Next Time You Groan Doing Another Google Chrome Update, Consider This

Cheng Xin via Getty Images Web browser updates are inconvenient but necessary to prevent major security concerns. In contrast, he said, Chrome updates cannot happen while we are sleeping and many of us leave our computers on all the time, so shutting down Chrome to relaunch the browser and complete the update is more of an “arduous process.” But despite how annoying these updates are, you should not try to get out of doing them. “Chrome is one of the most widely-used browsers globally, making it an extremely attractive target for attackers,” said Truman Kain, an offensive security researcher at Huntress. “As you might expect with more hackers poking around, vulnerabilities are discovered more regularly, which means Google has to issue updates and patches more often than many other software providers.“ Klosowski said the latest Chrome update may or may not personally affect you, but the vast majority of them are “security patches that patch these little tiny holes that may or may not be exploited in the real world.” You can see for yourself what exactly the latest public Chrome update is addressing by going directly to the source. Klosowski said in general, the higher the reward amount, the more likely it was “a very big security problem.” So the next time your web browser asks you to close out of your tabs so you can complete the update, do yourself and your computer a favor: Do it as soon as it is available.