Google Apps To Pull Support For Firefox 3.5, Internet Explorer 7, And Safari 3

Last year, Google discontinued support for Docs and Sites for IE6. Today Google is making a pretty major move concerning support for older browsers, announcing that as of August 1, Google Apps will no longer support Firefox 3.5, Internet Explorer 7, Safari 3, and their predecessors.

Google says that the applications included in the Apps Suite simply don’t work with these outdated browsers and end up negatively affecting users’ experience with the application. For example, desktop notifications for Gmail and drag-and-drop file upload in Google Docs require browsers that support HTML5. Google warns users that Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs and Google Sites will eventually stop working entirely on these older browsers.

Google says it will continue to support the current and prior major releases of Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari on a rolling basis. Each time a new version is released, Google will support the update and stop supporting the third-oldest version.

For businesses using Google Apps, IT admins will have to make sure that each employee is using a updated version of one of the accepted browsers. For a big company, that can be a challenging task for both users and IT admins.