Some Chromebooks are now being promised 9 years of updates

Kyle Bradshaw | Oct 15 2020 - 9:13 am PT

Despite all the reasons we love Chrome OS, the one major downside is that Chromebooks come with an expiration date, after which they’ll no longer receive updates. Google is now giving some Chromebooks just shy of nine years of guaranteed support.

When a Chromebook reaches the end of its life — officially called the Auto Update Expiration date or “AUE” — it can no longer receive updates to Chrome OS. On its own, this isn’t too big of a deal, as Chrome OS is still plenty usable without the latest shiny features.

However, as it stands today, updating Chrome OS is the only way to get updates to the Google Chrome browser. Again, setting shiny features aside, the real reason that it’s important to update Google Chrome is to ensure that you have all of the latest security enhancements, keeping your web browsing private and secure. So while, yes, you can definitely continue to use a Chromebook past its expiration date, you’re doing so with an ever-increasing risk.

It used to be that Chromebooks were only given a little over six years to live — and only three years before that! — with the clock ticking from around when the first model was released. Since then, Google bumped up its support to a full eight years, even extending an extra year to some existing Chromebooks.

As noted by Android Police, Google has now updated its support page that lists the expiration dates for just about every Chromebook that ever existed, adding the recently launched HP Pro c645 and Lenovo ThinkPad C13. More importantly, both of these Chromebooks have been given expiration dates of June 2029, marking the first Chrome OS devices to be given just shy of nine years of support.

One common factor between these two Chromebooks is their use of the latest AMD processors including the Ryzen 7 3700C. We can possibly expect any further devices based on this generation of AMD processors to also have June 2029 as their expiration date.

It remains to be seen whether nine years is going to become the new norm for Chrome OS devices, but it’s definitely a major step toward ensuring that most people will have replaced their device long before it reaches its expiration. Simultaneously, Google is also working to address the security concerns of older Chromebooks by allowing Google Chrome the browser to be updated separately from Chrome OS and for much longer.