Extending Chrome support for XP users until April 2015 | Hacker News Reader

Extending Chrome support for XP users until April 2015

chrome.blogspot.com

32 pointscpeterso44 comments

This is a really good thing.

There are going to be people who, for whatever reason, are going to be on XP for loooong time. It's better for everyone that they have access to a modern, evolving browser.

At my day job many of our users work in IT environments where the two allowed browsers are Chrome and IE, and a lot of them are still on windows XP, so this is a really good thing.

Chrome support wouldn't be so important if there was a more modern IE available on XP.

I still use XP, but only in a VM for those few apps I use that either don't work in WINE or don't have a Linux port (Quickbooks is a big one).

I see no reason to use Windows 7 in a VM for this since it has a larger install footprint and uses more memory.

Given that XP stops getting security patches in April and will then be even more of a problem in terms of botnets , not to mention a security issue for anyone using it , I think a strong case can be made that no, it's not better to give people modern evolving anything on XP.

They should feel like they are living in the dark ages, devoid of modern luxuries and subject to the whim of any thug that comes along ... because they are or soon will be.

I guess we'll just agree to disagree. A non-zero percentage of people will be stuck on XP because they don't know better or don't own the machine. I would much rather have those people use Chrome than IE8. They are far less likely to become part of a botnet if they have a modern browser.

Is Microsoft also deprecating support for IE on Windows XP? If so, this is a clever attempt by Google to get companies to switch to Chrome. Eventually they'll upgrade to newer versions of Windows, and maybe they'll just keep using Chrome.

MS will end support for IE on Windows XP when they end support for Windows XP in six months.

If by "support" you mean IE8, or you can use the latest version of Chrome...

That's IE8 at most, which has been keeping the same compatibility bugs since its release. MS was giving IE the same minimal support the rest of the OS gets, because XP is old and paid for and shouldn't compete with their current products, so I wouldn't expect them to go beyond the call of duty now.

Although I feel everyone should have upgraded from XP by now, this a ingenious way for Google to increase chrome's market share. Being the only supported browser after XP EOLs will definitely catch the attention of the corporate world. Wonder if Firefox will offer something similar.

Didn't Firefox already end support for XP? I'm sure it's a non-trivial amount of work to maintain compatibility.

According to their support docs:[1]

Firefox 3.6.28 and Firefox 12 are the last versions of Firefox that will work with the original version of Windows XP and Windows XP Service Pack 1. They won't be updated with security and stability fixes. In order to keep your computer and personal information safe, we recommend that you upgrade for free to Windows XP Service Pack 3 and install the latest Firefox.

[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/firefox/download-...

I was doing an install of a bunch of computers for a local company's call center in 2009. Old throw-away machines that didn't need internet access but needed a browser to view the intranet and play media files (they did phone surveys for radio stations and would play music over the phone). I was brought on for my Linux experience, but there was one box out of 28 that we could not get working with Linux for one reason or another. They had me install Windows 98, and the only browser that would play media from their intranet on Windows 98 was Firefox 2.x (I can't remember the exact version).

It wasn't a fun experience, but color me surprised that Firefox 2.x would work on Windows 98.

Firefox will likely remain supported on XP for even longer than Chrome. Firefox was still supporting Windows 2000 when Chrome was originally launched... at which time Chrome only ran on Windows XP or better. At the time of Chrome's launch, Windows 2000 was still within its support lifecycle and would be for another 2 years.

Firefox 12, released just last year, was the last version to support Windows 2000 despite the fact that Windows 2000 was end of lifed in 2010. If they stick to the same old OS support timeframe, Firefox would support Windows XP through 2015.

> Although I feel everyone should have upgraded from XP

Why do you feel that way? I'm typing this on XP installed on an IBM Thinkpad X41 from 2005 that I use every day for writing. I find it hard to imagine what benefits I could get from upgrading this machine to a different OS.

>Why do you feel that way?

Because it is a very old OS that lacks new features, stability and security improvements. I am just curious, is there a reason why you haven't upgraded to Windows 7? If it is the feel and look, there are themes you can use to revert it back and if it is compatibility, Windows 7 is backward compatible for most XP apps.

