Agreed, lots of software is dropping 7 support, but that decision (as far as I can tell) is an arbitrary one, not a technical one. Is there a reason the latest chrome can't run on 7 if it didn't check for it?
> Is there a reason the latest chrome can't run on 7 if it didn't check for it?
The reason is precisely because it doesn't check for it.
That is: instead of checking for older Windows releases, and using fallback code paths for them, it simply assumes the presence of newer APIs (or that older buggy APIs now work properly). As time goes by, the cost of maintaining these fallback code paths only increases (and in some cases, having to stay compatible with them prevents important enhancements and cleanups), and since they're less tested (because they're only used when running on older operating system releases), they tend to break. As an example from an unrelated project, before they dropped Windows XP support, the fallback code for panic!() in Rust was broken when running on Windows XP (https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/34538).
I imagine over time there will be API differences but probably nothing insurmountable.
I suspect the real reason is Microsoft themselves dropping support for W7. Once that happens you can’t really claim Chrome is a “secure browser” because the underlying OS might be exploited and never patched.
The same decision has been made in Python, to use the newer APIs blindly, but fortunately there's a fork: https://github.com/adang1345/PythonWin7 Hope Chromium will get one soon.
The reason is precisely because it doesn't check for it.
That is: instead of checking for older Windows releases, and using fallback code paths for them, it simply assumes the presence of newer APIs (or that older buggy APIs now work properly). As time goes by, the cost of maintaining these fallback code paths only increases (and in some cases, having to stay compatible with them prevents important enhancements and cleanups), and since they're less tested (because they're only used when running on older operating system releases), they tend to break. As an example from an unrelated project, before they dropped Windows XP support, the fallback code for panic!() in Rust was broken when running on Windows XP (https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/34538).