Why Silent Updates Work: Chrome 16 Passes IE9 in 2 Days

:shakes his head.. in a way this is good news but hopefully for enterprise customers there will be a way to ensure that IE doesn't do a silent update and possibly mess up web applications that are designed around a certain release. While I do love Chrome and use it personally, business applications need to function as intended.

" For example, IE, which was introduced in March 2009"

You mean IE8? IE (1) was launched 1995.

I am sorry but NO ONE installs stuff on my computer without my consent. I don't care if it is god, you get my consent first or there will be a law suit following. This is yet another thing that can be abused and I want nothing to do with it.

well, better start writing your own OS then. Pretty sure this will be in the MS EULA.

MS always asks unless you tell it to install automatically (in which case you've given it permission)

I had no idea that my Chrome updated itself - I don't like that. Might be a reason for me to drop Chrome, just after I'd moved nearly everything over. . . >8(

Terrible idea, changing my computer's configuration without my knowledge/consent is not ok. I like Google less and less every day.

Well all web browsers are doing silent updates. There's probably an option if you don't want to update it so look up a solution before complaining.

Once more the Chrome adware screws market share reports with stealthy installs, pretty much without user knowledge. Just ask most Chrome users which version they currently have, and they'll answer "What? How did this Google Chrome thing came to my computer?"

I uninstall whatever application that silent updates (except by my antivirus and Windows itself), if I can't disable such a feature, and that surely includes Chrome and soon IE9.

Has a good point though, if Google Chrome just updates by itself and IE requires a user to make an installation choice, then all those stats about browser uptake are seriously skewed.

How can you say a browser is gaining popularity when there is a chance the majority of users didn't even know about it?

silent updates help close Vulnerabilities and i'd like anyone here to tell me that he doesn't install updates as soon as they come out, and i think you can disable them

but i'd love to know why those browsers have that market share, especially chrome, opera is much more superior

well said, most people just find chrome on their computers as adware with acrobat reader or flash

I believe these statistics denote actual browser usage, not browser installed but not used. So, the point, some of you are making about people not knowing that they have Chrome installed, is moot.

This is why you read Terms and Conditions. Once you click Agree, then you automatically agree to let it download updates automatically.

"11.1 The Software which you use may automatically download and install updates from time to time from Google. These updates are designed to improve, enhance and further develop the Services and may take the form of bug fixes, enhanced functions, new software modules and completely new versions. You agree to receive such updates (and permit Google to deliver these to you) as part of your use of the Services."

And also,

"4.2 Google is constantly innovating in order to provide the best possible experience for its users. You acknowledge and agree that the form and nature of the Services which Google provides may change from time to time without prior notice to you."

They don't need to tell you that they're updating the browser, you agreed to it. If you don't want it, don't use it. It's not like it's a bad to thing to have your browser updated.

Another reason why IE older versions are still being used is that many companies restrict update of key software like IE untill compatability and security tests have been performed. IE is more broadly used by companies than Chrome; so it "appears" that Chrome is doing a better job. Personally, I prefer to determine when anything on my computer is updated. I don't tend to rely on any vendors - Google or Microsoft.

It is fine to not have to press any buttons or read dialogs, but the day something "unwanted" happens is the day this feature turns unpopular.

Which one is correct?

The difference, chrome just works. IE9 broke a bunch of programs causing me to roll it back and leave it uninstalled on a few systems. Cyberlink PowerDVD 10 Ultra would no longer read dvds or update (until eventually being patched). My son's Medtronic Diabetes software no longer functioned due to java-script incompatibility. Don't silently upgrade my IE Microsoft!

nhat11 sez: Well all web browsers are doing silent updates.

Uh, no, not on my Linux box they don't.

ffs is this why youtube feels half broken?...silently updating, does anybody else have a problem where youtube isn't buffering anymore?

"silent updates help close Vulnerabilities and i'd like anyone here to tell me that he doesn't install updates as soon as they come out, and i think you can disable them"

Ill tell you i dont install updates as soon as they come out. I install updates when i have a problem, and only when i have a problem. I disable all auto updaters, and programs that act like a virus and keep installing their auto updater piss me off.

