Google halts Chrome, Chrome OS releases to avoid shipping flawed code, prioritizes security fixes amid coronavirus crunch

Google has suspended Chrome browser updates after failing to release Chrome 81 on Tuesday. Though the Chocolate Factory announced the availability of Chrome 81 on March 17, as scheduled on its Chrome Release Status page, the updated code did not get distributed. The problem can be attributed to COVID-19, specifically what the …

[Anonymous Coward]

"To avoid shipping flawed code"

A bit late for that, I feel.

[RyokuMas]

Clock is running...

So - due to "engineer availability", Google may not have the people required to fix issues in Chrome - which, I guess, includes any security flaws that may come up...

Google, you have 90 days to fix the Coronavirus - your time starts now!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Clock is running...

I wouldn't take a Google vaccine ... it might rig my immune system to report "anonymous" usage statistics to them.

Before you know it, you'd have predictive immune failure ... then a large sign that says "Beware! AIDS patient here!"

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Clock is running...

On Wednesday, Chrome team shipped just such a security-focused update, bumping Chrome build 80.0.3987.132 to 80.0.3987.149.

So they hold back a feature release but still manage a security release? Haven't seen this yet from Microsoft or especially Apple which likes to sit on zero-day exploits for weeks if not months.

There's a lot to criticise Google for, but for software products it cares about, it has an impressive release history.

[Waseem Alkurdi]

Will they have a development reset

Like Longhorn?

[tempemeaty]

?

Is Google using engineers in China?

[Ken Hagan]

Re: ?

It's the whole world, mate. The only difference with China is they've done enough testing to know they're fucked.