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Google Incrementally Dropping Support For Older Browsers

Posted by timothy on from the hey-3.5-isn't-that-old dept.

AmiMoJo writes "Google announced on its blog that it is dropping support for Firefox 3.5, Internet Explorer 7 and Safari 3 from the 1st of August. In these older browsers you may have trouble using certain features in Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs and Google Sites, and eventually these apps may stop working entirely."

17 of 353 comments (clear)

  1. Praise Xena by jimmerz28 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I wish more sites would do this, I'm so sick of having to help my parents cause their work websites only work with "Internet Explorer 5.5+"

    1. Re:Praise Xena by Scutter · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A very significant portion of remaining IE6/7 users are enterprise users not allowed to change their browser, due to internal apps not being certified. Cutting support like that will only cut traffic to the sites and piss off their users, the users wont be able to do anything about it. Heck, even Microsoft wants IE6/7 to die. About the only hope to kill of this IE6/7 user base is that corporations keep adopting Windows 7 - a project that include testing and updating for compatibility all around.

      Much of which is because many companies won't spend the money on upgrading or testing, even though they know their apps are ancient and need refreshing. As soon as the CEO can't get to his gmail account (or, more likely, Redtube), he'll be screaming at IT to push through the plan to do whatever it takes to fix the problem.

      Personally, I'd just like to be able to use transparent images on a web page without having IE6 mangle them.

      --

      "Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
    2. Re:Praise Xena by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Uhhh...maybe they can't, because of cost or the company who sold them the program is out of business? I have a graphics designer that I keep a new old stock machine running for because for certain jobs he simply has to have Macromedia Xres. jobs that would take him 40 minutes in PS he can do in less than 5 in Xres. I have also had to set up several XP Modes for those running Quickbook pro 2005, as that POS program will NOT run unless you have Flash 7, not the latest flash mind you ONLY Flash 7. Have you priced the higher end versions of QB lately? Cheap it ain't.

      Now in both my cases I was able to cook up work arounds, like the NOS box being on a KVM switch along with his new triple core i just built him, with a nice share folder between them so when he runs into a job he needs Xres for he can just drag the file to the other machine and use the KVM. With the QB customers I set them up XP Mode in Windows 7 so the QB girl (and for some reason it is ALWAYS a girl, you'd think they had a union or something) could still run QB 2005 while having a modern OS.

      But what if these options for one reason or another simply won't work? I had to use a NOS for Xres because that thing will NOT run in a VM, nor on anything faster than a PATA or 2Ghz single core. it just won't. And finally let us not forget now that the antitrust has blown over MSFT is back to tying IE to Windows version again, such as IE10 is supposed to be for Win 7 only.

      So as long as Google is willing to support older machines with chrome I don't see a problem with it, but there are tons of single core Athlons and P4s that surf the web just fine and I'd hate to see Google ending up pushing the "throw away working gear" attitude simply because they only want to support the new hotness. I'm typing this on a 1.8Ghz Sempron that makes a great little nettop, low power and quiet as a churchmouse. With an HD4350 AGP I even have hardware accelerated video. So I'd hate to see the upgrade treadmill end up causing myself and other to dump perfectly functioning machines not because of it not being able to do the job, but because Google don't want to support anything older.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  2. links by noobermin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    as long as google search somewhat works in links, I'm okay.

    1. Re:links by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, go update your browser so you can get a test of the latest ultra buggy, ultra shitty web 2.0 experience from the slashcode monkeys that will bog down even the fastest browsers running on quad core systems. Oh but don't expect unicode support because that would just be far too much effort to implement.

    2. Re:links by gnick · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm certain that I'm running the most recent version of Netscape (although I haven't seen any updates in a while). I'm glad they're not dropping me.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    3. Re:links by obarel · · Score: 5, Funny

      What's "Netscape"? Is that the new Mosaic?

    4. Re:links by Penguinisto · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well, you can still download it and find out!

      (yeah, I was kind of amazed too).

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  3. Re:The Adds, however by box4831 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The subtracts, unfortunately, will not be supported.

    --
    Miller Lite tastes like water that's somehow managed to rot.
  4. Should just drop support for IE entirely by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 3, Funny

    Nobody uses that anymore.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    1. Re:Should just drop support for IE entirely by CaptainPatent · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually, while I'm no Microsoft fanboy, IE 9 got a lot of things right. Especially when dealing with speed and security.

      I still don't think it's quite as good as the recent versions of Chrome and Firefox, but I think some credit is due to Microsoft on that front.

      --
      Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
  5. RHEL and Debian by kvvbassboy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    RHEL and Debian use Firefox 3.5, AFAIK. I guess it it will be okay, as long as they keep the simple HTML version, or switch to Chromium.

  6. Re:Well done, Google by houstonbofh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    OK. Send me a few grand for all the old system at the office. I need Windows licenses, and a lot of memory.

  7. Do they care only about toys? by KiloByte · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Uhm right, but Firefox 3.5 is what is in recently released major STABLE distributions. Sure, you can play with unstable versions at home if you don't mind crashes -- heck, I use Debian sid and Firefox 7.0a1 here, but I wouldn't put them anywhere something that is supposed to stay up reliably. This includes any version of Chrome -- which doesn't receive a modicum of maintenance other than "move to this shiniest but buggiest trunk". Bleeding edge is, well, bleeding and sharp.

    You can't expect businesses to drop things that work and jump to something new every a few months. This costs money... will you pay for unnecessary upgrade costs? What else, will you demand people to replace their cars of less than two years age because there's a new model out there?

    There is a point where maintaining old junk is pointless, but these guys are ridiculous.

    --
    The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    1. Re:Do they care only about toys? by Eponymous+Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      A couple of things:

      * Not supported isn't the same thing as doesn't work
      * Don't use Google if it is costing you significant time and money to do so

      Firefox 3.5 is almost 2 years old now and is no longer supported by Mozilla. If you are using it, it's time to step up to at least 3.6.

  8. And people cheered them with IE6 by Andtalath · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Dropping legacy support is not a very good thing to do when legacy means a couple of years.

  9. Poor summary by DocJohn · · Score: 4, Informative

    As usual, the summary leaves out an important modifier -- this only applies to Google APPS, not Google.

    From TFA:

    For this reason, soon Google Apps will only support modern browsers. Beginning August 1st, we’ll support the current and prior major release of Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari on a rolling basis. Each time a new version is released, we’ll begin supporting the update and stop supporting the third-oldest version.

    Google will still support all older browsers on its search engine. It wouldn't make sense to discriminate there.

    --
    Psych Central
    http://psychcentral.com/