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Google has announced weekly Stable channel updates for Chrome. Starting with Chrome 116, the company will push new updates every week to patch security issues faster. It previously pushed Stable channel updates every two weeks.
Chrome gets two different types of updates. Every four weeks, Google releases a major milestone update for its browser, like from version 115 to 116. It lowered that frequency from six weeks in late 2021. Additionally, the company rolls out minor updates between those major releases “to address security and other high-impact bugs.”
Called Stable channel updates, they came every two weeks since Chrome 77 in 2020. The previous patch gap was 35 days. Google believes this is still a wide gap and poses a security risk to users. Hence, it’s further reducing the gap by releasing the weekly Stable channel updates. According to the company, this change will allow it to ship security fixes 3.5 days sooner on average.
Weekly updates will patch Chrome security issues faster
Google Chrome is based on an open source platform (Chromium). This means anyone can submit changes for review and see the changes made by others. These include security bug fixes as well. While this openness has its benefits, there are risks as well. Threat actors could pick up those patch details and devise exploits to harm users who haven’t yet gotten around to installing the patch.
Such exploitation where a patch is already available is called n-day exploitation. The longer the patch gap, the more time attackers get to devise n-day exploitation. Google wants to reduce this risk by pushing weekly security updates. Of course, the change still doesn’t remove the potential for n-day exploitation. However, as the company puts it, more frequent updates will greatly reduce “the already small window for n-day attackers to develop and use an exploit against potential victims and making their lives much more difficult.”
Keep in mind that it’s us users who will have to be vigilant and install updates as soon as available. Chrome will notify you whenever an update is available (look for it at the top-right corner of the home page). You can also manually check for updates from the Google Play Store. Chrome will relaunch after an update, but your open tabs and windows are preserved (except for Incognito tabs). If you haven’t updated Chrome on your Android device in recent weeks, click on the button below to download the latest version from the Play Store.