-day isn't more than three months out.
That ought to stop anybody.
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A deliberate decision has been made to block people on unsupported platforms running software that otherwise would almost certainly run just fine. That's where it becomes obnoxious
That is where the second half of my comment applies.
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A deliberate decision has been made to block people on unsupported platforms
Stop the drama.... they aren't "blocking you" they are just not providing the pre-compiled binaries via their auto-update mechanism past the end of the support period for people running an EOL OS. Unless you have an ink-on-paper active paid support contract from Google for this product, they don't "owe" anyone dick.
running software that otherwise would almost certainly run just fine.
That's almost certainly not true, given that all of the supporting libraries for an EOL OS also are not likely being updated. if you think there isn't a special test case, workaround, an #ifde
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Well, Server 2012R2 isn't EOL yet. Windows 10 is newer so that means Server 2012R2 probably wouldn't get the latest updates. Maybe you don't want a browser on a server...but it's been known to happen. Chrome would be better than whatever IE version is natively installed. Probably the Chrome update engine is going to detect Server 2012R2 as Windows 8.1.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en... [microsoft.com]
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It does. I'm running 2012R2 as a workstation right now, and chrome already said it won't update.
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Ridiculous. I find it amazing that software developers can release an application for different OSes, such as MacOS and Linux, but supporting a slightly older version of Windows is apparently impossible. Oh, and that's including the fact that Win10 is basically the same as Win7 internally... but with more DRM. Oh, and that's also on top of the fact that Win7 is still popular and widely used.
Come on. This is strictly policy. We all know technology and "support costs" have nothing to do with it.
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It's not bullshit. It takes time and effort to officially support each OS.
How much time and effort?
Further, Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 stop receiving security updates on the 10th. It only makes sense for web browsers to cut them off at this time.
Why is that? So they can be even less secure?
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Newer versions could probably be made to work. Google doesn't want to test on unsupported operating systems. They're adding code to cause execution failure on older Windows operating systems despite there being no technical reason why Chrome would fail to function in those environments.
Tbh anyone still clinging to Win7 or 8.1 should switch to Linux for browsing and all other non-niche online activity.
Re:Bogus (Score:5, Insightful)
They could probably be made to work, but keeping modern internet-connected programs working on older operating systems is surprisingly difficult.
New features get added to OSs all the time even if the base API doesn't change much. New features mean new APIs that aren't supported in older versions. The new APIs tend to enable things people need (better security) or want (enhanced multimedia.) Refusing to use the new stuff will have people asking "why can't your program do X" and using them means you need to stub out or reimplement the features if you want to keep working in older OSs.
Deciding to drop support for an older OS is a business decision, but you can bet it's going to come with a purge of most of the stubs and workarounds that kept it running on older OSs.
(Not to mention that if you go back far enough, you start to run into some really awkward development environment and/or upstream dependency issues.)
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They could probably be made to work, but keeping modern internet-connected programs working on older operating systems is surprisingly difficult.
New features get added to OSs all the time even if the base API doesn't change much. New features mean new APIs that aren't supported in older versions. The new APIs tend to enable things people need (better security) or want (enhanced multimedia.) Refusing to use the new stuff will have people asking "why can't your program do X" and using them means you need to stub out or reimplement the features if you want to keep working in older OSs.
It's interesting to me people can create cross platform browsers that work across radically different operating systems with completely different technology stacks yet the thing that is "surprisingly difficult" is the presence of new APIs in a highly backwards compatible operating environment.
What is always missing from these discussions is objective evidence based information. It tends to be limited to enumeration of ideological predispositions /w people saying x is hard in abstract terms never in terms o
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They're adding code to cause execution failure on older Windows operating systems despite there being no technical reason why Chrome would fail to function in those environments.
Chrome has several features with integrate with various windows security features not present in Windows 7. e.g. Windows Hello API. There are technical reasons why some features shouldn't be expected to work on older Windows.
Tbh anyone still clinging to Win7 or 8.1 should switch to Linux for browsing and all other non-niche online activity.
Absolutely. You don't have promiscuous sex without a condom and you shouldn't surf the internet without a current maintained supported and up to date with security patches OS. Linux is a perfectly fine alternative for web browsing.
