If you are one of the fews who still have a PC with an Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon 64 processor configuration, we have bad news for you: you are about to lose access to Google's Chrome browser.
As
initially revealed , Google cautions that with the
arrival of Google Chrome 89, Google plans to stop supporting support for
processors that lack Streaming SIMD Extensions, or SSE3 support.
The
current version that is released is Chrome 88. Thus, if your PC includes one of
these processors and you try to run the browser, running Chrome will cause a
crash and prevent its use. If you try to reinstall it, Chrome just won't
install.
Google
spokesmen say that the population that will be affected by this change is very
small "our analysis indicates that there are a very small number of
Windows devices running Chrome with x86 processors that are not compatible with
SSE3", he concludes.
The
company has stressed that in due course, it will issue a warning about it. “Until
we need SSE3, Chrome will warn affected users (with x86 CPUs that don't support
SSE3) that their computers will soon be out of support.
Based
on the published information, the implementation will use the coordinates //
chrome / browser / obsolete_system. This will be displayed in a prominent
warning bar with a permanent note on the web to persuade users, Google adds.
Google
began requiring SSE2 support with the arrival of Chrome 35, which was released
in May 2014. Now, it is SSE3's turn. According to Wikipedia, SSE arrived
in the "Prescott" revision of the 2004 Intel Pentium 4, and in the
"Venice" and "San Diego" versions of the AMD Athlon 64,
dating back to 2005.
Take
a look at our special winter sale report with the best PC deals you
can find when buying a new computer. You may also be interested in which
CPU to buy for a current PC computer. Buying guide .
