Google announced today that it will shorten the Chrome release schedule from every six weeks to every four weeks.
“For more than a decade, Chrome has been sending a new milestone every six weeks, delivering security, stability, speed and simplicity to our users and the Internet,” writes Alex Mineer of Google. ‘As we’ve improved our testing and release processes for Chrome, and deployed bi-weekly security updates to improve our patch gap, it’s become clear that we can shorten our release cycle and deliver new features faster. That’s why we’re delighted to announce that Chrome plans to release a new milestone every four weeks, starting with Chrome 94 in the third quarter of 2021. “
Google is also adding an extended stable option that provides milestone updates every 8 weeks. It will be available to enterprise administrators and Chromium providers who need extra time to manage updates, says Google.
And this change will also affect the Chrome OS, though Google is a bit vague about the details.
“For Chrome OS users, we also plan to support several stable release options,” says Mineer. “In the coming months, we’ll be able to share more with Chrome OS drivers about the choices you’ll have for milestone updates on your managed devices.”
Of course, one might wonder if Microsoft is going to switch to a four-week free schedule for the Chromium-based Edge browser or stick to the current six-week schedule. No word on that yet.