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Is anyone else concerned that this means IT can choose to hold back the version of Chrome in their organizations? Auto-updating Chrome has been low key one of

Is anyone else concerned that this means IT can choose to hold back the version of Chrome in their organizations? Auto-updating Chrome has been low key one of the best solutions to the pain of backwards compatibility with older browsers. In the past we not only had to worry about compatibility between browsers, we had to worry about compatibility between browser versions. Further, auto-updating Chrome as dramatically reduced the time from new web feature implementation to widespread deployment and thus usability. I take it that turning off auto-updating will not be widespread, but I'd rather not risk it

saw-lau 10y ago
I'd just be happy to be able to use it at all at work. Our organisation blocks it because, apparently, 'it sends a lot of data back to Google.' I have no idea if this is true or not.
- Quenz 10y ago
  Why would they change their reasoning with this new enterprise version?
  - saw-lau 10y ago
    Well, they wouldn't, unfortunately. But I guess if having an enterprise version that doesn't auto-update means that more people are going to get to use it, then that's a Good Thing.
- dripton 10y ago
  It's true, but you can turn that stuff off. You want to turn off things under Privacy like "Use a web service to help resolve navigation errors", "Use a prediction service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar", "Automatically report details of possible security incidents to Google", "Use a web service to help resolve spelling errors", and "Automatically send usage statistics and crash reports to Google." And not login into Chrome. The problem is that even if you tell all your employees what to disable, some of them will probably not comply. So a truly paranoid IT team might want to make their own fork of Chromium with those features removed.
  - lorenzhs 10y ago
    Are you sure those can't be configured via group policy? Maintaining a fork seems like an absurdly overcomplicated and expensive approach.
- FT_intern 10y ago
  Isn't that true for all browsers (and OSes)?
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    Not for Linux and Firefox afaik. At the very least, they are modifiable to not do that.
roblev 10y ago
For many organisations there is a real risk that a browser update will unexpectedly break a key internal application, which could have a catastrophic impact on operations. The vast majority of large companies will control and test key software updates, balancing the various risks (security patches, obsolescence, operational incidents..). Not allowing auto-updating to be controlled basically means that the software is not intended to be deployed in enterprises.
- alkonaut 10y ago
  Couldn't orgs just use multiple browsers to reduce risk? With some monitoring of which clients are used, one could remove e.g ie8 support once it's established that every internal product has been used long enough with ie10
  - majewsky 10y ago
    This works reasonably well for applications that are used daily or weekly (deprecation notifications help). But then, after you phased out IE8 after months of no problems with IE10, during the holiday period the accountant tries to close the yearly accounts, finds that the form does not work with IE10, and hell breaks loose.
    - cmdrfred 10y ago
      Can't you just build on HTML and JavaScript api's that are widely utilized and accepted? I know before I call something I'm unfamiliar with I'll look up what browsers support it. Most of the problems with IE versions have to do with plugins be it ActiveX or a Java applet. In my mind that isn't a web app but an application packed in a web browser (often so the consultants can call it a web app, "you go to a website to lauch it, see?”)
      - CaptSpify 10y ago
        > Can't you just build on HTML and JavaScript api's that are widely utilized and accepted? Absolutely. I still have websites that I designed with ie6 in mind that work just fine. But if modern design trends are any indication, it just won't happen. Designers want too many of the new flashy features.
dingaling 10y ago
Companies have far too much internal plumbing to permit browsers to auto-update themselves. Being feature-compatible with the latest SV-poster-child website is insignificant compared to maintaining stability for the tax-management team's internal web app. I was once involved in an IE6 -> IE8 upgrade for a Fortune 100 corporation. It took nine months to analyze all the possible impacts and implement mitigations before the first internal production release. And that was fast on account of teams being forced to particpate by C-officer mandate. By the time the deployment was finished, which required several more months, IE10 was mainstream in the Real World.
- bernardlunn 10y ago
  Holy moly, that is so toxic and innefficient! Big companies have a big problem.
  - fbender 10y ago
    Yeah the problem is they hired big software companies to develop sub-par software (in terms of being future proof, platform agnostic, and standards-compliant – if there were any standards to begin with) that worked for their needs at that point in time. Now they have to deal with the legacy.
- alkonaut 10y ago
  It's amusing how we see web apps as the solution to deployment woes. I miss proper custom desktop apps with horrible looking cluttered interfaces. Soo productive compared to any web based interface for almost all tasks.
  - Pica_soO 10y ago
    Eh, yes, and the yells of "Over budget, we can not afford new machines for the whole team, just because your app is not 386 backwards compatible." And the partial rollouts, with teams being split into and stuck- and demanding you hack together tooling on the fly to allow for work to continue anyway. And the horrible cross-application databases, which would went inconsistent if you didn't include basically a reduced data version controlling in every of your applications. And those proto-typed tools, made by some intern in obscure languages, that would in secrecy fester into the "Main-Tool" of a department. And all hell would break loose, if some virtual environment update would break those env-dependcies. You know what- it was bad back then. Real bad. And today is better. And even nostalgia cant save it.
tomelders 10y ago
My first thoughts exactly. My work has increasingly become creating software for enterprise clients. They all want it to be delivered through the browser. Over time, chrome has become the primary target because its simply unfeasible to target IE. Organisations have bizarre and arcane rules for who gets which versions of IE, so it inevitably leads to developing for the lowest common denominator, which in turn leads to disgruntled clients who see some fancy feature on the web and can't understand why we can't give them the same thing in the time and budget they've allocated. Now, we generally say we'll target chrome and provide "some" support for IE. But I absolutely guarantee that an orgs IT dept will seize this opportunity to convolute and complicate who gets which versions of Chrome. And its all for nought. In my experience, IT departments cite vague security requirements, but when you scratch the surface there's typically no security at all. For example, at one company who really does need strong security policies, it was common knowledge that you could circumvent their stupid auth process by opening the task manager and quitting the process. You could also open up the developer tools console and send whatever requests you wanted to any service because features were enabled and disabled in the UI only. My point is, IT departments in my experience only talk about security and use it as an excuse to do bizarre stuff that looks smart, but is generally the opposite.
- DougWebb 10y ago
  In another comment I mentioned a client company that had a locked down default-block web proxy in place. During a site visit with the two developers I was working with I discovered two surprising things: 1. The conference room where I was working had two ethernet ports; one went through the proxy, and one had a clear line to the internet. Apparently this was a common setup in the offices. 2. Everyone was required to use IE, and to use the proxy-managed ethernet port. But I develop using Firefox and I didn't get blocked by the proxy, regardless of which port I used. It turned out that the proxy had to be set up on the browser. The developers were granted admin rights on their machines so they could manage the proxy settings for IE but no one else could. However most people had the ability to install Firefox or Chrome, which would give them proxy-free access to the internet. They just had to know they could do it, and then not get caught doing it. Turns out this was all about control rather than security; they had a real problem with people spending time on websites they shouldn't have been on, during time they should have been working.
ocdtrekkie 10y ago
It's already possible to disable Chrome auto-update, and enterprises that wish to already do it. I've worked in an environment that did, years ago. My personal preference remains to allow silent auto-updates for software that auto-updates silently like Adobe Reader or Google Chrome to continue to do so... as long as they have yet to break the environment. (And it saves on management headache for a piece of software we don't really support the use of heavily in our environment.)
agopaul 10y ago
On the other hand this will probably help deploying Chrome inside companies with more restricting policies. Some of these companies still use IE for everything because it's the only browser allowed, because you know, it's corporate.
applecore 10y ago
What does "low key" mean? Is "low key" a good or a bad thing? Does it mean we should conceal this information?
mandlar 10y ago
My company has already disabled the auto-updates in our installed versions of Chrome :/

