People and organizations always have an excuse why the will not upgrade to the latest version of a software. Some excuse, particularly for organizations, seem reasonable, but some are entirely absurd; bordering extreme conservativeness complex.
Well, Google has found a way to softly arm twist such users into getting onto the latest versions of software; at least as far as its browser, Chrome, is concerned. Google has announced that come the end of 2017, Gmail will no longer work on Chrome browser older than version 54. That means Chrome 53 and lower will cease to enable you to access your Gmail account.
Google also brings to the attention of users that Chrome 55, which was released in December, comes with very important security updates. These security updates are meant for your own protection online, and the search engine urges you (well, arm twists you into) getting protected.
Google says those using older version of Chrome are “more vulnerable to security risks and users will not have access to new features and bug fixes.” The search engine is encouraging users to at least use Chrome 54 and above if they are to continue accessing their Gmail. Otherwise, whenever they are accessing Gmail on the old browsers, all they will see is the HTML5 versions of the site. Alternatively, Google will have them see ‘site not working.’
From next week, Google will display a banner on top of Gmail to users accessing the site on an old browser. The banner will notify them to update their browser before they get locked out when the deadline approaches.
The search engine has gone even further to get users use the latest software. The company has also announced that also it will not be supporting Windows XP and Windows Vista come the end of this year. Microsoft has already dropped support for Windows XP, and Google is also now joining that ship. The last version of Chrome browser Google has released for Windows XP, and Vista was version 49, released in April.
The early announcement is discontinued support for older versions of the Chrome browser, is meant to give enough time for users on Windows XP and Windows Vista to upgrade their operating system. It takes a little bit more time and perhaps costs more money to change an operating system.