<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">Google support page listing AUE dates for every make/model:<div><br></div><div><a href="https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366">https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366</a><br><div><br></div><div>Surprisingly some of them get updates up until 2032.</div><div><br></div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>On May 29, 2023, at 11:19, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div><div>| From: Stewart C. Russell via talk <talk@gtalug.org><br>| <br>| TIL that Chromebooks brick themselves when they hit a hard-coded date: the<br>| date when Google stops providing updates:<br>| https://coloradosun.com/2023/05/26/colorado-schools-chromebooks-churn-outdated/<br>| <br>| The article's about Denver Public School District, who are finding a whole lot<br>| of their Chromebooks bought during pandemic are running out of life. The<br>| environmental and cost impacts are huge.<br><br>[James' reply has detailed useful information.]<br><br>All commercial OSes sunset old hardware. Only ChromeBooks declare that <br>date when the systems are first available. (It would be good if support <br>lifetimes were longer).<br><br>The article is quite confused. I think that this is what it really<br>means<br><br>- after AUE (Auto Update Expiration) the devices still work but there is<br> no promise of security updates.<br><br>- the school board seems to have a policy that says devices without<br> security updates must be banned from their network. I think that<br> that is a wise policy but it isn't the same as saying that the<br> devices are bricked.<br><br>- the school board bought a lot of units at the same time so many are<br> losing support at the same time.<br><br>- (speculation) perhaps the school board bought older models of<br> ChromeBooks because they were cheaper, even though their AUE was<br> sooner than newer models. I always check the AUE before I buy a<br> ChromeBook<br><br>================<br><br>[The rest of this is meandering discourse supporting the above. Feel<br>free to ignore.]<br><br>I certainly have a ChromeBook that no longer gets updates. Annoying.<br>But it still works (last I checked, well after support stopped). I<br>don't use it because:<br><br>- I bought it to run Linux but I never got it to do so (Giles has the<br> same model and he did get it to run Linux).<br><br>- I have newer ChromeBooks with much nicer features<br><br>- (probably) too many web sites require more resources<br><br>- I don't like browsing with known security problems<br><br>The actual claim in the article gets narrowed down to:<br><br><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>An arsenal of Chromebooks that can’t keep up with new software or <br><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>that shut students out from the websites they rely on will <br><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>essentially become obsolete, leading to both significant costs for <br><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>districts and environmental hazards — issues highlighted in the <br><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>April report.<br><br>What software can they not keep up with? ChromeBooks really don't<br>have many applications. Things I can imagine:<br><br>- school policy that forbids using stale browsers (since they will<br> have known vulnerabilities)<br><br>- new ciphers or CoDecs that are not supported (probably too soon for<br> that)<br><br>- new browser features like Web Assembly (WASM). These seem pretty<br> unimportant.<br><br>- modern Chromebooks support Android apps but old ones don't.<br> But I'm pretty sure that that transition was years before the<br> pandemic so I don't think that it would apply to a fleet of<br> ChromeBooks bought for the pandemic.<br><br>Much later in the article:<br><br><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“My role is to get as much as we can out of these devices before <br><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>we’re no longer able to have them on our network,” Dodge said, <br><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>adding that Chromebooks that can’t receive security updates can <br><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>pose threats to the district’s network.<br><br>This certainly sounds as though the ChromeBooks still work but no<br>longer are considered secure by the school board. I actually think<br>that is an appropriate policy.<br><br>Windows has been pretty good in recent years as far as providing free<br>updates and supporting old hardware. Microsoft is changing this: Win<br>10 support disappears in October 2025 (if I remember correctly) and<br>Microsoft policy is that old computers are not supported (for a<br>definition of "old" that we need not go into; most of my computers are<br>"old"). I expect that most school Windows systems are old. Oh, and<br>Windows is hard/impossible to keep secure, even with updates<br>(especially in the hands of students).<br><br>iPads and Android tablets also fall out of support. I don't think<br>either come with a promise of updates until a declared date. So they<br>are inferior to ChromeBooks in this issue.<br><br>The greatest longevity is a Linux system. I'm pretty sure that the<br>school would not replace ChromeBooks with Linux systems.<br><br>So: I would think that this is stupid reporting but a useful but partial<br>Public Service Announcement.<br><br>Certainly the school board should have known the support life when<br>they purchased the ChromeBooks and planned for that life cycle. No<br>other OS provides as clear a statement of support lifetime up front.<br>---<br>Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org<br>Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk<br></div></div></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>