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>Starting in 2024, if you have Chromebooks that were released from 2021 onwards, you’ll automatically get 10 years of updates. Nice of them to cover a few from

>Starting in 2024, if you have Chromebooks that were released from 2021 onwards, you’ll automatically get 10 years of updates. Nice of them to cover a few from the last few years as well. From a school standpoint, this is a big win. I doubt many chromebooks in active use by students would even last 10 years.

jsnell 3y ago
I don't think it's even covering just the last few years but goes back further than that: > For Chromebooks released before 2021 and already in use, users and IT admins will have the option to extend automatic updates to 10 years from the platform’s release (after they receive their last automatic update). I don't entirely understand why the 2021 cutoff for it being opt-in vs. opt-out is there. Maybe it's about the "already in use" bit somehow, and making sure that pre-2021 models don't continue being manufactured and sold as as new.
- wrs 3y ago
  I’m wondering if that will be a paid option. That’s how the last stage of support for commercial OSes often works.
  - ewoodrich 3y ago
    I have an original Pixelbook (late 2017 release date) and the auto update support page [1] has been updated from June 2024 to June 2027 (with an asterisk saying it is user opt in but that's all I can see). So at first glance it doesn't seem to be paid. My Pixelbook doesn't get much use anymore vs my M1 MacBook but it's nice to know it will still be supported. It can be a handy thin client and I don't have to worry as much about it getting stolen/abusing at this point in its life. [1] https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?visit_id=638303129716857329-825486087&p=auto-update-policy&rd=1#zippy=%2Cgoogle https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?visit_id=...
- highwaylights 3y ago
  My guess is that they’ve received commitments since 2021 on parts and drivers for 10 years, and don’t have those commitments prior to that date, so they’re only offering opt-in OS updates that will be under subtly different terms for liability indemnity purposes.
  - silvestrov 3y ago
    Might also be a case of minimal RAM/SSD requirement and OS build using reasonable new compiler. HW might also be more standarized today, e.g. using USB internally for webcam and keyboard.
- yencabulator 3y ago
  The footnote says > For devices prior to 2021 that will receive extended updates, some features and services may not be supported. So.. they might need to rip out some problematic drivers, maybe? Like, imagine the bluetooth chip vendor not being cooperative, you get to choose to continue updates but losing bluetooth as a feature. The footnote continues > See our Help Center for details. So kudos to first one dig out the exact page they're referring to (there's no link).
  - Zenst 3y ago
    https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en That one, had link for me.
    - yencabulator 3y ago
      Except that also just ends with > ** For devices prior to 2021 that will receive extended updates, some features and services might not be supported. which doesn't really say anything...
  - redeeman 3y ago
    > imagine the bluetooth chip vendor not being cooperative no, then you tell them that if they dont play ball, they will NEVER sell a single chip to anything google ever again, and then you hire some people to reverse engineer the shit, and make it work anyway. And then you publish all about how company X is being stupid and trying to work against efforts to save the environment, how they are trying very hard to make money on peoples hardware being obsoleted before time etc. But then we realize that google themselves have bummed out to large extents with what they have permitted on android and chromebooks, so anything like this would not happen
    - eru 3y ago
      Good luck with that, in case the company goes out of business?
- fma 3y ago
  There was an article from the WSJ that wrecks Google for e-waste due to not supporting Chromebooks past 5 years. A lot of chromebooks were purchased from 2020 due to the pandemic. It's not the date of purchase that determines obsolescence, so many were coming up to be thrown away. It would be better if Google defaults to supporting 2020, 2019 (Many purchased in 2020 were manufactured in 2019).
  - nolist_policy 3y ago
    If you where cheaping out an bought Windows 10 devices in 2020, you'd also only get 5 years of support.
mholm 3y ago
I worked an inner city public school system's well funded IT department about a decade ago. Chromebooks had just been distributed to all students with grant money. After the first year, about 1/5 laptops needed major repair. None of them would make it to 5 years.
- sangnoir 3y ago
  > After the first year, about 1/5 laptops needed major repair. None of them would make it to 5 years. The second sentenxe doesn't follow the first - it's a flavor of Zeno's paradox, after 5 years, you'll be left with 4/5 x 4/5 x 4/5 x 4/5 x 4/5 of the original batch.
  - Finn_ 3y ago
    This assumes that 1/5 of them break every year which is probably not the case, older laptops will break more frequently.
