The nice thing about Google Chrome’s auto-update feature is that almost all users are running the latest version of the software. This is really important for web developers, who no longer have to worry that a large number of users haven’t upgraded from Chrome 2 or Chrome 3. It’s not necessary to test a site in multiple versions of Google Chrome and it’s safe to use features added in the latest version of the browser.
Gmail’s help center lists the supported browsers and includes the minimum version number required next to each browser, except Google Chrome.
Unfortunately, even if Chrome installs the latest version, you can’t use it until you restart the browser. Google started to add a little orange dot next to the wrench icon and show messages like: “Old school’s not cool. Google Chrome is woefully out of date because it hasn’t crashed or restarted in a while. Restart Chrome to apply update.”
{ The second screenshot is licensed as Creative Commons by Chris Messina. }
