Google Chrome will no longer support dusty old computers from the mid-2000s



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If you are now using the same Windows computer that you first played Guild Wars on or bought in the year Youtube and Reddit was born, you may soon run into trouble if you prefer the Chrome browser to surf the web.

While admittedly small, the user base of Chrome users on devices dating back to the early 2000s still exists. A new policy document released by the Chromium development team says they will drop support for processors that lack something called SSE3, or Streaming SIMD Extensions 3, in x86 versions of Chrome.

The requirement to run SSE3 will not affect macOS, Android, or Chrome OS devices in any way as they have been running it since 2014 (Chrome 35, Android L), but will affect a tiny fraction of Windows and Linux users running Chrome on d old dusty systems. . That’s right, users who haven’t upgraded their hardware for over 15 years! Those affected will receive a notification starting with M87 that they need to upgrade to use Chrome. Starting with Chrome 89, any attempt to run Chrome on these devices will result in a crash, and the option to install it will be completely removed when the user’s hardware is detected and deemed insufficient.

“Until we need SSE3, Chrome will notify affected users (with x86 processors that do not support SSE3) that their computers will soon be unsupported. The implementation will use the framework in // chrome / browser / obsolete_system. This will result in a suppressable warning bar and a permanent warning in the chrome: // settings / help page, “

Chromium Developer Policy Document

It is likely that devices running the obsolete SSE2 will be ditched by Google, as there are so few of them comparatively, and this may provide a slight performance improvement for the majority of users. In fact, the policy document cites a 5KB improvement over the official versions of Chrome. Yeah, I know it’s pretty much nothing, but it’s something.

I actually have my earliest and best memories of these devices, but it looks like it’s really time to move on now if you’re able and still interested in using Google’s browser. Keep in mind that Chromium Edge also requires SSE3, so if you’re going for one of the major players in the market, you’ll need to use up-to-date hardware.

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