Windows 7 officially reached end-of-life (EOL) earlier this year, but Google has announced that Chrome will continue to support the venerable operating system until January 2020.
Windows 7 hit EOL in January 2020, meaning Microsoft is no longer releasing updates and security patches for it, and is instead advising users to switch to Windows 10. However, many users have taken their time making the change – particularly businesses, for whom changing operating systems is a huge task that may involve upgrading many other specialist pieces of software as well.
- The best browsers of 2020
- How to enable Chrome dark mode
- How to use Gmail dark mode
Google had originally planned to stop supporting Windows 7 in July 2021, after giving users a year and a half to make the change, but now, as Engadget reports, the company has had a change of heart and decided to continue supporting Chrome for Windows 7 until January 2022.
Slowly does it
According to Google, this change of heart was prompted by the pandemic, which has meant that for some businesses, "planned IT projects may have had to take a back seat".
Chrome is by far the world's most popular operating system, and if a company had planned to update its computers this year, it may have run into serious trouble if its staff returned to the office after working from home throughout 2020, and found they could no longer use Chrome safely.
It's also good news for businesses that have decided to take advantage of Microsoft's offer to extend Windows 7 support to 2023 for an additional fee, though doing so is cutting it rather close to the wire.
- The best open source software you can download today
