Safari, Opera browsers patch-shy, says study

Fanboi Alert

Cue the flamewar!

I am a Firefox user myself and am happy with the seamless / painless update procedure. This pretty much ensures that you are using the latest version of the browser.

firefox autoupdate owns

Why can't more software use the firefox autoupdate mechanism? It is retarded to have to reinstall an entire program and click next 10 times for a minor patch only changing a handful of files. The two programs that really need this are Sun Java Updates (20 meg reinstalls get annoying every few weeks, I know each version is standalone but should allow option where we only have the latest autopatched instead of 14 insecure java versions dangling) and OpenOffice (140 meg download to to update 3 files is beyond retarded.

@Manas

Well done. You successfully got the gist of the article. Then again, the point has been made repeatedly every time an update is announced here, so I don't know how long it actually took you. Would be nice if Opera updated in the same way, though - I didn't realise it ony checked weekly. Opera is still my personal preference though, on a feel basis, so I'm not planning to change solely on the frequency of update checking.

Hmm

Why would you use anything other than Internet Explorer, it automatically updates with Windows Update, it must be safer than all these hippy browsers?

Limited research premise?

Surely some important factors have to be:

+ serious nature of an update (is it trivial or is it a severe requirement)

+ any consequence of the update/patch (would anyone like to lose some OS or application functionality due to a patch especially midway through an important project? I've heard that some users will switch off all updates for fears of any consequences on important work in progress)

+ how is a browser keyed in to an OS (I'd guess that the 'fox, Chrome and Opera might not be too seriously embedded into an OS but might impact upon some applications)

If anything, to me that is, the findings indicate that there are different options about how upgrades, patches and fixes are effected and the user (or administrator) really needs to be instrumental in those choices. It seems both wise and unwise for something to update without direct instruct from user/administrator partly because of the (always unpredictable?) effect on important work in progress.

Opera 10

This is one of the reasons why I'm looking forward to Opera 10, since it seems that it will include a proper update mechanism, hopefully in line with what Firefox and Chrome are doing. I'll wait until it comes out of Alpha before trying, though. Hurry up please Opera!

Firefox vs Chrome

The difference is that the Firefox update process fails unless you are browsing -- insanely -- as an admin.

Someone has to log on as an admin, download the update again, apply it and clean up the failed applications in the non-admin user profiles.

It's pants. It's why we don't run FF here.

Does anyone want to take responsibility

for running a safe machine? My anti virus software reports vulnerabilities and points me to new versions of software like, er, Opera, and it takes a coupla minutes to download the latest version. I run that check every day. The new version of Opera inherits all your settings and bookmarks so it's not exactly like hard work

Opera 10 will have automatic updates

This article reminded me to check which Opera version I was running here at work and of course I was one version behind, too many computers to keep track of :)

According to the Opera site, Opera 10 will fix the updating problem, I myself have been waiting for this simply because I'm too lazy to check for an update and almost always rely on the automatic checker.

Strange Study

So this isn't about "time to patch" of browser vendors but about frequency of checking for browser updates and whether updates are applied "silently" or the user given a chance to back out?

The study apparently concludes that an operating-system vendor that distributes a browser should have a separate update mechanism running in the browser? That would seem to be the gist of the criticism of Apple and the implied criticism of Microsoft. But why should the browser require an entirely separate mechanism running on a different schedule?

Does the study have a downer on Linux distributions that take care of *all* updating -- even including 3rd-party software -- through a package manager? That's always seemed to me to be an eminently sensible arrangement whatever the Swiss think.

As for Google's updater, it *isn't* a browser updater. It updates *all* Google software, much as Apple's Software Update updates all Apple software and Microsoft's Windows Update updates all Microsoft's (System) software.

Is the study overexcited about the fact that Google Updater runs on its own schedule that can't be modified, checks very frequently, and installs updates silently? That does mean that users can hardly avoid taking the patches. That's good for home users perhaps, but I can't see IT departments falling over themselves with glee at that. Business needs to test patches and roll them out to users itself when it's satisfied they don't break anything else.

@ all Opera 10 fanbois

It's always going to be in the next version, haven't you realised!

Why worry?

I'm sure that No-Script will kindly update my core FF in the background without worrying my small brain about such details...

Do they bother asking?

Opera 10's alpha does have auto-update in it. But I think the real reason for the variance in behaviour is probably related to the technical competence of the users. I have several friends who will *not* install any program updates of any kind and always request that I do this and I suspect that this is common for many people. Too many people have had bad experiences with sloppy updates in the past. Firefox users tend to be more "technically competent" or at least adventurous as I assume users of Google's runtime are.

El Reg Scissors...

What exactly was wrong with "Research, partly by Google, using Googles own Googlebase reveals that a browser by Google and one partially funded by Google comes out on top. Whodathunkit?"

For what its worth I use FF (still v2 as plugins I regard as essential haven't been re-written for v3) and I'm happy with it and its update policy, even though updates for v2 are now extremely few and far between.

Apple Update

The Author forgot to mention special Apple Feature in their auto-update.... I do not have Apple Safari installed, yet every time I update iTunes, I'm being asked to install Safari.

/y inv to Flame raid pls

Just thought I'll add something to the Firefox and auto-updates debate. My users, who are not admins or priviledged users, can and do apply Firefox updates. Admittedly, I did have to add the updater to the whitelist but it works.

Unfortunately, most of them don't know what Firefox is and insist on using IE6 which, for reasons too long and boring to go into, we are unable to upgrade.

Can lead a horse to water... etc

Largely unnoticed??

"Both Chrome and Firefox offer autoupdates that go largely unnoticed by users."

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Firefox is installing your updates - this may take several years....

It's really not that hard to upgrade to new versions of Opera, and current versions already check for updates on a regular basis. You can even adjust how often. For some daft reason, though, you have to dig around in the config to do that. Oh yeah, and my install insists on continuously resetting the interval to several million days. :o(

Ho-hum - I guess none of them are perfect.