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I come from a Windows world where Chrome automagically updates itself without any intervention (other than the occasional browser restart, since I leave my browser open all the time.)

In Ubuntu, I frequently notice Chrome listed in Update Manager. I don't recall if I installed Chrome through apt-get or not.

Why does Chrome rely on apt-get for updates? Is there a way to have a "Windows-like" experience where it updates itself without my intervention? This is my goal.

Braiam
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ashes999
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  • Why not just run the apt update-upgrade cycle in the background? – Parto Oct 10 '14 at 13:21
  • If you have a specific goal or reason for asking this, please include that to better enable us to address your actual end-goals. – MGodby Oct 10 '14 at 13:36
  • @Rinzwind I'm sure it's Chrome, the package name is google-chrome-stable. > installed it via the PPA. – ashes999 Oct 14 '14 at 03:04

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As parto said, you can just make it update in the background. To do that here are two options:

  1. Make a startup script that runs as root (see here: How to run a script during boot as root) with the contents

apt-get upgdate && apt-get upgrade chromium -y

You may need to change the name of chrome to whatever the package name actually is.

  1. You can do the same thing with a cron job, and run it as root (see here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1015485/is-it-possible-to-make-a-bash-file-run-as-root-in-crontab) with the same contents

Also, Rinzwind has a good point in the comments - you're likely using chromium as Google Chrome doesn't use apt

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Mitch
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No, there is not a way to get the "windows-like" experience of having Google Chrome "update itself."

apt-get is the cleanest and most well-integrated (from OS perspective) of managing updates for your system.

apt-get also affords the system admin a good "one stop shop" for controlling versioning and updates. For these reasons, Google made the design choice to have automatic updates be ran by apt-get for the simplicity and convenience of the user.

MGodby
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Chrome adds it's own repository on install. On https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/ it states:

Note: Installing Google Chrome will add the Google repository so your system will automatically keep Google Chrome up to date. If you don’t want Google's repository, do “sudo touch /etc/default/google-chrome” before installing the package.

So unless you do that before you install it should add a repository that will keep Chrome up to date with the system upgrades.

Picture of my sources after deb install:

enter image description here

So yes you will get updated versions of Chrome when doing updates. (either through Software Updater or apt-get update and apt-get upgrade)

So no intervention required if just do your updates like normal, I suggest letting it do them daily, as the update process is less intensive with only a handful at a time, and there are no forced restarts, and the old version of a program can stay in memory while it is currently being updated - so it is be perfectly fine to have programs open while they are being updated.

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Mateo
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  • I didn't realize that it even tells you that it uses apt-get for updates. Thanks for cleaing that up. – ashes999 Oct 14 '14 at 03:04