    - gabrielhidasy 3y ago
      On the other hand, considering we are talking about kids breaking laptops, this failures are much more random, a brand new laptop is not that much more likely to survive a fall than an old one.
      - account42 3y ago
        If the older laptop has already "survived" a fall, yes, it is abosolutely more likely to break from the same fall than the new laptop.
  - yebyen 3y ago
    You're assuming that 4/5 of the laptops remained in pristine condition. I doubt that very much. You need to take account for the ordinary wear and tear compounded together with the impact of abusive 1/5 of users that do an excessive amount of damage (requiring a total overhaul.) And anyway, if 1/5 of laptops needed major repairs and some of them got it, those go back into circulation. Are they still original laptops? (Ask my grandfather's axe...)
icegreentea2 3y ago
I agree, but at the same time, this is an extension from 8 to 10 years. While this will surely buy time for many schools to upgrade, we can all be prepared for a re-hash of this kerfuffle in 2 years.
- ChrisLTD 3y ago
  What laptops are we seriously expecting to last more than 10 years? I wouldn't expect that from a MacBook Pro or a Thinkpad, let alone a $300 Chromebook.
  - acdha 3y ago
    Any Apple laptop has a good chance? My 2011 MacBook Air still works fine (as does the 2013) - the main problem is software support. You’re not playing games on that but it’s fine for email / web / video chat / office docs and light coding. Each of the earlier ones I had was replaced for performance reasons, not failure other than hard drives back when spinning metal was the norm.
    - tonyedgecombe 3y ago
      >the main problem is software support Hopefully this announcement will put some pressure on Apple to do the same.
      - acdha 3y ago
        Agreed. They have the lease excuse of any vendor to say drivers are hard to support.
      - KennyBlanken 3y ago
        Apple has been top of the industry in terms of length of OS/software support for their devices. My iPhone 8 is still supported by the current iOS (no longer by 17, womp womp.) It's nearly seven years old, is still on its first battery with about 79% capacity left and it hasn't gone into brownout-prevention mode yet. I'm figuring that with the new iOS release it probably won't be supported, but who knows. A few whiz-bang features aren't supported; fancy but kinda useless webcam stuff, and newer iPhones can do more extensive object recognition in photos like bugs and plants that I think my phone won't do. I'm not missing much aside from better cellular band support, which is kind of a wash because my phone has a qualcomm modem and Apple's switch to intel modems didn't go well. Even the newer cameras aren't tempting because a generation or two after the 8 and X, they all became inflicted with Apple's horrifically bad "AI" image processing that makes everything look like a watercolor painting.
runjake 3y ago
> I doubt many chromebooks in active use by students would even last 10 years. Maybe not, but we've been surplussing tens of thousands of otherwise-usable Chromebooks regardless, because they could not be updated to current.
moneil971 3y ago
Unlikely to last that long, but helpful that they'll still be supported so they can be repaired, updated, etc. -- and so they can slowly upgrade throughout a school system, rather than having to do a wholesale update every few years.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
  > Unlikely to last that long, That's what I keep coming back to. I've known two classes of Chromebook, shelved and about to be. Most of my customers tried them. It seemed reasonable their office could use them for light web app use. Every one was in the closet within 6 months. They're commonly slow. Printer support is a crapshoot, MFP doubly so. Corporate plugin support is a crapshoot. Whatever unforeseen new computing experience arrives, they probably can't do it. I was at my mechanic's shop last month. He stopped mid sentence to say 'I hate this thing; I'm about to throw it thru a wall' while he's trying to lookup parts online. It's an Acer Chromebook and will likely be gone by my next visit.
xattt 3y ago
I am also seeing all the easy educational access around Chromebook ecosystem as a long play to secure Google Suite as a de facto desktop publishing app for the next generation. Kind of like Adobe did with easy piracy of Photoshop during the early versions.
- jamiek88 3y ago
  As did Microsoft. They cared about businesses pirating office, teenagers and for home use, not so much. Ubiquity is it’s own reward.
synergy20 3y ago
typically a school chromebook will break in 3-4 years though
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Yizahi 3y ago
The problem with Chromebooks is that their supported period is ticking even when they are sitting unsold in the shop in the unopened box. So someone buying a new condition 3 year old model Chromebook with lets say 5 years of support would only get 2 years of support left. So this change will mostly makes them competitive with a regular laptops on the support terms.