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Didn't know about Windows Hello. Interesting.
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The Win32 API has not changed in decades.
The core API has nothing to do with functionality of newer OSes and what features they expose. Chrome has several features that depends on newer APIs not present in Windows 7 or Windows 8, e.g. Windows Hello security API which it uses to secure the password store and credit card information. Dropping support for Windows 7 and 8 depreciates a whole chunk of code that no one wants to maintain and may itself have security issues.
We get it, you don't like change. But that doesn't mean people should go out of th
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Windows Hello is an insecurity API. Many systems have disabled it. Together with many other insecurity APIs. I very much doubt that this the reason for deliberately adding code that stops programs from functioning since the WIndows Hello insecurity API is disabled in most vorporate deployments of WIndows 10 (and later) that I have seen.
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The Win32 API has not changed in decades. All these claims of not working on current versions of the OS are just bullshit.
This is complete nonsense. The API may be backwards compatible but it's not forwards compatible. Microsoft adds plenty of new APIs [microsoft.com] in each version of Windows (and in patches), both new versions of functions as well as entire new suites of functionality.
As someone still running Windows 7, the increasing pressure from software and games to upgrade to Win 10 is kind of infuriating, but I understand the reasons, both technical and economical. And it's not just commercial companies. Open source software like
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What? The Windows API is constantly evolving and changing.
I went to the MSDN Win32 API page and found an API that is new to Windows 10 on my first try.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winuser/nf-winuser-registerpointerinputtargetex [microsoft.com]
7 years old
If Google or anyone else decides they want to use APIs like that in their apps, that requires dropping support for anything older than Windows 10.
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Clearly you did not read that that particular API should not be reliead on nor used and instead the non-Ex version should be used, which appeared in WIndows 8, so your whole argument is specious (which is a polite way of saying full of shit).
This is why you don't want a browser monopoly (Score:2)
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can't have that logic here on /.
"WE DEMANDS CHOICE" is the only thing you will get
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turning to 10 because they are being forced and ostracized. The industry changed peoples perception, I think as they push software as a service mentality.
And MS did sabotage windows 7 soon after 10 when they realized people hated 10.
Re: This is why you don't want a browser monopoly (Score:2)
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They will have entered the "age of stability" at which point they will no longer be subject to continual fuckerizing by Microsoft. As it works on the day that Microsoft stops fuckerizing with them, so they will work the next day. For every instance of today.
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Old man afraid of change desperately clings on to 13 year old software, goes on a completely irrelevant rant about a browser monopoly.
Here's a newsflash for you: There's many browsers out there, you can use what you want. Chrome dropping support for Windows 7 should be entirely irrelevant to you. Those alternate browsers work. Now if on the other hand your complaint is that everyone refuses to service your particular fetish for outdated insecure operating systems, that's on you.
Latest version of incompatibility (Score:5, Interesting)
you just won't get the newer stuff Google is working on.
I already have to block Firefox from updating on one of my machines that needs to talk to some legacy hardware, which, after 5 years, still manages to "somehow" do its job far better than newer stuff. But that's because the special driver it needs isn't compatible with the "new" driver requirements of FF or chrome. It works well, even with new browsers, for 99% of what it is needed for. Just don't try to configure it with a new browser.
But that version of FF can't access certain new websites. Not for compatibility reasons, but because "we don't like being old." If I tell the browser to claim it's version 100, it works just fine, no compatibility problems, because the websites aren't using any features... except compatibility checks.
It's just getting irritating when stuff stops being compatible because, well, they want to be incompatible. Incompatible is "good", even if it isn't correct. "We just don't like old things."
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This is a faulty appeal to facts not in evidence. THe computer systems that are not secure are the ones that are currently being fuckerized by the manufacturer. Once the fuckerizing stops, then as it works that day it will work forever. No need to continually dick about with it.
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Until a wormable remote vulnerability is discovered in an operating system that no longer receives security updates.
Re: Latest version of incompatibility (Score:2)
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There are plenty of cases where that all applies and is relevant. This isn't one of them. I'm repeating myself, but I consider it important. Windows 7/8.1 stop receiving security updates next week.
Next week? Most Windows 7 users have not seen a security update in years.
