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Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and a few other web browsers still support Windows 7. Nearly three years after official support for Windows 7 ended, Chrome is preparing to say goodbye, and other browsers are following suit.
Google confirmed a while ago that Chrome 109, which will be released in January 2023, will be the last version to support Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1. The next update after that, Chrome 110, will require Windows 10 or 11.
Google says there won’t be any more updates to those old versions of Windows, not even security patches. That should already sound familiar to anyone still running Windows 7: Microsoft mostly halted security updates for the operating system in 2020, but a few emergency patches have since been released. Windows 8 has extended support until July 11, 2023, while updates for Windows 8.1 will end on January 10, 2023.
The open source version of Google Chrome, known as Chromium, serves as the foundation for many other web browsers. Without Google support, most Chromium browsers are also killing old versions of Windows, if they haven’t already.
Microsoft reaffirmed in a blog post today that Edge 109 will be the last version of its web browser on Windows 7, 8/8.1, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012 R2. The company’s Webview2 runtime will also not be updated beyond v109 on those platforms. Microsoft said that “while versions 109 and earlier of Microsoft Edge and Webview2 Runtime will continue to work on these operating systems, those versions will not receive new features, future security updates, or bug fixes.”
Vivaldi said in November that it will follow the Chromium support timeline for older versions of Windows. A blog post explained: “Since Vivaldi is based on Chromium, we will get these updates by removing support for Win7 and Win8.1 the next time we update the Chromium source, to Chromium 110, which will be the base for the next version of Chromium. Vivaldi after Vivaldi. 5.6.” Brave Browser has started showing alerts to people on Windows 7 about the end of support.
Firefox is the only mainstream (modern) web browser available on Windows that is not based on Chromium, and Mozilla has not yet decided when support for Windows 7/8 will be dropped. However, starting with Firefox 100, a specific security patch is required for the browser to work on Windows 7.
Sources: Google, Microsoft, Vivaldi, GitHub, Mozilla
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