Chrome's most important feature

Ben Gudger, a former Mozilla developer currently working on Google for the Chrome team, believes that auto-update is one of the most important features of Chrome.

Auto-update is one of the killer features of Chrome. It is magical because it continuously updates the entire development platform imperceptibly and often. His support has influenced how we structure our development process. It was also one of the first features of Chrome. If we recall the history of the project long before it was publicly launched in 2008, the auto-update project was one of the first that we started working on. The idea was to give people an empty window with auto update. After they installed it, the empty window gradually turned into a browser. And today — five years after our auto-updater began updating a nearly empty window that could barely load web pages — now it’s a tool to provide an incredibly complex web technology platform on our users’s computers, which in turn allows developers web applications create an amazing new online experience. I have never seen such an efficient platform update mechanism before.

Chrome automatically updates in the background and ensures that it always has the latest features and bug fixes. You no longer need to worry about version numbers, the list of features in the latest version, and you can no longer decide not to upgrade to the new version due to annoying changes. Extensions are also updated in the background, and you always use the latest versions. This is great for developers who do not need to support old versions of Chrome and spend a lot of time testing their sites and extensions. This is also great for users who can rely on a secure browser with the latest security fixes and better malware protection. They can also use the latest web applications without having to worry about updating their browser.



A quick release cycle for Chrome versions works well because of auto-update. Announcing users with new version notifications causes people to postpone updating their browsers. Some of them will find ways to disable the update and will continue to use the old version of the browser. Ben Goodger believes that the invisibility of the updater is very important:

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Chrome's auto-update system is deceptively simple. I say “deceptive” because it is completely invisible to users, but in fact it is supported by many complex technologies and processes. The key here is “completely invisible.” We have made numerous improvements to the auto update during Chrome development, including one major change when we dispersed the frequency of our releases from one quarter to one every six weeks. But from the user's point of view, Chrome is still ... Chrome.



I will focus on invisibility, because it is important:



Chrome auto update works silently in the background, never distracting you. If there is an update, it will download it and prepare it so that the next time you start the browser, it will be its latest version. Something like starting up Gmail is the latest version.

I believe that auto update is the most important feature of Chrome, because it allows other functions to appear. Since Chrome was released back in 2008, it has steadily improved, new support for web technologies has appeared, new features in the interface, new APIs for extensions and advanced security features. Without a powerful auto update, many Chrome users would still use an outdated version and could not use all of this. Sometimes the lack of choice can significantly improve the program.