Do you think they'll really drop IE8 once IE10 is released next year? Firefox 5 will be released tomorrow. FF 3.6 support will be discontinued? Actually, it would be great if Google could nudge everyone to keep upgrading.
Of course, "not supported" isn't the same as "not working". For Firefox (just like Chrome), I doubt there will be changes breaking enough to cause a problem. The real question is if they'll start using features (e.g. canvas or newer selectors) not available in those earlier browsers for major functionality in their apps.
I guess it's because they don't know for sure what versions of Chrome will be the two most recent released, but it's still kind of funny.
More likely, since the versions of FFx, IE, and Safari they support are the versions of another company's product--unlike their own--they feel like they have to be more upfront.
The current stable release of Chrome the the version before it.
This would cause problems for anyone on Debian squeeze.
Of course its a matter of choice, but if you stick to Debian Stable for your desktop, such issues are to be expected.
Debian unstable and testing are a bit more unstable, of course, but they are still good enough for desktop.
http://blog.chromium.org/2010/07/release-early-release-often...
I think people are putting too much/too little thought in to this version number thing. With Firefox's six-weekly release schedule now they'll define a major release differently from the version number.
Do you feel the need to upgrade your house's plumbing system and electrical each time an innovation happens? That's how most people feel about software.
The key point is that Google Apps are tied to browser versions, and browser versions are tied to OS versions, and OS versions aren't exactly consistent in their support or end-user coverage. Users who figured their current setup works well enough for now, and who for many years haven't had any reason to upgrade will now be forced to if they want to make use of those Google Apps -- or, they can take the much less costly route and simply not use Google Apps, or deal with "simple HTML mode" or whatever.
The worst part about this that irritates me most, though, is that many of these systems simply don't have anything wrong with them except that someone, somewhere, arbitrarily decided they were "too old". So perfectly functional pieces of equipment now lack functionality because enough people have arbitrarily decided that they "don't have" that functionality anymore, even where it might actually be possible.
On the plus side, it does mean that no one has to support old browsers' quirky and always-varied interpretations of the same chunk of code...