Google zaps Chrome updates with shrink ray, and there was much rejoicing

One of our perennial complaints about annoying apps like iTunes is the fact that they require us to reinstall the whole app every time there's an update. Apart from being annoying, it's inefficient.

Google seems to feel the same way, which has led Chrome/Chromium developers to implement a new binary diff algorithm (dubbed Courgette) which greatly reduces the size of its updates. Courgette delivers updates that are .08% the size of the Chromium mini installer (about 80Kb as opposed to 10Mb). In the official blog post, they state "It is an anathema to us to push out a whole new 10MB update to give you a ten line security fix." Can I get an Amen?

The blog also offers several reasons Google is excited about the new, Liliputian updates:

We want smaller updates because it narrows the window of vulnerability. If the update is a tenth of the size, we can push ten times as many per unit of bandwidth. We have enough users that this means more users will be protected earlier. A secondary benefit is that a smaller update will work better for users who don't have great connectivity.

Now if we could just convince other application developers to adopt this kind of attitude toward patching. I'm not going to hold my breath.

Tags: chromium, google-chrome, opensource, security, updates, web-browser