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Constant 50mb+ updates to browsers is the new norm?

6 points by hootbootscoot ↗ HN
Can anyone enlighten me as to the cause of fairly constant browser updates (all of 'em, chrome, firefox...) that exceed 50mb per week?

Are there that many new features constantly? Are there that many bugfixes constantly? Are bugfixes related to recent features?

How are browser updates achieved? (binary blobs with known ABI's of some kind? Dynamic unshared libraries? Why doesn't my browser need to restart each time? etc.)

What are the driving factors of this "new norm"?

6 comments

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llampx
If you are familiar with modern development thinking, weekly sprints, release often, deliver small chunks all lead to frequent updates.

One other thing is to get users used to more frequent updates as well. As I type this, Windows is nagging me to restart so it can update. brb.

chaganated
The browser is silicon valley's weapon of choice in its war against humanity. Don't think of it as updating. Think of it as reloading.
GekkePrutser
50MB isn't exactly a lot these days. It's only a fraction of the browser's total size. With all a browser does it's pretty good IMO. It's a file viewer, video player, code interpreter all in one.
chaganated
We used to do all of those things with Windows 95, 64M of RAM, and a 2GB hard drive.
GekkePrutser
Not quite though. A browser back then was not the same as it is now. Videos required flash that was bloaty even back then. Javascript was a lot more basic. PDF viewing? Needed Adobe reader. And don't forget pages themselves were way lighter in terms of content.

I agree software is bloated. But this was also a common complaint in the time of Windows 95 compared to 3.1 :)

chaganated
Where did I say browser?

Separate apps (and protocols), instead of jamming everything through web, is a feature, not a bug. There is (or was anyway) more to the internet than HTTPS.