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Google made the announcement last week on its Apps Blog as part of its on-going commitment to keep products up to date. Google firmly believes older products introduce more security flaws, and newer browsers provide the best user experience.
“We support the latest version of Google Chrome, as well as the current and prior major release of Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari on a rolling basis. Each time a new version of one of these browsers is released, we begin supporting the update and stop supporting the third-oldest version,”” Google mentioned in the post
Microsoft announced that Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) will be introduced on Oct. 26. Google will therefore stop support for IE8 on Nov. 15, according to their blog post. IE8 users can expect to see a notice telling them to upgrade to a newer version after that date. Users of TOAST.net’s residential email system, as well as Google Apps for Business, Education, and Government will be affected.
Google’s policy of supporting only the latest browsers began in June of 2011 as it announced support for new Web standards, such as HTML5. These standards allow web-based applications to operate just like locally installed software, providing advanced features and usability.
“For Web applications to spring even farther ahead of traditional software, our teams need to make use of new capabilities available in modern browsers,” Venkat Panchapakesan, Google’s vice president of engineering, wrote in a Gmail Blog post at that time. “For example, desktop notifications for Gmail and drag-and-drop file upload in Google Docs require advanced browsers that support HTML5 . Older browsers just don’t have the chops to provide you with the same high-quality experience.”
Included Google services will be affected by the change are:
IE8 users of these products may experience reduced functionality, performance, and prompts to upgrade your web browser. Google search services will be unaffected.
The new changes mean that users who are still running older browsers and older computers will have to consider other web browsers. Windows XP was released in 2001, and the highest version of Internet Explorer available for XP is IE8. Users running Windows XP can use Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox as an alternative browser. Both of these web browsers are available for download on TOAST.net’s Software Page.