Firefox 4 Going the Auto-Update Method
Posted on 08. Aug, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey in Features, News
It was a big deal when Google released Chrome and decide that the browser needed to be updated automatically without user prompting. While somewhat controversial, the method works and keeps Chrome as current as possible, thwarting it from malicious attacks. Indeed, a recent study has shown that 97% of Chrome users are running the most recent version because of the auto-update method.
Now the new version of Firefox, the fourth installment, will go down this route and Mozilla will quietly update their browser automatically. Not only does this keep the browser safer, it allows Mozilla to better compete directly with Chrome by being able to stream updates to users.
Take a look at these graphs on update cycles for both Chrome and Firefox.
You can see that Chrome users in the past have been recipients of browser updates that allow previous versions to simply die off. Consider that if Microsoft had been doing this method some time ago, they wouldn’t be confronted with the Internet Explorer 6 scrutiny they’ve been under; instead they have opted to promote Windows 7 instead which does version 8 of IE.
4 Responses to “Firefox 4 Going the Auto-Update Method”
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Anony Mouse
22. Mar, 2011
It works for Chrome because chrome doesn’t require admin privileges. This is going to cause problems for my locked down environment.
Aggressive Browser Updating | Corey Schram
30. Apr, 2011
[...] it seems Chrome and users like me aren’t the only ones to see the advantage. Firefox 4 decided to go this route, and I predict (and sincerely hope) that Opera and possibly other browsers will follow suite. [...]
Eduardo Monnott
01. Aug, 2011
Microsoft needs to add this feature to Internet Explorer now!
It will definitely help move the web technologies forward.
mich
27. Sep, 2011
I was noticed about the update of FF with words “… and … add-ons are turned off because they’re incompatible with the current version of FF”. And update history was empty. Luckily both add-ons have FF 5.0 compatible versions I could install. Should I expect more surprises like this?