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Chrome 50 Updates Push Notifications, Drops Support For Old Windows and OS X Versions (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Google today launched Chrome 50 for Windows, Mac, and Linux, adding the usual slew of developer features. You can update to the latest version now using the browser's built-in silent updater, or download it directly from google.com/chrome. As announced in November 2015, Chrome now no longer supports Windows XP, Windows Vista, OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, OS X 10.7 Lion, nor OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. Chrome 50 allows sites to include notification data payloads with their push messages. This eliminates the final server check -- the initial version relied on service workers to proactively fetch the information for a notification from the server, leading to problems when there were multiple messages in flight or when the device was on a poor network connection. Push notification payloads must be encrypted. Sites can now detect when a notification is closed by the user, resulting in better analytics and allowing for cross-device notification dismissal. The look of notifications can now be customized with timestamps and icons. Chrome 50 also brings support for declarative preload.
No one should still be running XP unless it's on a specialized system, and those shouldn't be used for general web browsing anyway.
But OS X 10.8? That came out in 2012, not 2001. Even 10.7 is still fairly modern. 10.6/Snow Leopard is getting long in the tooth, so that might make sense to drop support, but this will just make people using the older Macs run out of date browsers or find another product.
"proactively fetch the information" is crucial and intentional part of design. HTTP is not meant to be an interactive protocol, but strictly request and response. By moving away from this in order to push more ads you are removing a great deal of assumptions and introducing a whole set of previously impossible attack scenarios.
The 2 remaining users will be highly upset.
God, why can't Firefox use a sane versioning system like Chrome!? It seems like there's an update every week! Everybody really should just ditch Firefox and use Chrome instead because of things like this.
Oh... wait! This *is* Chrome. And nobody cares when Chrome does something, but when Firefox does it, this place turns into one long bitch fest.
I still run a Firefox port on PowerPC Macs. They still make a Firefox port for OS/2. Firefox, browser support for abandonware.
Don't know if it was at version 50, but Chome no longer supports 32-bit Linux. Chromium still does, though.
Sorry but less then 11% of computers run XP and I personally would like to see those get off the web as they are so full of security holes they almost surly are drones in botnets.
I switched to Vivaldi a few days ago. At first the new UI pissed me off, but after fiddling in the enormous amount of options I was able to get the browser that I want. Chrome - Google + Vertical Tabs. Haven't encountered a single bug so far, but that could be because I have turned off almost all of the new features like thumbnail tabs and tab stacking.
"There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
At some point running XP will be more secure than running a popular OS just because it will stop being a target.
In fact I will upgrade my Windows 2000 box to XP as soon as everybody has forgotten about it.
Unfortunately, there IS a reason some people may not want to upgrade OS X: some older Macbook Pros have a hardware flaw in their GPUs, and later versions of OS X panic (i.e., crash) with these machines where the older versions don't. Then there are the poor souls who just can't bring themselves to retire their PPC-based models. I mean, c'mon - the Luxor Lamp iMacs still look pretty damn cool. Generally, OS X upgrades are very worthwhile, but some people with hardware that's 5+ years old but otherwise working fine are getting the pinch.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
I expect Google decision is based off of number of users more than the age of the OS's
XP is way too old.
Vista has such a small number of users who care about upgrading so why bother with them.
The same with the older OS Xs Apple provides an inexpensive upgrade path so there shouldn't be that much hassle if you have a newer system.
Supporting older systems is always a pain.
1. There is a small but obnoxiously vocal group of users. Who are very angry that they can't do newer stuff on a computer that is a decade old. However to accommodate these people you will need to sacrifice newer features available in the newer systems that will make the majority of people much happier.
2. Testing on older OS's gets tiresome.
3. More problems to fix. The further you go back the more problems you will need to fix. And how much time do you need to waste to get Vista Compatibility for such a small portion of users.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Have you ever seen those two overlapping diamonds at the end of the address bar when you visit a site like Gmail? That's the desktop push notification feature that they are talking about, or at least it's the predecessor of it. So, yes you are correct in the sense that if you are stupid enough to authorize an spam service to push notifications to your desktop then you will receive these advertisements. Let's call this digital evolution, if you can't be bothered to read something before agreeing to it, then either deal with the consequences of your own ineptitude or put down the computer and grab a coloring book.
Now from an effort standpoint, I fail to see how this has any kind of an advantage over a traditional RSS stream. What does this accomplish other than obfuscating the delivery mechanism and turning a web browser into something that it's not?