My system is stable, i dont have viruses, i dont have any outstanding issues with any installed software at the moment.

Web browsers are a totally different animal than operating systems or applications though. Automatic updating in them is a key feature to keep them at their most secure. This allows for your average users who aren't very technical to experience the web as they normally would and be less likely to have their computers infected by a virus or malware and have that spam the rest of us or worse. I think its a very good thing for them to implement and Microsoft will only further hurt their market share of web browsers if they don't get on the band wagon. Apple, ironically, is the only one that doesn't do auto updates or has announced any sort of auto updating yet.

If you're a business that relies on old IE6 then virtualize it or rebuild your application to be more standards friendly, .NET can accomplish anything and everything the old activeX plugins did, and then some. The rest of the web shouldn't be kept back because of some legacy software.

Now Microsoft just needs to patch IE8 and IE9 to read CSS3 and be fully standards compliant with W3C.

Silent updating is needed now for all Browsers - too many morons refuse to check for security updates on a regular basis and wind up getting hacked or accidentally installing keyloggers/trojans when they surf the internet.

Then they come here and complain about how unsecured their browser is and blame it on Microsoft, when it's really their own fault for not being more careful.

2 days is within 3 days

i dont fix anything unless its broken. windows patch... hell no, not unless its broken, fire fox came out with a new version... ill install it to a different folder and check compatibility...

but i have to say, i love chrome silently updating, and ill tell you why...

there is no mission critical applications that use it, at lest for me. going from the first version to now, the updates didn't matter at all to me, because they general increased performance, and added functionality without breaking anything.

ie is my fallback browser, if ff or chrome or opera dont run it right, ie will
fire fox has so many extensions on it, and even if i disable compatibility checks, some dont function correctly if at all.

opera... well anything 11.10 wont install on my computer, not sure why, it just fails, so good thing it doesn't auto update otherwise it wouldn't even run.

Silent upgrades are great. Unless you work in an organization like I do, a hospital, and the browser update breaks some piece of software a doctor needs to treat somebody who's sick. Then all hell breaks loose. Or people die. Literally. This is why we don't use anything but IE in our environment, because we need to be able to test browser versions before we roll them out to 2000 computers used to care for patients. Yes it would be lovely to always be on the latest version of everything, but that's a techies dream, not our doctors.

works for nearly all home user. even me which is surprising, have been using chrome and loving it no update to annoy me from my browser like ff. no halt of everything i do from microsoft (actually sometimes for hours because update would sometimes not even work...) now if they would do it so there are no problems....

I wouldn't want it to upgrade my IE8, IE9 breaks to many things.

Microsoft should stay with IE6, because it is the best browser ever! All this web 2.0 is pathetic and should be forbiden by law.

This is not good. I had hoped Microsoft would be the last one that actually upheld ethics for browser updates. Just because silent update gets you browser usage shares, does not mean it is an acceptable practice.

Thats not right. I had PowerDVD10 when IE9 went Beta, which i installed, and it worked fine. IE9 has nothing to do with how it reads the DVDs at all. I have since moved to PowerDVD 11 for Blu-Rays but still, that was an issue with PowerDVD more and I bet there was a patch.

As for your sons diabetes program, same thing. It was probably a Java issue more than IE9. Javascript is used in IE, and every browser, but changin the browser should not mess with it as Java itself is a seperate program that you have to install to use those features.




Like? Been using IE9 since Beta and yet to find anything vroken. If anything it actually works better on sites, except those expressly designed for IE8 but there is still a compatibility button for that.

IE9 breaks the ability to easily open attachments in Microsoft mail for example.

But IE9 did break those things (I still upgraded on 3 other computers and eventually the HTPC when powerDVD did release a patch.) But, the upgrade broke dvd playback, and the online solution (roll back to IE8) fixed it. Note, this was powerdvd10 ultra and allowed bluray playback. This may have had something to do with the compatibility issue. I, also, don't understand why upgrading a browser would make dvds not play, but it did. I, also, due usually try to keep my systems updated, but I have had 0 issues with chrome, 1 with firefox and several with ie9