Fluid versioning, Chrome and the Internet

May 24th, 2011 • ~200 words • 0.9 minute read

Chrome is my favorite web browser. One of the best things about it is almost everything you can interact with is built on-top of existing web technologies. You can build your own extensions and plugins using a combination JavaScript, CSS and HTML (And even Flash, if you wish). Even the glorious web inspector is built this way, which is kind of mind boggling.

But probably the most amazing thing about Chrome is how it constantly updates itself in the background. You almost never notice when a new version has arrived. You fire up the broswer and occasionally see the changes (Hey look! New icon!) but don't have to actively do anything to install them. There's practically no risk of being out of date when you use Chrome.

In some sense then, is Chrome the ultimate web app? It's starting to heavily blur that line between native and web apps. It makes me optimistic that the Chromebooks coming out this year will be more formidable than you might expect from a computer that effectively only runs a browser.

I highly suggest reading more about the way Chrome delivers its updates over on CodingHorror, one of my favorite blogs.