saw-lau 10y ago

I'd just be happy to be able to use it at all at work. Our organisation blocks it because, apparently, 'it sends a lot of data back to Google.' I have no idea if this is true or not.

Quenz 10y ago
Why would they change their reasoning with this new enterprise version?
- saw-lau 10y ago
  Well, they wouldn't, unfortunately. But I guess if having an enterprise version that doesn't auto-update means that more people are going to get to use it, then that's a Good Thing.
dripton 10y ago
It's true, but you can turn that stuff off. You want to turn off things under Privacy like "Use a web service to help resolve navigation errors", "Use a prediction service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar", "Automatically report details of possible security incidents to Google", "Use a web service to help resolve spelling errors", and "Automatically send usage statistics and crash reports to Google." And not login into Chrome. The problem is that even if you tell all your employees what to disable, some of them will probably not comply. So a truly paranoid IT team might want to make their own fork of Chromium with those features removed.
- lorenzhs 10y ago
  Are you sure those can't be configured via group policy? Maintaining a fork seems like an absurdly overcomplicated and expensive approach.
FT_intern 10y ago
Isn't that true for all browsers (and OSes)?
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  Not for Linux and Firefox afaik. At the very least, they are modifiable to not do that.

roblev 10y ago

For many organisations there is a real risk that a browser update will unexpectedly break a key internal application, which could have a catastrophic impact on operations. The vast majority of large companies will control and test key software updates, balancing the various risks (security patches, obsolescence, operational incidents..). Not allowing auto-updating to be controlled basically means that the software is not intended to be deployed in enterprises.

alkonaut 10y ago
Couldn't orgs just use multiple browsers to reduce risk? With some monitoring of which clients are used, one could remove e.g ie8 support once it's established that every internal product has been used long enough with ie10
- majewsky 10y ago
  This works reasonably well for applications that are used daily or weekly (deprecation notifications help). But then, after you phased out IE8 after months of no problems with IE10, during the holiday period the accountant tries to close the yearly accounts, finds that the form does not work with IE10, and hell breaks loose.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    Can't you just build on HTML and JavaScript api's that are widely utilized and accepted? I know before I call something I'm unfamiliar with I'll look up what browsers support it. Most of the problems with IE versions have to do with plugins be it ActiveX or a Java applet. In my mind that isn't a web app but an application packed in a web browser (often so the consultants can call it a web app, "you go to a website to lauch it, see?”)
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      > Can't you just build on HTML and JavaScript api's that are widely utilized and accepted? Absolutely. I still have websites that I designed with ie6 in mind that work just fine. But if modern design trends are any indication, it just won't happen. Designers want too many of the new flashy features.

