Still haven’t abandoned Windows XP? Well there’s a bit of good news if you’re also a Chrome user: Google has promised to keep its web browser updated on Windows XP until the end of the year, despite originally planning to end support this month. The company has acknowledged that switch operating systems isn’t always easy, but it needs to be done eventually, and its giving users a few more months to do so.
If you are using Chrome on Windows XP — and for the love of God, I hope you don’t — you’ll still get updated versions of Chrome until the end of the year. The Chrome team today announced that even though it had planned to phase out Windows XP support this month, users of Microsoft’s antiquated and insecure operating system will still get regular updates and security patched through the end of 2015. “We know that not everyone can easily switch to a newer operating system,” Google Chrome director of engineering Mark Larson writes today. “Millions of people are still working on XP computers every day. We want those people to have the option to use a browser that’s up-to-date and as safe as possible on an unsupported operating system.” Windows XP is the operating system that just won’t die. Millions of people still use it every day even though Microsoft stopped officially supporting it for consumers in 2009 and for enterprises last April. Its worldwide market share is currently somewhere between 12 and 19 percent, depending on who you ask.
