is ditching Chrome support for Ice Cream Swich devices

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Published 4 Mar 2015

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is putting Chrome into a deep freeze for those running Android 4.0. 

Chrome 42 will be the last update for devices with Ice Cream Swich, a nearly four-year-old version of Android. says on the Chromium Blog that you’ll still be able to use Chrome if you have an older device, but Chrome 42 will be the last release through the ay Store. 

On an FAQ page, says supporting Ice Cream Swich requires too many compromises, with workarounds complex code required to keep older devices on board.

This change will impact 6 percent of devices running Android, according to the Android platform version tracker. That figure has dropped 30 percent in the last year, says.

Chrome 42 is expected sometime in Mid-April. Once that hits, Ice Cream Swich users will have to hope for an Android update or start looking for a new device.

y this matters: Sometimes optimization wins out over supporting a larger swath of devices. ones tablets running Ice Cream Swich don’t have the type of hardware that wants to push Chrome’s speed capabilities forward. Fortunately it’s a small piece of the Android pie, new devices like the Moto E show it doesn’t take an expensive phone to use the newest version of Android.