Considering that it’s basic x86 Linux+Chrome it could be supported indefinitely without any issues. Especially just chrome, once unsupported it won’t even receive updates to the browser and that’s unacceptable
Ars mentions that Apple (on average) now supports new Mac’s for 7 years, but even though Apple stops delivering updates at least the (non-Safari) browsers and other software may continue to receive updates for quite a bit longer.
In this day and age browser security is the first and most important line of defense, and as long as your browser is updated and your firewall is up you can have some sense of security.
I personally never touched a Chromebook, and have no idea how hard it is to get Linux onto them, but it sure proves Stallmans old argument about freedom.
it’s quite the opposite, updates for safari are generally tied to the operating system so after 7 years (but it could be 4 years in edge cases) safari will stop receiving updates. While third party browsers instead are more gentle, will continue to get updates as long as possible (but it’s still not calculated in “decades” as for windows or linux)
regarding updates, i think linux can be installed on them (never touched one nor plan to do so in the next decade) but the combo shitty cpu+extremely small and slow emmc storage+the bare minimum RAM is a killer. Maybe just for a fun experiment
That’s what I wrote. :)
And as for Windows updates we don’t know what the future holds. Windows Vista and 8 certainly wasn’t supported for decades.
Linux distros are fine as long as you do dist-upgrades, but that’s not something most people’s grandparents, heck, even most people, are going to do even if they were able to walk into a store and actually buy a computer with Linux on it.
And as for the edge case Macs which only received four years of software updates - I’d be pissed if I was the owner of one.
Firmware updates though.
How often do you see a worthwhile firmware update to something older than two years?
Besides, running Linux isn’t a blocker for firmware updates if the vendor supports it.
I run a Chromebook from HP that no longer has support from Google. I had to pull the back off and remove a physical screw to reinstall the OS but am happily running Pop_OS 22,04 on it which gets linux-firmware updates. Unfortunately I have not seen a bios update in quite some time, but the firmware still gets support from the kernel and distro. I did need the juevos to actually open my computer up after researching what to do and the knowledge to futz with all the keyboard oddities to get the keyboard fully functional that most people just don’t have the knowledge to easily do nor the patience to fight with Google searches and Gallium tools/documentation to make these things work.
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