
Chrome's Most Important Feature  - Garbage
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/08/chromes-most-important-feature.html
======
eps
This will probably get downvoted quickly, but Chrome's updater is one of few
things I quarantine on my machine. I just don't trust Google enough to let it
run stuff that "works quietly in the background, never notifying you." The
technology is interesting (though not exactly a rocket science and certainly
not _magical_ ... which it would've been if it could update a running instance
of Chrome without restarting it), but I am wee bit uncomfortable letting a
company who is in business of collecting data and tracking people to run
anything in my background.

~~~
melling
I just run the Canary build and get auto-updated nightly. Until Google does
something egregious, why not just help them build a great browser as quickly
as possible?

Google, and now Mozilla too, is essentially crowd-sourcing, hopefully throwing
a few million extra eyes on the problem.

~~~
sixcorners
I have an idea what all the different channels that the different browsers
have but I am uncertain if I have them all. What does everyone here think?

There are the four Chrome channels: <http://www.chromium.org/getting-
involved/dev-channel>

Chromium snapshots can be pulled from the buildserver:
<https://factor.cc/chromium.php>

Firefox has the Stable, Beta, and Aurora channels: <http://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/channel/>

Then there is the Firefox Nightly channel: <http://nightly.mozilla.org/>

Opera and Opera Next: <http://www.opera.com/browser/next/>

Safari and Webkit: <http://www.webkit.org/>

I guess IE is here:
[http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Info/Downloads/Default.htm...](http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Info/Downloads/Default.html)

Is that all of them? I keep finding more.

------
pornel
Whenever I start Firefox it tells me:

"Stop! Whatever you were going to do, it couldn't possibly be more important
than checking if fart-button-xpi has been updated from 1.0.4 to 1.0.5! Now
just five more clicks and I'll restart"

~~~
sid0
You must be running Firefox 3.6 then.

~~~
kalid
But that's exactly the point -- just manually update to firefox 4 and your
problems will go away! Firefox 4 is only a few months old. Compared to
previous firefox releases it's brand-new.

~~~
sid0
Define "manually update".

~~~
kalid
Having to complete something like this: [http://www.newsmild.com/wp-
content/uploads/upgrade-offer-boo...](http://www.newsmild.com/wp-
content/uploads/upgrade-offer-boosts-firefox-4-share-by-30.jpg)

Unfortunately, I think years of popup dialog fatigue leads lots of people to
just close the window.

------
DanielBMarkham
I agree with this. Chrome has effectively changed the entire nature of client-
side computing with this feature. If you want to run stuff client-side any
more (hello Windows? Anybody listening?), you're going to need to implement
this.

In general, the user should _extremely_ rarely be interrupted for anything,
especially not anything program-related. Each program having a tray icon, an
update alert, update restarts, and flow interruption because it thinks
something is important is what has turned windows from a productive computing
platform to some kind of cross between a Kafkaesque X-box and a slot machine.

~~~
Hawramani
After getting used to Chrome's silent updates, I started to find it
breathtakingly ridiculous the way Firefox kept interrupting its startup asking
about updates. When I start Firefox, it is because I want to go to a website.
Giving attention to updates is _not_ what I want to do.

------
MarkMc
Google have open-sourced their auto-update mechanism to a project called
'Omaha'. But it's so complicated an google-specific that nobody else seems to
use it:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3711435/has-anybody-
used-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3711435/has-anybody-used-google-
omaha-their-auto-update-engine-for-chrome)

~~~
bjc
We use it. The server isn't open source, but it wasn't difficult to follow the
protocol and create a Google App Engine app.

------
mrspeaker
"It is magical because it continuously updates an entire development platform
invisibly, frequently"

That "frequently" is every 30 minutes, by the way... I accidentally removed
the goog updater from my Lil Snitch rules and noticed that it then started
asking permission every 30 minutes, on the dot (I started recording the times
for a while).

I don't know why it needs to check so often - except that that kind of data
would be very useful for noting how often your users were on 'puters, and if
they moved around etc.

~~~
rmc
A hyper short time could be massively benefitial to security. Imagine a
security bug fix that's installed on every browser within the hour.

~~~
duck
That is true... but it can go the other way to: Imagine a security bug that is
_introduced_ on every browser within the hour.

~~~
T-hawk
Even worse: imagine a poisoned update that gets installed on every browser
within the hour.

Or just an update with a non-malicious bug that breaks the updating mechanism.
(This last has happened to companies the size of McAfee and Skype.)

------
bmj
My group is currently having discussions about the new paradigm of browsers
updating frequently and silently. We currently have to support a wide array of
browsers and versions for our apps (due to the nature of the product), and our
QC group is grappling with how to manage this.

Personally, I don't think we need to worry about a Chrome or FF update
suddenly breaking our apps--they don't use cutting edge HTML5/CSS3 features,
and I don't suspect that either browser will suddenly change an HTML4
implementation.

Anybody else dealing with this same issue?

~~~
maratd
While I've never seen an update cripple our software. I have noticed changes
in rendering engines that change how things appear slightly. Minor stuff, only
a few pixels here and there.

