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Windows XP users to lose Google Apps support in Internet Explorer

Per its year-old policy on supporting browsers, Google will discontinue support for IE8 when version 10 ships in November.

Casey Newton Former Senior Writer
Casey Newton writes about Google for CNET, which he joined in 2012 after covering technology for the San Francisco Chronicle. He is really quite tall.
Casey Newton
Google is ending support for IE 8 in Google Apps.
Google is ending support for IE 8 in Google Apps.

Millions of Internet Explorer users who work with Google Apps are about to need an upgraded browser -- but if they're using Windows XP or earlier, they may be out of luck.

Google said today that it would end Google Apps support for Internet Explorer 8, the most widely used version of the venerable browser. But Microsoft blocks Windows XP users from installing more recent versions of IE, owing to the way device drivers are handled inside Vista and Windows 7.

Users facing that dilemma have at least one easy way around that dilemma -- install Chrome! -- but plenty of IT managers frown on that sort of thing, particularly in government and education settings.

Google's support for IE 8 will end November 15, shortly after the introduction of Internet Explorer 10 on October 26.

"Each time a new version of one of these browsers is released, we begin supporting the update and stop supporting the third-oldest version," the company explained in a blog post.

More Internet Explorer users are on IE 8 than any other version, according to NetMarketShare.