Google: Go ahead, XP stalwarts, keep on using Chrome safely all YEAR Even though Microsoft quit supporting the wildly popular Windows XP last year, Google has decided to give XP users a break by promising to ship updates and security fixes for its Chrome browser on the aging operating system for a few more months. Wayyyyy back in 2013, the Chocolate Factory told Chrome users that they had …
If there's still significant market share and they can support it without too much fuss why wouldn't they rather than cede that market to FF or anyone else? Right now they can continue to support it at very little cost, if new developments need system facilities not present then it becomes difficult to justify, but I can't think of anything truly fundamental that XP lacks. They are not in the position of Microsoft whose business model depends on a regular system software upgrade cycle.
Hell, a lot of new software still runs fine even on Windows 2000, despite the fact it has been out of support for a number of years now, it tends to be the consumer-focused stuff where support is lacking and they never really went for 2000 in any case.
One problem with ditching XP. W7 won't run on most of the machines using XP. W8 is even worse and who knows what a memory hog W10 will be.A large number of businesses and individuals can either not afford to upgrade to new computers every time Microsoft comes out with a new OS, or they their computers can't be upgraded. I remember people complaining when Windows came on 7 3.5" floppies and what memory hog it was.
"I remember people complaining when Windows came on 7 3.5" floppies and what memory hog it was."
Need to knock the cobwebs off of your bias. You are remembering Windows from the late 90s. A bit has changed since then, you might want to read up.
Yes, many of the machines running XP (especially the ones that were already old tech when XP was released) won't run Win7, at least not with any decent performance. After that you are as wrong as can be. Windows 7 actually had performance improvements over Vista. Better benchmarks on the same hardware. And anything that was W7 certified would run Win8. In fact the official qualification for a machine to be certified to run W8 was if it was certified to Win7. No promises from MS yet but all indications show the same will probably be true for W10 - any box running W7 or W8 today will be able to run W10 just fine. Truth is that Intel's worst nightmare is Microsoft actually building more efficient OS upgrades (while still stuffing in more features & security). Why should I buy new hardware when my 5 year old PC runs the new OS just fine?
You gave a very valid point for so many home computers not upgrading from XP, then proceeded to slam W7/8/10 on a point that had no merit.
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'but it's considered cute and cuddly for home users to keep a stupid XP machine around, when you could put OpenBSD on the same hardware and have a much better web browsing experience'
You are clearly capable of putting OpenBSD on some old hardware, but lots of people aren't and wouldn't even be aware of an alternative to Windows. Windows is all they know, not everyone is a techie.
The best endeavour approach to keeping the Chrome browser going on XP for a while longer doesn't seem a bad thing to me.
In an ideal world everyone would have moved on from XP, but I fear that an ideal world does not exist.
"Completely irresponsible of Google to encourage people to keep these old machines connected to the internet, spreading malware for the rest of the world."
You can look at it another way. No more chrome updates mean XP users running an outdated vulnerable browser on an outdated vulnerable OS. That's a significant increase in risk since most infections are acquired through the browser. Also, there's no indication that users continuing to use XP will quit if their browser of choice becomes obsolete. It's therefore far safer to continue providing the updates while waiting for the number of XP users to tail off.
"when you could put OpenBSD on the same hardware and have a much better web browsing experience."
Unless that OpenBSD box has a SiS or S3 Savage video chipset, in which then you're hosed. Ditto for Linux. the X Drivers for those are in a state of disrepair.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a OpenBSD and Linux advocate with multiple converts under my belt. It's just that I'm frustrated that some of the maintainers think that the X drivers are not worth maintaining just because the chipset is now relatively rare. I would love to chip in, but I don't know anything about developing drivers.
OpenBSD is lovely. My particular poison is PC-BSD at the moment. But I can't watch BBC Iplayer on it because Flash doesn't work any more.
Google have set their Flash replacement (Pepper?) to not work when Chromium is installed on BSD.
It's a trivial example. It won't matter to many people. How many other things are out there which work on Windows, but not on BSD (or linux)?
Not everyone can just move to a free OS, and I wish people with use-cases where is it possible would accept this. (The mechanics of install are there. If I can do it, then anyone can!)
Tell me more about this "officially discontinued support for XP on April 8, 2014." because it seems to be that they are still supporting it, they just aren't doing it for free anymore. There are plenty of compaines that looked at the $200/year/machine support fee and signed up.
I think the problem has arisen because MS have very publicly stated their standard support terms, which are what you get if you simply purchase the product. However, they have been less forth-coming about their paid for services.
Given the fun and games over XP, I would hope that MS will have got their act together better before 2020 when standard support for Win7 is due to finish. As given, the way things are changing, I would of thought that MS may prefer to support a large user base of paying Win7 customers rather than see them trickle away to competitors.
My wife has severe visual impairment, which she has struggled to adapt to, and one of the things that has kept her going is the Internet Backgammon and other games on Windows XP. I thought I could upgrade her PC to Win 7, as those games are still there, but, guess what, they "improved" the user interface, introducing 3D textures that just make everything harder for her to see. So she's back on XP, while I work out what to do.
Quite hilarious given that Chrome has now been blessed with the buggiest app of 2014 award. :D
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