Is this lack of support for XP, Mountain Lion, etc, because the code is now using API calls available only in the later OSes? Or are they simply checking the environment at install or run time and refusing to run if it detects an earlier OS version?
The first reason, I could understand. But since it's occurring across OS's, I have to think it's the later. Which makes no sense. If someone is using their browser as their primary interface, it would seem like, even though it's not recommend, it is their prerogative. I almost feel like the point of a web browser is to make whatever a users underlying platform actually is irrelevant.
Especially considering XP is still in widespread use in corporate america, and with Microsoft no longer maintaining it being bad enough, but now those PC's will end up being forced to use outdated and lacking in security browsers. Does Google really benefit by seeing XP desktops upgrade to Windows 10?
Vista has such a small number of users who care about upgrading so why bother with them.
Yet Microsoft is continuing to support these users for one more year, with support ending in mid-April 2017. This will just push users back onto Internet Explorer 9 for this final year.
When Chrome stopped issuing Mac updates for the 32-bit processor in 2014, it was the death knell for my venerable 2006 MacBook (now running Mint Linux). As the 8-Bit Guy demonstrated in his YouTube, the 32-bit MacBook can run the latest 32-bit Windows OS and 32-bit Chrome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJw8aSxEFwQ
Who said anything about ads?
That's like saying any browser that so much as supports <img> will be used for ads and thus support shouldn't be included.
Is that a machine you need the latest browser on, though?
Probably not. Like Windows XP, OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" is no longer supported. Security updates to a web browser won't help if the operating system itself has forever-day vulnerabilities.
In Open Source land you can run full-blown desktop environments with fancy 3D effects (check out Compiz or modern KDE-Plasma) and all the bells and whistles. You can also run minimalist window managers. You can do anything in-between. "I updated my system and now it's slow" generally doesn't happen, not unless you go out of your way to actually add a new service or the like.
Or unless an operating system update adds it for you, as Ubuntu 11.10 did to people who had been happily using GNOME 2. After a month of wrangling with Un(usabil)ity, 11.10's replacement for GNOME 2, I said F it and installed Xfce, one of said "minimalist window managers": sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop
The general case is that a user can start off with a mainstream window manager, but as time passes, the mainstream window manager will bloat up with Wirth's law, and the user will need to retrain himself on a minimalist window manager. And eventually, later versions of Xfce and LXDE are likely to become bloated, after which point no supported free GUI will be available for the hardware.
And 4. Sometimes the APIs improve and the codebase is stuck implementing two paths, the fast new way and the slow old way for compatibility. Or they're stuck using old tools because the new tools aren't backwards compatible but they really want to use certain features in the new compiler (e.g. C++11,14 etc.)
What's worse is that they dropped Windows Server 2008, which has the same kernel used for Vista. In corporate environments where switching out the OS is a hell of a lot easier said than done, this hurts significantly.
Google is becoming more and more abusive, and more and more incompetent. Want to download the Google Chrome Browser? The download file name does not give the version number.
If you pay attention, that's probably because it doesn't actually have a version number associated with it. When you download chrome, you're just downloading a shim that downloads the latest copy of Chrome from Google's servers and then installs it.
The only way you can download a specific version of Chrome is if you get the MSI based installer, which is most often used for enterprise environments (because it can be deployed via group policy) but otherwise works the same.
An earlier version of the Google Chrome browser installs 3 system services.
That had to have been quite some time ago. Chrome has, for a very LONG time now, installed entirely into user space (unless you use the MSI installer) which is a deliberate design choice meant to accommodate users that don't have admin access to their PC. You can't even download such an older release with the shim that they issue now.
The browser situation is very, very ugly. Firefox is now, basically, owned by Microsoft
Ok now you're just getting stupid. Sorry, I can't fix you.
Google sure hates Linux these days.
Because sometimes new versions break old arrangements. For example, as I mentioned, somehow the user interface of SeaMonkey composer was damaged, apparently intentionally. I was glad that I had the old versions.
Software companies are taking more and more control. We are often not allowed to have a full program; often we are allowed to have only a program that downloads the full program and installs it.
It surprises me that most people accept what I consider to be the dictatorial behavior of Microsoft, Google, and Adobe.
I found this odd. OSX Mountain Lion is essentially new. Apple may be hasty in getting people to upgrade, but Mountain Lion is basically the Windows 7 of the Apple world only newer in that it's the stable version without the newer unloved UI changes.
