Google Pauses Chrome and Chrome OS Releases Due To Coronavirus Outbreak

Google said today it is pausing upcoming Chrome and Chrome OS releases due to the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. From a report: The company cited "adjusted work schedules" as the primary reason for the delay, as most of its engineers are now working from home. The company published an official statement today after ZDNet reached out for comment last night, when Google failed to release Chrome v81. YouTube videos, tweets, and blog posts announcing the new Chrome release were posted online yesterday -- most likely scheduled days or weeks in advance. However, the actual Chrome v81 release never made it to users' devices, and the same videos, tweets, and blog posts were removed shortly after Google's PR realized their mistake.

Temporary downgrade postponement

[Twinbee]

Good. Maybe they'll temporarily stop making things worse such as excluding the 'www' part of the URL or removing the mega-useful "Disable automatic tab discarding" feature, which allows instant access to any tab at a moment's notice without having to reload the page. We're not in the days of 1GB RAM PCs anymore.

Irresponsible

[ambidextroustech]

Browser security updates should continue; browser security has never been more important, since many are being used daily.

Re:Irresponsible

[geekmux]

Browser security updates should continue; browser security has never been more important, since many are being used daily.

It's also irresponsible to not RTFA, and simply ASS-U-ME.

"For the moment, Google plans to release all the Chrome 81 security updates as a minor Chrome 80 release, and pause any other major stable rollouts while it waits for things to return to normal."

Right now security updates my be less than secure

[goombah99]

In this tranistional moment of massive shift to tele-working it's plausible there are now unprecedently large number of vectors for hostile actors to get on the internal network of a company. One can imagine the company's outward facing interfaces are themselves insecure but now with higher traffic rogue actors won't stand out in fuzz testing these ports for security holes. If people are using computers at home there may be less critical patches since theres less chance for IT to push updates to inconstan

Thank god!

[Gabest]

The restart icon is always the most angry when I have 20 more youtube videos open and a day long download running.

Re:

[Aighearach]

The restart icon is always the most angry when I ...

I considered this phrase for a time, and then decided that actually, I don't want to know.

Long live the 1990s, I will ever compute in your modes.

Nice!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder if they'd consider doing this permanently? The world can only get better if Chrome's development is permanently paused.

Re:

[deviated_prevert]

Wonder if they'd consider doing this permanently? The world can only get better if Chrome's development is permanently paused.

Are you saying that Edge will really have the Edge if it switches to the web libraries created by Mozilla? And that there is no CefSharp.dll in your WebKit only XUL?

HTML5 is mostly done.

[xack]

There is no need for so much development speed unless it is for making up new ways to track you. I hope Chrome and Firefox slow down and renegotiate the version number system to reasonable numbers again.

Whatâ(TM)s the catch?

[xushi]

Itâ(TM)s not like their engineers can work from home ...

Re: Whatâ(TM)s the catch?

[phantomfive]

I was wondering that too, my company had no slowdown when we made the switch to wfh. I'm not saying we are special, but I thought Google could figure out how to do this.... Especially their open source team, since open source teams typically all work remotely.

They'll just have to find another way

[boudie2]

To do their evil. BTW you must mean the Chinese Virus? Kung Flu?

Re:

[deviated_prevert]

To do their evil. BTW you must mean the Chinese Virus? Kung Flu?

Either that or someone in Mountain View has found and isolated a novel Covid_19.dll infecting Chrome's Webkit and it has been traced back to Redmond.

 

Re:

[boudie2]

Just bought an android phone and had no idea of just how evil they are until now. It's now a tossup for who's worse - google, apple, microsoft, nazi party c. 1943 or the virus starting chinese.

In other words Google Failed at Work From Home

[kot-begemot-uk]

There is no fundamental reason for a release to happen slower if most people are working remotely.

Failure to release on time shows a failure to (re)organize their work.

Re:

[vickykumarsi]

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