jsnell 3y ago

I don't think it's even covering just the last few years but goes back further than that: > For Chromebooks released before 2021 and already in use, users and IT admins will have the option to extend automatic updates to 10 years from the platform’s release (after they receive their last automatic update). I don't entirely understand why the 2021 cutoff for it being opt-in vs. opt-out is there. Maybe it's about the "already in use" bit somehow, and making sure that pre-2021 models don't continue being manufactured and sold as as new.

wrs 3y ago
I’m wondering if that will be a paid option. That’s how the last stage of support for commercial OSes often works.
- ewoodrich 3y ago
  I have an original Pixelbook (late 2017 release date) and the auto update support page [1] has been updated from June 2024 to June 2027 (with an asterisk saying it is user opt in but that's all I can see). So at first glance it doesn't seem to be paid. My Pixelbook doesn't get much use anymore vs my M1 MacBook but it's nice to know it will still be supported. It can be a handy thin client and I don't have to worry as much about it getting stolen/abusing at this point in its life. [1] https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?visit_id=638303129716857329-825486087&p=auto-update-policy&rd=1#zippy=%2Cgoogle https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?visit_id=...
highwaylights 3y ago
My guess is that they’ve received commitments since 2021 on parts and drivers for 10 years, and don’t have those commitments prior to that date, so they’re only offering opt-in OS updates that will be under subtly different terms for liability indemnity purposes.
- silvestrov 3y ago
  Might also be a case of minimal RAM/SSD requirement and OS build using reasonable new compiler. HW might also be more standarized today, e.g. using USB internally for webcam and keyboard.
yencabulator 3y ago
The footnote says > For devices prior to 2021 that will receive extended updates, some features and services may not be supported. So.. they might need to rip out some problematic drivers, maybe? Like, imagine the bluetooth chip vendor not being cooperative, you get to choose to continue updates but losing bluetooth as a feature. The footnote continues > See our Help Center for details. So kudos to first one dig out the exact page they're referring to (there's no link).
- Zenst 3y ago
  https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en That one, had link for me.
  - yencabulator 3y ago
    Except that also just ends with > ** For devices prior to 2021 that will receive extended updates, some features and services might not be supported. which doesn't really say anything...
- redeeman 3y ago
  > imagine the bluetooth chip vendor not being cooperative no, then you tell them that if they dont play ball, they will NEVER sell a single chip to anything google ever again, and then you hire some people to reverse engineer the shit, and make it work anyway. And then you publish all about how company X is being stupid and trying to work against efforts to save the environment, how they are trying very hard to make money on peoples hardware being obsoleted before time etc. But then we realize that google themselves have bummed out to large extents with what they have permitted on android and chromebooks, so anything like this would not happen
  - eru 3y ago
    Good luck with that, in case the company goes out of business?
fma 3y ago
There was an article from the WSJ that wrecks Google for e-waste due to not supporting Chromebooks past 5 years. A lot of chromebooks were purchased from 2020 due to the pandemic. It's not the date of purchase that determines obsolescence, so many were coming up to be thrown away. It would be better if Google defaults to supporting 2020, 2019 (Many purchased in 2020 were manufactured in 2019).
- nolist_policy 3y ago
  If you where cheaping out an bought Windows 10 devices in 2020, you'd also only get 5 years of support.

mholm 3y ago

I worked an inner city public school system's well funded IT department about a decade ago. Chromebooks had just been distributed to all students with grant money. After the first year, about 1/5 laptops needed major repair. None of them would make it to 5 years.

