Lottery Post Journal

Google announced today that it will no longer support anything lower than IE9 -- pulling all support for IE8 and below in all of its applications (for example, GMail).

Here is a good news story about it

What is the biggest obstacle for you to upgrade beyond IE8?  WINDOWS XP.

If your computer is still running the ancient Windows XP, you cannot get anything higher than IE8.  That means if you are a Windows XP user, and you are unwilling to either upgrade to something like Windows 7 and you are unwilling to use an alternate Web browser (such as Google Chrome or Firefox), then you can't run any of the multitude of important Google services after October.

On the other hand, if you have Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8, you can get at least up to IE9.  And you should be sure you have IE9 installed immediately.  (Upgrade here.)

If you have Windows XP and you want to upgrade to Windows 7, your options are to either buy a new computer or puchase an upgrade.

(If you have Windows Vista, I'd recommend you upgrade to Windows 8 when it comes out in October.  Just about any Windows Vista computer should be fully capable of running Windows 8.)

If all this upgrade talk sounds annoying, it is because you have put off the maintenance that your computer requires for far too long.  It's a fact of life that if you want to use a computer, you must be willing to perform maintenance on it every once in a while.  Like your car requires new tires and an oil change every so often, your computer also requires new parts and service.  People who stay on top of the required maintenance are rewarded with a much smoother and hastle-free experience -- just like a car.