Riiiight. "Old browsers." Which "old version" of Chrome do you think is affected?
Google has already proven their willingness to degrade their search experience for non-Chrome browsers, by splashing a Chrome banner ad on the Google search home page[1].
This is about capturing more marketshare for Chrome, pure and simple. Eventually "old browsers" will be replaced by "browsers we don't care to support" will be replaced by "browsers that aren't Chrome." In the end, there's a possibility that Google's client software will be required to access Google's services.
Do you think that's farfetched? That Google is committed to browser diversity on the web? Then look at their vision for the desktop: Chromebooks, which do not support installing any web browser that's not Chrome.
> Riiiight. "Old browsers." Which "old version" of Chrome do you think is affected?
Not sure about search, but for gapps, Google's chrome versions support is the least generous of any browser. They only support the latest version (as opposed to the two most recent versions of other browsers). Effectively they only support chrome with autoupdate enabled. (Which presumably they feel they can do because they have the most aggressive - but also most smooth/invisible - autoupdate of any major browser).
Google has done amazing stuff for the web, so has microsoft, IBM,etc before it. The trick is to not give any one company a lot of power and diversify the power among many corporations etc. Google is still the most innovative company out there but lets hope we realize the time when they will need to step-aside and let other more innovative companies take its place.
Microsoft allowed js in internet explorer, it was an accident but many ppl believe that was the single point from where js took off. My statement was meant for their time. IBM did a lot of thing of important for CS (hardware )during its time so did microsoft. Google is doing similar stuff today with the web and prolly with AI in the near future.
Which "old version" of Chrome do you think is affected?
Well, since Chrome auto-updates that's kind of a moot point, no? AFAIK there are no Chrome users stuck at an old version because they are running the wrong OS, have old hardware, etc etc.
And I wouldn't say Chromebooks are Google's singular vision for the desktop. It is a platform with a specific, simplified purpose. Look at Android - you can install whatever browser you want on it.
Google has already proven their willingness to degrade their search experience for non-Chrome browsers, by splashing a Chrome banner ad on the Google search home page[1].
This is about capturing more marketshare for Chrome, pure and simple. Eventually "old browsers" will be replaced by "browsers we don't care to support" will be replaced by "browsers that aren't Chrome." In the end, there's a possibility that Google's client software will be required to access Google's services.
Do you think that's farfetched? That Google is committed to browser diversity on the web? Then look at their vision for the desktop: Chromebooks, which do not support installing any web browser that's not Chrome.
[1]: http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/04/firefox-install-google-chro... and http://timothycope.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/0529201400...