sangnoir 3y ago
> After the first year, about 1/5 laptops needed major repair. None of them would make it to 5 years. The second sentenxe doesn't follow the first - it's a flavor of Zeno's paradox, after 5 years, you'll be left with 4/5 x 4/5 x 4/5 x 4/5 x 4/5 of the original batch.
- Finn_ 3y ago
  This assumes that 1/5 of them break every year which is probably not the case, older laptops will break more frequently.
  - gabrielhidasy 3y ago
    On the other hand, considering we are talking about kids breaking laptops, this failures are much more random, a brand new laptop is not that much more likely to survive a fall than an old one.
    - account42 3y ago
      If the older laptop has already "survived" a fall, yes, it is abosolutely more likely to break from the same fall than the new laptop.
- yebyen 3y ago
  You're assuming that 4/5 of the laptops remained in pristine condition. I doubt that very much. You need to take account for the ordinary wear and tear compounded together with the impact of abusive 1/5 of users that do an excessive amount of damage (requiring a total overhaul.) And anyway, if 1/5 of laptops needed major repairs and some of them got it, those go back into circulation. Are they still original laptops? (Ask my grandfather's axe...)

icegreentea2 3y ago

I agree, but at the same time, this is an extension from 8 to 10 years. While this will surely buy time for many schools to upgrade, we can all be prepared for a re-hash of this kerfuffle in 2 years.

ChrisLTD 3y ago
What laptops are we seriously expecting to last more than 10 years? I wouldn't expect that from a MacBook Pro or a Thinkpad, let alone a $300 Chromebook.
- acdha 3y ago
  Any Apple laptop has a good chance? My 2011 MacBook Air still works fine (as does the 2013) - the main problem is software support. You’re not playing games on that but it’s fine for email / web / video chat / office docs and light coding. Each of the earlier ones I had was replaced for performance reasons, not failure other than hard drives back when spinning metal was the norm.
  - tonyedgecombe 3y ago
    >the main problem is software support Hopefully this announcement will put some pressure on Apple to do the same.
    - acdha 3y ago
      Agreed. They have the lease excuse of any vendor to say drivers are hard to support.
    - KennyBlanken 3y ago
      Apple has been top of the industry in terms of length of OS/software support for their devices. My iPhone 8 is still supported by the current iOS (no longer by 17, womp womp.) It's nearly seven years old, is still on its first battery with about 79% capacity left and it hasn't gone into brownout-prevention mode yet. I'm figuring that with the new iOS release it probably won't be supported, but who knows. A few whiz-bang features aren't supported; fancy but kinda useless webcam stuff, and newer iPhones can do more extensive object recognition in photos like bugs and plants that I think my phone won't do. I'm not missing much aside from better cellular band support, which is kind of a wash because my phone has a qualcomm modem and Apple's switch to intel modems didn't go well. Even the newer cameras aren't tempting because a generation or two after the 8 and X, they all became inflicted with Apple's horrifically bad "AI" image processing that makes everything look like a watercolor painting.

runjake 3y ago

> I doubt many chromebooks in active use by students would even last 10 years. Maybe not, but we've been surplussing tens of thousands of otherwise-usable Chromebooks regardless, because they could not be updated to current.

moneil971 3y ago

Unlikely to last that long, but helpful that they'll still be supported so they can be repaired, updated, etc. -- and so they can slowly upgrade throughout a school system, rather than having to do a wholesale update every few years.

WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
> Unlikely to last that long, That's what I keep coming back to. I've known two classes of Chromebook, shelved and about to be. Most of my customers tried them. It seemed reasonable their office could use them for light web app use. Every one was in the closet within 6 months. They're commonly slow. Printer support is a crapshoot, MFP doubly so. Corporate plugin support is a crapshoot. Whatever unforeseen new computing experience arrives, they probably can't do it. I was at my mechanic's shop last month. He stopped mid sentence to say 'I hate this thing; I'm about to throw it thru a wall' while he's trying to lookup parts online. It's an Acer Chromebook and will likely be gone by my next visit.

xattt 3y ago

I am also seeing all the easy educational access around Chromebook ecosystem as a long play to secure Google Suite as a de facto desktop publishing app for the next generation. Kind of like Adobe did with easy piracy of Photoshop during the early versions.

jamiek88 3y ago
As did Microsoft. They cared about businesses pirating office, teenagers and for home use, not so much. Ubiquity is it’s own reward.

synergy20 3y ago

typically a school chromebook will break in 3-4 years though

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Yizahi 3y ago

The problem with Chromebooks is that their supported period is ticking even when they are sitting unsold in the shop in the unopened box. So someone buying a new condition 3 year old model Chromebook with lets say 5 years of support would only get 2 years of support left. So this change will mostly makes them competitive with a regular laptops on the support terms.