Also, I was forced to change our browser checking software to only do lower
bound checking. Before, I would explicitly specify which versions were
allowed. Now it's more like Firefox 4+, etc.

------
larrik
I notice on Ubuntu auto-update doesn't work. I wonder if this is a
technological issue (they can't or haven't bothered to get it working) or a
cultural one (like if Ubuntu programs shouldn't auto-update ever).

~~~
bdonlan
On Linux, the chrome team chose to integrate with system package managers
instead of using their native updater - arguably the native updater would have
worked better (many Linux distros still don't support delta updates!), but
they wanted to buy goodwill with the Linux community.

~~~
adbge
This is also the reason why there is no canary version of Chrome available on
Linux: since packaging is so involved, it's not worth the effort.

~~~
ramidarigaz
Um. Chrome is offered in both .deb and .rpm (each 32bit and 64 bit).

~~~
seabee
I don't see any such thing on their download page, only for stable and beta. I
think linux users are better equipped than most to build it from source,
however...

~~~
ramidarigaz
Oops. I missed the canary part. You're right.

------
bitslayer
Good thing they are still not evil. Seriously, this is a very powerful way to
run software, but what if they, or some other company who emulated this idea,
took that great power we have granted them and used it for evil? They could
suddenly 0wn millions of computers.

~~~
exDM69
Or if a company, maybe even Google, gets hacked and their distribution
channels are used to send out poisoned software? That would be bad.

~~~
moheeb
I could see Google being taken by force (read guns) and millions of computers
sent the launch codes.

Joshua

------
ominous_prime
I _really_ want a Linux version of the binary with the updater. There's an
open feature request for it, but no activity on it.

Flash is unfortunately still a requirement for a lot of websites. The 32bit
binary chrome has flash bundled, so updates are received as quickly as
possible (I know, I should run some flash-blocking plugin, but I don't right
now). On 64bit Linux (which is what I need most of the time), you have to
maintain the flash plugin separately, and run it through nspluginwrapper,
which makes it much less stable in my experience.

You used to be able to run the 32 bit debs on 64bit Ubuntu, but that broke a
couple versions ago, and I never had time to see if it could be fixed. You
also lose the package manager updates when you do this, since apt isn't multi-
arch aware.

~~~
abraham
Chrome has a built in "click to play" feature for plugins.

~~~
ominous_prime
D'oh, you're right. I completely forgot about that (it's still in the hidden
flags setting though)

------
bonaldi
"you can no longer decide that it's a bad idea to upgrade to the new version
because of an annoying change."

Exactly what I dislike about the web app model; I want it even less in my
client apps.

~~~
sixcorners
How much power do you have over updates now? When Skype destroys everything
good about their UI aren't you still going to have to update eventually?

------
wgx
Nice, except Chrome doesn't update _at all_ for a lot of Mac users (myself
included)...

[http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=update+server+not+available...](http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=update+server+not+available+error+12)

So, hilariously, I have to totally remove the app and re-install to update.

~~~
abraham
Reading the bug reports makes it seem to be mostly caused by third party
applications screwing with the Chrome install.

------
saturdaysaint
It's nice, but I really don't find it vastly preferable to a friendly update
notification and a quick application restart - especially now that most
applications open in the state they were closed in, and with an SSD the
restart is barely a blink. In fact, I like to know the feature additions or
design adjustments happening to an app, so I enjoy the notifications - it's
like I'm getting something for free (which I am, actually).

I don't think it's a huge advantage for average users, either - %90-percent of
iPhone users are on the latest available major OS version, and that (until
5.0) involved a huge non-delta download, physically docking your phone and an
onerous, lengthy (well over 30 minute) process, during which you had limited
use of your phone.

------
grandalf
The only issue with this otherwise wonderful feature is that often when chrome
starts doing something weird/broken it turns out it installed an update and is
ready to be restarted.

So it appears there is a bug where the update messes up currently running
processes.

------
yarone
On a related note, for a side project that requires a windows download
(<http://www.getbugcam.com>), I've been experimenting with Microsoft's
"ClickOnce" installer + autoupdate technology. Obviously (per the name and
Microsoft reputation), it's not quite as simple and straightforward as
Chrome's autoupdate process, but it is pretty good.

For those interested in some of the available options for Windows apps, see
here: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/37030/how-to-best-
impleme...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/37030/how-to-best-implement-
software-updates-on-windows)

------
adthrelfall
Although it is a nice feature, for me the most important Chrome feature is
unifying the address and search box. Even non-technical people know to respond
to a software update prompts, but the number of people I see (including
normally quite tech savvy people) that still search for a url, or enter a
search in the address field surprises me. OK, you could argue it is bowing
down the lowest common denominator, but I believe it's a great feature that
saves the frustration of people that just want to do go somewhere or find
something on the web quickly.

------
yalogin
Users in countries with slow/expensive internet connections will hate the
feature. It might not even work as the machine is not connected to the network
24/7. And when its connected they do not want Google to use bandwidth for
updating software. I know many people in India turn off autoupdate on their
windows machines because it eats bandwidth (of course I try to talk them out
of it).

------
covariance
Only those running admin accounts benefit from this feature. If you run Chrome
in a limited user account on Windows 7, or a Standard User account on OS X
10.7, Chrome may or may not prompt you for an admin password (depending on the
configuration). I've always had to quit all my applications, log out of my
everyday account, login as admin, update, logout, then login again.

