Google announced Wednesday that it is extending support of its popular Chrome browser for Windows XP users till April 2015, a year longer than Microsoft's support for XP OS.
Google Inc is offering a generous deal for Windows XP users despite Microsoft abandoning the popular operating system. Although it may seem like a gesture of goodwill but Google is also considering the large chunk of XP users that mainly rely on Chrome for daily browsing.
Windows XP will no longer be supported by Microsoft after April 8, 2014, which means Microsoft will no longer dispatch updates and security fixes to the long-running operating system. This leaves the users of Windows XP vulnerable to malwares and viruses. But as hard as it is to let go of Windows XP, which is a personal favorite of many users, Google empathizes and has decided to extend its support for its Chrome browser on XP until April 2015.
"We recognize that hundreds of millions of users, including a good chunk of current Chrome users, still rely on XP," Google Chrome Director of Engineering and Superintendent of Public Safety, Mark Larson, said in the company's blog, Wednesday. "Moreover, many organizations still run dozens or even hundreds of applications on XP and may have trouble migrating. Our goal is to support Chrome for XP users during this transition process. Most importantly, Chrome on XP will still be automatically updated with the latest security fixes to protect against malware and phishing attacks."
Although Google promises to support XP users to continue browsing with the Chrome, Microsoft warns of possible threats as third party support for their apps may not "address fixes and security patches in the core Windows kernel so new vulnerabilities can still be exploited even though applications might be updated," the software giant told El Reg in an email statement (via The Register).
Beyond this point, Microsoft leaves the decision to users' discretion whether or not to upgrade to its other operating systems.
