Google Apps Says No Older Browsers
Many of us in the Technology industry won’t have much to worry about when Google Apps moves fully to the newest markup language HTML5. However, many of our clients and many small businesses who use Google Apps as their entire communication infrastructure may be less excited about this new technology change.
Here’s the email we just received:
Dear Google Apps admin,
In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.
We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.
Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.
Starting next week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser. We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.
In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience. We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.
Thank you for your continued support!
Sincerely,
The Google Apps team
Email preferences: You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your Google Apps product or account.
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
Who Should Be Worried About This Change?
If you are using an older computer and haven’t upgraded your web browser, you may lose access to your calendar, documents, email, and other Google Apps services unless you upgrade your hardware. Is this you:
- I use an eMachine I bought in 2004
- I use a Macintosh I’ve had since Clinton was President
- When access the Internet, the window says “Provided by Netscape Navigator”
- When I boot my computer on, I get a message that says “Welcome to Windows for Workgroups”
- I can still play the original Oregon Trail and Odell Lake
- On the front of my computer, I see the number 486
What to Do If Your Browser Isn’t Supported
If none of the above are you, then you should be just fine. If not, you may want to take a drive down to your local used computer store and pick up a machine that supports Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3.0 or Chrome 4.0.
Try upgrading your browser one more time. Chances are you tried to upgrade in 2009 and it crashed your system or froze up every time you opened Internet Explorer 8 or Firefox 3.5, so your “Tech Guy” downgraded you to an older browser.
Here are the links to the latest updates if you fall into this category:
Got More Questions or Need Assistance?
Give us a call at (877) 635-6225 and we’ll see what we can do.
