Google Chrome to drop support for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 early next year

Google recently announced that it will be dropping support for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 devices in February of next year. According to a Google support page, the tech giant announced that Chrome 110, which is scheduled to be released on February 7 2023, will be the last version of the popular web browser to support Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.
It is interesting to note that Windows 7 was launched back in 2009 with Microsoft ending mainstream support for Windows 7 back in 2020. Also, Google’s end of support matches that of Microsoft for Windows 7 ESU and Windows 8.1 extended support on January 10, 2023. According to a report The Verge, more than 100 million PCs were running Windows last year.
What it means is that a lot of people will be at security risk since they will be running an outdated browser on an unsupported operating system. While Chrome 110 will continue to work, the browser won’t get any new features or security patches.

Google often rolls out new security updates and bug fixes so as to keep the browser from malware and other security risks. The Google support page also advises those on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 to update their devices to a supported Windows version before Microsoft drops support for these operating systems next year so they can receive new features, latest security updates and usability enhancements.
In other news, Chrome developers were working on adding support for Passkeys and fingerprint lock for incognito tabs.