Google Chrome Dropping Support For Older Mac OS X versions in 2016

In a recent blog post, Google announced that it intends to discontinue support for Chrome on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Mac OS X versions 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8 by April 2016 because “these platforms are no longer actively supported by Microsoft and Apple.” Google did not release a specific date when for when it intends to discontinue support.

For those on iOS devices Google are also moving to WKWebView on iOS and ending support for policies. The end user wont notice any changes but for those managing devices life could be about to get a little easier.

One developer shared this email from Google.

Hello Administrators,

Thank you for using Chrome policies on iOS devices. Starting with Chrome 48 (and later versions), we will use WKWebView, which will provide a better browsing experience. However, a side effect of this change is that we can no longer support a number of current policies tied to Chrome on iOS.

Based on the policy limitations and the adoption of this feature thus far, we will end support for Chrome policy management for iOS devices in Chrome 48, scheduled for release in Jan 2016.

Any policies you have set will remain in effect until that time. You can continue to use a mobile device management (MDM) solution to manage policies, such as Global HTTP Proxy for the device.

Here is a timeline of the changes:

Sep 2015

On the Admin console, policies lose the iOS badging for domains that have not enabled it.
For those domains that are enabled, you will continue to see iOS badging and your policies remain in effect until Jan 2016 (M48).

Dec 2015

For any users within your organization who created a separate work profile within Chrome to separate their work data, they will receive a notification that this dual profile support will end and they will have the option to choose which profile to keep.

Note: This is an advance warning. Any user who does not have two profiles will not be affected.

Jan 2016

When Chrome 48 is released in Jan 2016, only one profile will be supported and policies will no longer be in effect. Users can still have multiple accounts in Chrome, but they will all be under one profile.

This impact does not affect Chrome on Windows®, Mac®, Linux®, Android, or Chrome OS. On iOS, we hope that you and your users will see a better browsing experience once we move to WKWebView in Chrome 48.

Please contact Google Apps Support with any questions.

Sincerely,
The Chrome & Google Apps for Work Team