XP is slim and minimalist.. the standard user just want to use the tools they are used to.. also XP will be economic about the machine resources it use..

Security for instance its more of a hacker thing.. to a more technical aware audience.. and we are a minority, in the tech consumer market..

I i were MS CEO i would have created a branch from XP and advanced in two lines of OS.. win 7 family and a XP family, of a more bare OS with less obnoxious things and that could bootup fast with a minimal UI..

I dont know what happen with tech companies down the road, that with time they forgot this minimalism, this zen way of doing technology that probably was the thing that make them sucesfull when they were tiny and irrelevant..

I think, thats one of the secrets that have maded Steve Jobs so sucesfull in the things he were doing..

So if we think well about why people stick with XP, its not just about the OS they got now.. but because of every "evolutionary" step in new OS's nothing really appeal to the real life user (not us, tech people and power users)..

Sometimes even the "new new" sometimes its a step behind, in terms of what the OS really offer.. (compare what you got with XP for instance versus ChromeOS)

If you're looking for a minimalist system, you should totally look into Linux after XP. It's not that hard to do the basics, and the installers really guide you through everything. If you do a lot of writing, browsing and emailing, Linux is just as easy to use as Windows. More advanced things like, say, file permissions, yeah I cannot say that they're easier, but you had to learn how to use that on Windows as well. That's something people often forget since they're already used to it. Anyway, if you need any help (pre or post install), there is contact info on my profile.

Im writing this post right now in my Linux OS.. actually i created Linux based internet providers in the nineties when i was a teenager, since Linux was just a baby :) (I actually prefer Freebsd, but the billions of dolars invested in Linux drivers standout sometimes and leave me no option)

Actually i dont touch a XP for years.. i was just doing a analisys.. sometimes we need to put the things we love or hate aside, to look through the eyes of others..

Most people here at HN are creating things for other people to use, so its good to understand good and bad points even if its not the tech-fashion of the day, are closed and come from a company with dubious practices like Microsoft..

When compared with Linux, XP look definitely bad and old.. but the post was more about people updating the old with the new, when the new was also windows.. so sorry for provocating such a misunderstanding.. i deserve it :)

Anyway, thank you for your support and friendly help! i hope with this good attitude of yours you can convert more people to the open source world, and make somebody free even when they dont know about it.. thanks!

(Bonus: Im creating a crazy sort of "OS" based on Linux(+ Chrome) right now.. and that was just to emphasize how i love it :)

Oh a Linux/FOSS user already, nice!

> i hope with this good attitude of yours you can convert more people to the open source world

I too hope I can convert people to FOSS over time, the issue is that things still need to work. Things that work, win. If people think iOS works better, they'll just use it. Still, as a coder I can contribute to the alternatives and I'm surely planning on doing so.

Good luck writing that OS you mentioned! Be sure to post it on HN :)

Except Vista (and consequently 7) did massive reworkings of things that were fundamentally broken or obsolete in XP.

Things as they were in XP are not worth keeping or branching as it is an old outdated OS and fixing it would basically produce Win 7 (or even Vista).

> is there a reason why you haven't upgraded to Windows 7?

Kind of an odd way to put it. I need a reason to upgrade, not a reason not to upgrade.

A Win7 upgrade license costs about twice as much as the X41 is worth.

Win7 is much bigger. The HD in this machine is ~55GiB. XP only takes up 6x GiB of that. Win7 takes 3x - 5x as much in my experience.

I'm not aware of any new features that would substantially improve the user experience on this machine. I use it for writing in a text editor and checking HN from behind a NAT connection. I have zero concerns about security. The evidence I've seen of performance of Win7 vs. XP on very old hardware is mixed.

Best case, I would spend £100 and take a couple of hours reinstalling, finding drivers etc. for some likely imperceptible benefits.

Gotcha. I can relate. It took me a long time to move to Windows 7. Moved because my laptop gave up and I had to get a new one which came pre-installed with win 7. There was no point in downgrading it to XP. I admit to feeling uneasy about the new UI for a few days but then I grew into it. One thing that still awe me is how stable it is. In the past half a decade, I only had one BSOD crash!!

