Microsoft Confirms Chromium Edge Support On Windows 7 Through At Least Mid-2021
Last week, we learned that Google will still support Chrome on Windows 7 for quite some time. In fact, the company says that it won't end support for the operating system until at least July 15th, 2021. Today, Microsoft made its intentions clear for the Chromium-based Edge browser on Windows 7.
According to Microsoft representatives that spoke to Neowin, the standalone Chromium Edge browser will be supported (with new versions available) on Windows 7 through at least July 15th, 2021. This timeframe exactly matches that of Google Chrome, and for good reason considering that both browsers share the same rendering engine.
Depending on how generous Microsoft (and to a certain extent, Google) wants to be with regards to developing software for Windows 7, we could see that deadline extended by a few months or more. But in all honesty, it seems that it would be in Microsoft's best interest to pull the plug sooner rather than later to get more people to make the shift to Windows 10.
And with that in mind, we have to question why Microsoft is even making Chromium Edge available for Windows 7. Windows 7 support ends on January 14th, and on January 15th the first public/stable release of Chromium Edge will be delivered to Windows 7. If Microsoft's motivation is to get people quickly over to Windows 10 (and even to get them to purchase new Surface PCs), giving them a carrot to stick around isn't exactly helping their efforts.
