Google Chrome New Updates & Policy

Google Chrome Update Release Cycle to Be Sped Up to Four Weeks

Google is working on speeding up the release cycle of Chrome updates to four weeks from the current six-week period in order to improve the security, speed, and stability of the browser application.

As per the post on Google’s Chromium Blog, starting with Chrome 94 in Q3, 2021, Google will release milestones of its browser every four weeks, instead of every six weeks. This is the first time Google has sped up its Chrome release schedule for more than a decade.

“As we have improved our testing and release processes for Chrome, and deployed bi-weekly security updates to improve our patch gap, it became clear that we could shorten our release cycle and deliver new features more quickly,” explained Alex Mineer, a technical program manager at Chrome.

Additionally, Google will add a new ”Extended Stable” option, with milestone updates every eight weeks. The new option will be available to enterprise administrators and Chromium embedders who need additional time to manage updates.

Important security updates will still arrive every two weeks in this version, but Extended Stable should hopefully avoid the situation where silent Chrome experiments end up angering IT admins.

For users on Chrome OS, the company is also planning to support multiple stable release options.

View all Chrome policies on a device

On a managed device that’s running Chrome, browse to chrome://policy.

Chrome shows all Chrome policies currently in effect on that device.

• Current user: Policies that apply to Current user are user-level policies. These can be set from the Admin console. Or they could be OS-user-level policies set by Windows Group Policy.
• Machine: Policies that apply to Machine are set at the device level on Windows/Mac/Linux computers. They’re applied using an on-premise configuration tool such as Windows Group Policy or Managed Preferences on Mac.
• Device: Policies that apply to Device are device-level policies set for Chrome OS devices from the Admin console.

Machine/Device settings apply to all users of the device, no matter which browser they’re using or whether they’re signed in to an account. Device-level policies take precedence over policies set at other levels.

Identify the source of a Chrome policy

To see the source of a specific Chrome policy on a managed device:

1. On a managed device, browse to chrome://policy.
2. Click Reload policies.
3. At the top right, in the Filter policies by name box, enter the policy you’re searching for.
4. Check the Show policies with no value set box.
5. Make sure Source is correctly set to Platform, Cloud, or Enterprise default. If the policy hasn’t been set, the value is Not set.
   • Platform policies are pushed to users with Windows Group Policy, Managed Preferences on Mac, or another out-of-band management system for Windows, Mac, or Linux. Platform policies are listed even if the user isn’t signed in to a managed account.
   • Cloud policies are set using the Admin console and apply to users who sign in to a managed Google Account.
   • Enterprise default policies are set by Chrome developers for enterprise customers and have a different default value than non-enterprise customers. Admins can override default values by setting the corresponding cloud policies in the Admin console