14 DAY TRIAL // Windows 7 no longer receives updates since January 2020, and Microsoft is now encouraging users to upgrade to Windows 10, emphasizing that sooner or later, developers would pull support for this OS version too.
Google, however, has recently decided to actually extend its support for Windows 7, explaining in an announcement this week that Chrome browser would continue to receive updates on the 2009 operating system until January 15, 2022.
This is an extension of 6 months from the July 2021 deadline the company announced before, and the reason is as simple as it could be: the migration to Windows 10 is advancing slowly due to the global health crisis, and with many IT admins forced to work remotely, it’s obviously quite a challenge to move to install a new operating system receive updates.
Windows 7 running on 20% of PCs worldwide
And Google says it wants to support all these users with more updates for Google Chrome on Windows 7, as they just need more time to complete the switch to a newer OS version.
“After assessing the current situation, and based on feedback from our valued enterprise customers, Chrome is extending our support for Windows 7 until at least January 15, 2022. That’s a 6-month extension from our previously communicated date of July 15, 2021. We’ll continue to evaluate the conditions our enterprise customers are facing, and communicate any additional changes in the future,” Max Christoff, Engineering Director, Chrome, explains.
“With this extension of support, enterprises with their upgrades still in progress can rest assured that their users remaining on Windows 7 will continue to benefit from Chrome’s security and productivity benefits. IT teams can also take advantage of Chrome’s existing enterprise capabilities and future roadmap, including our continued investment in cloud management, enterprise security capabilities, and our plans to integrate more closely with the broader ecosystem across the operating system versions.”
The latest third-party market share statistics have shown that at least 20 percent of the world’s PCs are still on Windows 7.