Build for Mountain Lion and the code will run on later versions. Mountain Lion is extremely popular and while upgrades to it are cheap/free they are not popular and there's no reason to endure an upgrade to get them. Mountain Lion is essentially new, it's from 2012.
Products are for the customers, not the developers. If developers only did stuff that they felt was convenient then we'd never have software because they'd all be sleeping in to noon every day.
Thanks for mentioning the MSI version of Chrome. I didn't know it existed. Still no version number or 32-bit/64-bit indication in the file name.
The version number with the 3 system services is: Google Chrome Version 40.0.2214.91 m. The web site says Copyright 2016, but I think that is due to sloppiness we are now seeing everywhere with Google activities. That version is less than 2 years old, apparently.
You said, "Ok now you're just getting stupid. Sorry, I can't fix you." Maybe I can do something for you. No one knows everything about technology. Don't call someone stupid because you disagree. In fact, as I mentioned in my parent comment, Mozilla Foundation gets its money from Microsoft now, through Yahoo. That's what the news stories say.
Yeah, expecting accountability and not blind button pushing is certainly inhumane. Expecting people to look before they leap is certainly inhumane. Expecting people to know what a button does prior to pushing it is expecting responsibility. We can't have that, now can we?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Apparently you didn't bother to read my comment, or visit the links I provided.
They have a nasty message that Ubuntu 12.04 is EOL - despite that from Canonical's POV it's still supported for another year.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
If the browser is secure, OS flaws won't be exposed.
Flaws in the IP or TCP implementation, in other services that the same machine exposes, or in system libraries that the browser uses can still be exposed. For example, computers have been broken into through web fonts that exploit defects in the operating system's font parser. (Google: truetype exploit)
Provided the OS is behind a working firewall
That's a big "provided". How many users of home or small office firewall appliances keep said appliances' system software updated?
Products are for the customers, not the developers.
In the case of Google Chrome, who are the customers? I've been using it since it first became stable but I don't recall ever paying a penny for it.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
They don't drop support for OSes just because of them being "old". They drop for not being broken unstable bleeding edge.
They dropped support for Debian wheezy before jessie was even out. If they can't manage to build on the latest stable release of a major platform that's only 1.5 years old, you shouldn't consider using them for anything that needs to be reliable.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
In the case of Google Chrome, who are the customers?
Advertisers, duh.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Chrome doesn't display ads. So, no, advertisers are not the customers of Google Chrome.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
Chrome shows Google ads, so Google is Google's customer.
Also several significant changes how Chrome operates with web APIs. That broke a lot of stuff that now has to get fixed, thanks Google!
Thanks for linking this in a reply to me. Wrong again, yet again I will reiterate, I don't post AC. I only ever post as this account unless there are login issues, then I sign my posts just like you do. That isn't me posting, and style should easily give it away.
Frankly, I wish I could write as well as that AC, as s/he makes a pretty good case why you should never be able to post to Slashdot again. Perhaps you should read it and consider the points before trying to just write it off as one of your foes.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I deny I made any lies in anything you quoted. You are the one who claimed that hosts files were better than DNS in an AD environment. That indicated you know nothing about the way which AD works. You claimed to have been a systems administrator on a AD domain, and using your hosts files instead of DNS. If you did that, the domain would not function, which indicates who the liar is here.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I see, so you will change what you said yet again to try and make it fact after your failure is pointed out to you? Love how you keep doing that.
I'm delusional for holding you to account for your statements? I'm not the one who keeps changing the story every time, you are. I prove you incompitent, you act like what you said really wasn't what you said, and try and twist it to be something different. I quoted you, you stated AD didn't need DNS, and it was better to use a hosts file, I had a whole conversation with you about it because you kept hinting at it, and it was so wrong it was stunning to me.
But you're the security expert! You know everything about computer security, and I am the noob in your eyes. This noob schooled you, and you can't admit you made a mistake, so yet again, you are walking it back and changing what you said. Now you are even calling me a liar, despite me linking to your mistakes.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I'm quoted quoting you quoting me quoting you?
Do you even hear yourself? I QUOTED you, but yet, that isn't good enough in your demented brain. You claimed that a hosts file solution was better than AD DNS for filtering, because DNS can be exploited. I can't make it any clearer, I am QUOTING YOU!
So keep up the campaign of disinformation and walking back your incompitence.
I'm glad you have enough time on your hands proofreading my posts, keep up the good work and maybe one day you can be a Slashdot editor too!
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?