~~~
thatjoshguy
From my experience Chrome installs itself into %appdata% to avoid requiring
admin permissions. And not once has Chrome asked for my admin password on OS
X.

~~~
covariance
Right, that's one way of installing Chrome on Windows. However if you install
Chrome for all users, then you pretty much have to start Chrome with an admin
user's UID. I get prompted for my admin password on OS X, as I work in a
standard user account.

~~~
mapgrep
Do you mean your Mac user account does not have admin privileges?

In that case have you tried just installing Chrome into ~/Applications
instead?

~~~
covariance
I maintain two accounts on OS X: one for software installation & updates, and
the other being my primary account with limited credentials. That way, if I
were to accidentally run some malicious code, it wouldn't hose the entire
system.

So Google Chrome.app resides in /Applications, but it's installed by the
account that gets created when you reinstall OS X (which is by default an
account with full privileges). Standard users can read /Applications, so they
can launch Google Chrome.app, but the process can't write to /Applications
because of its effective UUID. That's why it prompts for an admin password.

------
mberning
I would have thought it's best features are that it's fast and clutter free
compared to other browsers. Whether chrome updated every 5 minutes silently in
the background or never updated at all would not make a difference to me.

------
hammock
_Chrome's Most Important Feature is autoupdate_

In that case, the latest incarnations of Microsoft Windows ought to be doing
pretty well for themselves.

------
Supermighty
Is the updater part of the Chromium open source package?

It would be pretty neat if someone use only the updater as part of other
desktop software packages.

~~~
fbuilesv
They have releases their updated as open source under the name Omaha:
<http://code.google.com/p/omaha/> Several of their products use it but afaik
no other product is making use of it yet.

------
lean
So why hasn't Firefox implemented this yet? They've already said they are
moving away from version numbers, but I still get the "You need to update, do
you want to?" and "You've updated, now stop what you're doing and restart".

Chrome has eliminated both of these dialogs (that used to be browser
standards), and the FF dev team is usually responsive enough to adopt new,
good ideas quickly. So what gives?

~~~
alttag
Because Firefox is very plugin driven, and its current design disables plugins
that aren't compatible.

It is not in the best interest of users to have their plugins disabled
automatically as a "feature".

~~~
thatjoshguy
Can't they just stop making changes that cause plugins and extensions to
break?

I know that would be easier said than done, but Chrome seems to do a good job
of it.

~~~
starwed
Firefox addons are traditionally written using the same API the browser itself
uses. That's what makes them much more powerful than Chrome extensions, but
clearly more fragile to breakage.

They're starting to offer a separate extension SDK (formerly called Jetpack)
that allows extensions to ignore the internal API and build against something
more stable. Such add-ons can be installed without requiring a restart, and
should be much easier to update, but many important extensions need more power
than currently provided. (Ad block is a good example.)

~~~
SkyMarshal
As is vimperator and pentadactyl.

------
peteretep
They may well be right, but boy does it /feel/ wrong.

What if it sucks down bandwidth when I'm on 3G? What if an update breaks
something, and I'm in the middle of something that can't be updated? What if
an update silently breaks the update process? Hrm!

~~~
generalk
It's like you've never actually experienced the autoupdater and are only
responding to a rough description of the process. It's a HUGE win.

    
    
      > What if it sucks down bandwidth when I'm on 3G? 
    

That might happen. What if it does?

    
    
      > What if an update breaks something, and I'm in the middle 
      > of something that can't be updated? 
    

As per TFA (and experience): The autoupdater never interrupts you. The only UI
change is one of the toolbar buttons changes subtly. Most of the time you
don't notice that an update is ready to install. More to the point, after the
update you usually _don't even notice anything different._

    
    
      > What if an update silently breaks the update process? 
    

There's absolutely no precedent for this, but honestly, who cares? This is
hardly reason to shun the entire system.

Bottom line: The autoupdater makes sure I never care about the version of
Chrome I'm running, just like a web app.

~~~
unwind
_That might happen. What if it does?_

Then it risks costing me money, for doing something I've not chosen to do. For
a feature described as "not worrying", that can be potentially very worrying.

~~~
dmbass
Do you choose what version of a web site you use? Generally no. You trust that
whoever is running it cares enough to not break it for you, just like Chrome
users trust Google to not break their web browser.

~~~
Splines
Exactly. I can only buy this line of thinking if you're in charge of mission
critical machines (if it ain't broke, don't fix it).

For the vast majority of people, heading down this rabbit hole isn't worth the
effort.

(On the flip-side, it would be nice if there was a magical "undo those updates
to point in time X" feature in case something went wrong and you wanted to see
if it was because of an update).