dingaling 10y ago

Companies have far too much internal plumbing to permit browsers to auto-update themselves. Being feature-compatible with the latest SV-poster-child website is insignificant compared to maintaining stability for the tax-management team's internal web app. I was once involved in an IE6 -> IE8 upgrade for a Fortune 100 corporation. It took nine months to analyze all the possible impacts and implement mitigations before the first internal production release. And that was fast on account of teams being forced to particpate by C-officer mandate. By the time the deployment was finished, which required several more months, IE10 was mainstream in the Real World.

bernardlunn 10y ago
Holy moly, that is so toxic and innefficient! Big companies have a big problem.
- fbender 10y ago
  Yeah the problem is they hired big software companies to develop sub-par software (in terms of being future proof, platform agnostic, and standards-compliant – if there were any standards to begin with) that worked for their needs at that point in time. Now they have to deal with the legacy.
alkonaut 10y ago
It's amusing how we see web apps as the solution to deployment woes. I miss proper custom desktop apps with horrible looking cluttered interfaces. Soo productive compared to any web based interface for almost all tasks.
- Pica_soO 10y ago
  Eh, yes, and the yells of "Over budget, we can not afford new machines for the whole team, just because your app is not 386 backwards compatible." And the partial rollouts, with teams being split into and stuck- and demanding you hack together tooling on the fly to allow for work to continue anyway. And the horrible cross-application databases, which would went inconsistent if you didn't include basically a reduced data version controlling in every of your applications. And those proto-typed tools, made by some intern in obscure languages, that would in secrecy fester into the "Main-Tool" of a department. And all hell would break loose, if some virtual environment update would break those env-dependcies. You know what- it was bad back then. Real bad. And today is better. And even nostalgia cant save it.

tomelders 10y ago

My first thoughts exactly. My work has increasingly become creating software for enterprise clients. They all want it to be delivered through the browser. Over time, chrome has become the primary target because its simply unfeasible to target IE. Organisations have bizarre and arcane rules for who gets which versions of IE, so it inevitably leads to developing for the lowest common denominator, which in turn leads to disgruntled clients who see some fancy feature on the web and can't understand why we can't give them the same thing in the time and budget they've allocated. Now, we generally say we'll target chrome and provide "some" support for IE. But I absolutely guarantee that an orgs IT dept will seize this opportunity to convolute and complicate who gets which versions of Chrome. And its all for nought. In my experience, IT departments cite vague security requirements, but when you scratch the surface there's typically no security at all. For example, at one company who really does need strong security policies, it was common knowledge that you could circumvent their stupid auth process by opening the task manager and quitting the process. You could also open up the developer tools console and send whatever requests you wanted to any service because features were enabled and disabled in the UI only. My point is, IT departments in my experience only talk about security and use it as an excuse to do bizarre stuff that looks smart, but is generally the opposite.

DougWebb 10y ago
In another comment I mentioned a client company that had a locked down default-block web proxy in place. During a site visit with the two developers I was working with I discovered two surprising things: 1. The conference room where I was working had two ethernet ports; one went through the proxy, and one had a clear line to the internet. Apparently this was a common setup in the offices. 2. Everyone was required to use IE, and to use the proxy-managed ethernet port. But I develop using Firefox and I didn't get blocked by the proxy, regardless of which port I used. It turned out that the proxy had to be set up on the browser. The developers were granted admin rights on their machines so they could manage the proxy settings for IE but no one else could. However most people had the ability to install Firefox or Chrome, which would give them proxy-free access to the internet. They just had to know they could do it, and then not get caught doing it. Turns out this was all about control rather than security; they had a real problem with people spending time on websites they shouldn't have been on, during time they should have been working.

ocdtrekkie 10y ago

It's already possible to disable Chrome auto-update, and enterprises that wish to already do it. I've worked in an environment that did, years ago. My personal preference remains to allow silent auto-updates for software that auto-updates silently like Adobe Reader or Google Chrome to continue to do so... as long as they have yet to break the environment. (And it saves on management headache for a piece of software we don't really support the use of heavily in our environment.)

agopaul 10y ago

On the other hand this will probably help deploying Chrome inside companies with more restricting policies. Some of these companies still use IE for everything because it's the only browser allowed, because you know, it's corporate.

applecore 10y ago

What does "low key" mean? Is "low key" a good or a bad thing? Does it mean we should conceal this information?

mandlar 10y ago

My company has already disabled the auto-updates in our installed versions of Chrome :/