Google puts Chrome updates on Courgette-only diet
Squeezing the zucchini juice
Google has shrink-wrapped the way it delivers updates to its Google Chrome browser by releasing a new system dubbed Courgette.
Mountain View wonks decided to tweak the way it automatically sends out code to Chrome, after finding that some of the updates were slowing down Windows-based computers, as well as making them more open to attack.
The Courgette system aims to work around that problem by spitting out a compressed “diff” update to users’ machines, explained Google in a Chromium Developer blog post yesterday.
“It is an anathema to us to push out a whole new 10MB update to give you a ten line security fix. We want smaller updates because it narrows the window of vulnerability,” said Google software engineer Stephen Adams.
“If the update is a tenth of the size, we can push ten times as many per unit of bandwidth. We have enough users that this means more users will be protected earlier.”
The diff algorithm pushes out a stealth update that takes the old version of Chrome and generates the latest iteration of the browser without any user interaction required.
Courgette replaces the bsdiff algorithm that Google had previously used.
Google has more about the new fitter-happier-more-productive algorithm it's developed here. ®
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COMMENTS
Whatever next...
First Bing, now Courgette, whatever will they think up next... Windows 8?
Re: Take note MS
The generic term for this is differential compression, only sending the differences between a file and the updated version. Microsoft (Windows Update) and Novell/SuSE (delta RPMs) have been doing it for years.
What Google have discovered is a better differential compression algorythm, not the technique itself. Now if only Ubuntu, Red Hat and Debian would take note.
Re: Take note MS
I think they already have. They've been only patching the bit wot needs it since Jesus was a lad, but then they designed their patch update system when the world was on dialup and keeping traffic to a minimum was bloody important upfront, rather than something you could tack on as an afterthought.
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