by matt.wall
3. June 2011 13:41
As of the 1st of August, Google will no longer be optimising its' products to work with older web browsers. People using older versions of browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Safari and Mozilla Firefox will find that when they use Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs and some other products, some features may not work.
There are a few reasons for doing this. One is to try and break the trend of people clinging to older browsers, for whatever reason, another may be so that Google's developers can begin to utilise the functions of HTML5 without worrying about affecting some users. Google has stated that they will only do compatability testing and offer support for browsers up to the "third oldest" release version. So, for instance, 'BrowserX' versions 3, 4 and 5 will be catered for, whereas 1 and 2 won't.
This is a breath of fresh air for some web designers, because as Google is now causing a shake-up in browser standards, web developers can start to limit their compatability testing to ensure their websites only work with up-to-date browsers.
