If you’re an Internet Explorer 8 user, you might have seen an error message pop up at the top of the Internet Explorer 8 browser window when you try to access your Gmail account.
This is what happens.
Windows XP will only go up to Internet Explorer 8 (Internet Explorer 9 or higher is not supported on Windows XP). Gmail wants you to be running Internet Explorer 9 or higher for Gmail to function properly. So when you are on a Windows XP machine with Internet Explorer 8, Gmail complains about it and wants you to install Chrome or Firefox.
You can still use Gmail on Internet Explorer 8. You just simply close the error message. Or, you can install Chrome or Firefox to use Gmail more effectively.
There’s a more in depth article on Computer World about this very topic. In the article, Greg Keizer explains that “After Nov. 15 [2012], users running IE8 may have trouble with some features in Google Apps. And if past practice is any clue, other sites and services, including Gmail and Google Calendar, may also be affected. At some point, those apps may stop working entirely in IE8 (brackets added).”