Also on a similar note, a few months back I did upgrade my media center machine from XP to Windows 8. I can can vouch that Windows 8 feels a lot lighter than Windows 7. XBMC+Windows 8 is great combination.

Here's a good reason: in April 2014, Microsoft stops issuing security patches for XP. At that point, any exploits people find(and they will find them) will never be fixed. Your computer will be the easiest target out there.

Not just will this be bad for you(assuming you value your files or do banking on your laptop), but if your compromised computer starts hosting a botnet or attaches viruses to your emails to friends, it's a problem for everyone.

It's a similar problem(though not nearly on the same level) as people who refuse to vaccinate their children.

> Because it is a very old OS that lacks new features, stability and security improvements.

It doesn't lack anything I use it for.

Not sure if it has changed but when I was using XP, chrome and firefox were still using the SSL and TLS stacks from the OS, which meant no support for SNI. Most webpages would fail to connect at this point. Also BSOD once a month was common, not sure if it had anything to with me running Visualization softwares regularly. However, with Windows 7 I have seen maybe one BSOD crash in the past half a decade.

Fine, you have a problem. But XP lacks nothing for what I use it for.

Also, I don't think most sites are using SNI.

Of course they aren't, they can't, because way too many people still use XP (and a couple of other obsolete OSs, like Android 2.X).

As far as I know, Firefox has never used SChannel (the Windows native implementation of TLS); it has always used Mozilla's own implementation, NSS. And Chrome has used NSS for a while as well. So SNI support shouldn't be a problem for Firefox or Chrome under XP.

> Being the only supported browser after XP EOLs

Don't Firefox and Opera also support XP?

> I feel everyone should have upgraded from XP by now

I don't know the answer but it could be a big factor: Is Win 7 as easy to pirate and update as XP was?

Even Steve Gibson upgraded. I really scratch my head at this, unless Google is trying to increase browser market share in China?

"If I can't convince Grandma to buy a new computer, at least I can have her use Chrome instead of IE."

True, but its not like the current versions of Chrome on XP are terrible or insecure.

I know one person out of hundreds who use XP...but market share states that it is in the 33% mark? Where are these people?

Institutions and China. ~60% of our lab computers run XP because there are software packages that we use that are broken under Win7+

I have a laptop that runs XP, I'm unlikely to upgrade it until it dies. I don't do anything on it that requires a newer OS, so not sure why I'd pay the $$ to upgrade until I get/need a new laptop.

I still run XP and 2k. I need it to support hardware that does not have a 64 bit driver. (It might be possible to run under win7 32 bit, but I've not tried.)

Now, if only they could maintain long term support for their own services, everything would be great.

I actually disagree with this, despite being a die-hard XP user.

Once security fixes stop for the OS, you don't want to lure people into sticking around.

I don't think they're "luring" them to stick around. But if the OS is still in use, shouldn't the (arguably) most used piece of software still be secure?

Is there any chance for that most-used software to be secure if the underlying OS is full of holes?

(I'm not completely sure myself. But I'd rather err on the safe side.)

This is Google sticking it to Microsoft - its not in Google's benefit to have people upgrade from XP.

Very transparent, nothing to see here.

Actually, I'd say it's in Google's interest to have more users for their browser, and in Microsoft's interest to have users upgrade because of a lack of support.

My guess is that the Chrome team feels pretty good about the cross-platform framework bits of Chrome and don't expect to make major changes to it for a while. They're still going to have a lot of Win32 code in there to support newer versions of Windows since it is extremely unlikely they are going to migrate it fully to WinRT (or anything other than basic Win32 APIs), so it isn't like they'd be able to drop a huge amount of code from ongoing maintenance by dropping XP support anyway. It's probably mostly just a bit of extra release engineering work to them at this point.

Given this, the cost of continued XP support is pretty minimal and the PR from supporting XP longer than Microsoft does is good for them, so why not? I wouldn't expect them to really drop XP support until they eventually go 64-bit only on the desktop (which may be what the continued sunset-date they are giving is a hedge against).

No matter what the reason, this is good for adoption of newer web technology. If you do get stuck with laggards still running XP, tell them to use Chrome. They might not want to bother, but at least you're giving them a better potential solution than "fuck off".

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