Microsoft ended support for Windows 7 in 2020. It came as a shock to many users who had been using it for more than a decade and couldn’t migrate to newer versions of the OS due to unsupported hardware. Soon, Windows 8.1 will soon vanish into oblivion in January 2023. Surprisingly, Google Chrome will also end support for Windows 7 and 8.1.
A report by StatCounter reveals that only a small percentage of users run Windows 7. But if you convert that into the number of users, it amounts to a whopping 100 million+ active users. It is sad news for all these users because they won’t be able to run Chrome 110 onwards.
Google Chrome won’t run, so which browser to pick?
Google is ending support primarily because of security reasons. Since Microsoft had already ended all kinds of support for Windows 7, it would be difficult to continue development. So, Google will focus on the newer releases of Windows (10 and 11). Google notified the users about this transition on its official blog.
The post reveals that Google will release the final build 110 for Windows 7 and 8.1 in February 2023. After that, it won’t support the OS anymore. It doesn’t mean that the browser will stop working on your system. You will be able to run the browser but wouldn’t be able to update to the newer builds and receive security patches.
You cannot afford to ignore security patches because Chrome was the least secure browser, with numerous exploits patched in the past few months. If you don’t get updates, it would leave you in the open to be easily targeted by malicious entities. However, there are many alternatives available that you can use on Windows 7.
We checked out the Opera browser system requirements and found out that it still supports Windows 7. There isn’t any buzz about Opera dropping support for Windows 7. So, you always have an option. Plus, if you want to switch from Windows 7 but have a low-spec system, you could switch to Ubuntu which is more secure and doesn’t require a ton of resources.
