While I do respect Google wanting to move forward and bring along newer features that need newer technology, is it really too much to ask for simple fallbacks for browsers that are otherwise still supported by their vendors?
Safari 5.1 is pretty old, but it's no IE8. It supports enough HTML5 and CSS3 features to make me think that Google's just being a bit cheeky to non-Chrome older browser
users in user-agent sniffing and then not providing a current search page with fallbacks.
By the way, are versions of Chrome at about the same age of these other browsers also being affected?
How many security fixes have you backported to Safari 5.1? A lot of Google's upgrade obsession is driven by the fact that they have a LOT of other people's data which is under constant attack.
Browser security issues shouldn't mean that functionality is suddenly thrown back 12 months for certain browsers, rather Google could simply display a banner urging them to update if it's an issue for them. Arguably simpler and makes a bit more sense.
The question is which browsers you invest your time and money supporting. If the vendor doesn't support a browser, it becomes increasingly hard to justify investing your resources on it and a single block-list makes everything consistent.
Safari 5.1 is pretty old, but it's no IE8. It supports enough HTML5 and CSS3 features to make me think that Google's just being a bit cheeky to non-Chrome older browser users in user-agent sniffing and then not providing a current search page with fallbacks.
By the way, are versions of Chrome at about the same age of these other browsers also being affected?