Chromium Browser Now Available on Outdated Windows Versions via ‘Supermium’

Third-party developers have brought the Chromium browser back to life on obsolete versions of Windows, which no longer have official support. The retrofitted browser, christened as Supermium, can be installed on Windows 2003, XP, Vista, 7, and 8.x. It enables Google account login and synchronizes settings and extensions.

Most Recent Supermium Version

The version of Supermium is based on Chromium 121. Although the most current version stands at 124.0.6342.0, the Supermium is significantly more updated than the last officially supported Windows 7 version 109. Available in both 32-bit and 64-bit variations, the browser’s source code can be accessed on GitHub.

Compatibility with Windows XP

Remarkably, the browser also functions on Windows XP, given a processor with an SSE2 instruction set is available. Journalists from The Register tested Supermium on an Intel Core 2 Duo laptop running on 64-bit Windows XP. The browser worked flawlessly while demonstrating impressive speed – there were no issues with Gmail and Facebook display.

Since support for Windows XP ceased in 2014, it’s strongly advised not to run the outdated operating system on internet-enabled machines. However, if there is no alternative, Supermium works fine. Still, standard installation is not possible due to error crashes. One can, though, extract the package using 7-Zip, which still runs on Windows XP, copy files into the “Program Files” folder, and directly launch the executable.

Future for Windows 10 Users

Windows 10’s service life will terminate in 17 months, leaving many computers with this OS unable to install Windows 11, even using workarounds. It’s plausible that Supermium will be useful in the foreseeable future to Windows 10 users who face issues with Linux. However, developers for the browser are focusing on extending support to the even more outdated Windows 2000 next.