Google's ultimate aim is to have everybody using the new Google Earth Web browser 'app'.and it will ONLY work in Chrome, too (or a Chromium-derived 'clone'). It has two components the user desktop 'client', and the matching server-side component.and the two have to work together (and these always have to be matching versions, too). Google Earth is a little bit different to most applications. We had to update to newer versions in Puppy Linux a little while back for the same reason. I think you'll find that Google have 'switched off' the servers for this version, in line with their 'sunsetting' policy.