Google Chrome's Breakneck Pace: Innovation or Version Inflation?
What's behind Google’s rapid pace of innovation with Chrome
This year Google has released 8 major updates to its browser as in January Google Chrome was on version 8 and now version 16 is already available. With two new packages every calendar quarter it seems that Google is innovating at lightning speed while its rivals plod along. But according to some experts the rapidly incrementing version numbers is in fact a version number inflation.
If you look at support for HTML5 standards. Given the constant drumbeat over the importance of HTML5 to the future of the web, one would think it’s a key focus for Chrome developers. And yet all that incrementing has barely made a difference in HTML5 compatibility this year, as measured by independent test sites.
That’s certainly true if you look at support for HTML5 standards. Given the constant drumbeat over the importance of HTML5 to the future of the web, one would think it’s a key focus for Chrome developers. And yet all that incrementing has barely made a difference in HTML5 compatibility this year, as measured by independent test sites.
Looking beyond HTML5, some of the change logs for recent Chrome releases are so thin that they make a mockery of the major version number strategy. In version 11.0.696, for example, only two additions appeared on the list: “HTML5 Speech Input API” is useful to developers but arguably a yawner for end users. The second change? An “updated icon.” I would expect much more from a release that goes to 11.
Google has in general done a great job with Chrome. It’s fast, it has very few compatibility problems in my experience. And Google has done an admirable job with its auto-update process, which seems to work well—at least for consumers. But a predictable major release cycle of every six months, with optional updates every six weeks for developers and bleeding-edge users to experiment with new stuff, would be a far more sensible approach. That approach seems to work well for the Linux community.
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