Continued browser development for them encourages their continued use on the internet, which is unwise at best.
I'm sure this is exactly what they are thinking and they really care.
It's better to cut them off now and hope they upgrade or move to another OS.
Hopefully they'll move to another browser with less baked in malware and actually gain security.
Only in software is it possible to abandon a product in use by countless millions with safety defects and incur zero liability in doing so. If you did that with a physical product even if safety defects were discovered decades after the fact you would still be held liable
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Re: Latest version of incompatibility (Score:2)
Re:Latest version of incompatibility (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry, are you suggesting you have a piece of legacy gear so important and difficult to upgrade that you actively have to block software updates to maintain its operation, ... and you have that piece of gear connected to the internet?
You should be fired for security incompetence, and management should be fired for not supporting you with an upgrade budget.
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Did I say something about it "being connected to internet"? Cannot say I did that - it would be STUPID to connect it to internet, for multiple reasons, which is why we won't upgrade them.
New versions don't even come with manuals, because they require an internet connection to configure. So we don't have "new versions".
If I were willing to update the control computer to Win10 or 11, I'd still be "stuck" with running an old version of FF to talk to these units. That's preferable to taking a bunch of cameras a
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Did I say something about it "being connected to internet"?
Well you're the one complaining that Firefox isn't rendering new websites correctly and that you needed to block it from updating. Just what was it updating itself through that required you to block? Thoughts and dreams? And how are you visiting those new websites? Downloading a copy of the internet and bringing it along on a USB stick?
Yeah, your post from the first sentence implied your system was not only network connected, but done so in a way that it could autonomously make external connections that you
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Ah, so you assumed that what I need to connect to is, itself, connect to internet. Firefox assumes that, too.
But FF assumes that anyone using the old mechanism for extensions is a bad person, therefore must not be allowed to use New Firefox. Personally, I think it's stupid to make such assumptions, but I don't have control over NewFF.
What did people expect? (Score:3)
Google joining 0patch to "keep the dream alive" for Win7?
Testing the Browser on many OSs costs money, if the browser fails, the bad publicity could cost millions. Making the browser run on many OSs cost money and complicates the source code, or if you code for the least common denominators, does not allow to use advanced functions.
Win7 has been out of support for us Plebs since Jan 2020, and will run out of support for big pocket entities this year What are Alphabet and FF suppoed to do? Keep burning money in that money pit? FF is not precisely flush with cash to spare, and Google, being a for-profit could use that money somewhere else.
Chromium is FOSS, people can fork it and make a Win7 browser, FF is FOSS, people can fork ESR 102 and make a Win7 Browser. Safari is FOSS, people can fork it and make a Win7 browser... If they what to build a browser castle on top of a sand Win7 foundation, so be it, the next wave of viruses will teach them the foolishness of that endeavour.
Me? I'd rather run an up-to-date browser (security wise) on top of an up-to-date OS (security wise)
Is silly to have a half assed security connecting to the internet running a fully patched browser on top of a sieve of an unpatched OS, or worse, running a fully patched OS and connect to the internet with an unpatched Browser because "reasons"
My OSs? Today: MacOS Monterrey + Firefox ESR 102, with Bootcamp to Win10 22H2 fully patched with Chrome 108
Contemplating a Move to either Win11(most likey) or Linux(debatable) in a few years time...
No loss (Score:2)
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Not as big a deal as once would have been (Score:1)
Windows market share is listed on one resource as at around 28--29% (https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share) and of those installs, around 2/3 of browser usage is Chrome. Still significant, of course, and very important in the desktop world, but then consider that about 11% (and falling, though remarkably slowly) of Windows is now Win 7, and 7 has fallen behind 11 for the last 6 months or so.
Android/iOS account for over half browser activity these days (depends a little on what data you look at).
Anyway
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AAAA and AAAY-EEEE! (Score:2)
"you just won't get the newer stuff Google is working on."
OMFGLOLLIPOP! Now I will miss out on the potentially useful stuff that Google will kill off within a week after introduction, as well as the anger inducing shit that will stick around forever.
Oh dear fuck me, how *will* I ever go on living?
That also includes Server 2012r2 (Score:2)
Poor design of software (Score:1)