The versioning of Chromium and thus Google Chrome has been criticized in the past for being raised with light speed. The first beta version of the Google Chrome web browser was released on September 2, 2008 and the web browser quickly made its way through versions 1 to 4. The official releases at this point are either a version 4 release (stable) or version 5 release (dev and beta).
This could change pretty soon as the latest Chromium version has been raised to version 6. It usually does not take long before the Google Chrome developers are raising the version of their web browser as well which means that we will soon see the first Google Chrome 6 releases appear.
Cutting edge users who want to try the latest Chromium 6 build can download the latest Chromium build from the Chromium build server.
There do not seem to be any major changes in the Chromium 6 builds yet.
What’s your opinion on this obviously accelerated versioning? Jumping to version 6 in less than two years would mean that Google Chrome would be the web browser with the highest version in two years time providing that Opera does not reach version 12 in that time. (via Caschy)
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wrong link, extra h
hhttp://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/
should be
http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/
Thanks and corrected
Perhaps they will do something along the lines of what Macromedia/Adobe have done, for example,
Dreamweaver 1, 2, 3……Dreamweaver MX, MX 2004…..Dreamweaver CS1, CS2 etc etc
I think higher versioning is a way of making people subconciously think that a higher version is better, thus why Microsoft jumped the version of XBOX to 360 to capitalise on the number 3 that was in the competitors Playstation 3. (they certainly wont be calling the next xbox ‘XBOX 3′).
Anyhow, Google are doing it the right way. People who want to risk testing out a beta browser and jump to version 5 will end up being on the stable browser when version 6 comes along, and again, should they want to take risks, they can hop on to v6 etc etc. Rather than always running a beta browser indefinitely.
The fresh 6 build has no featured updates yet. But the developers will probably working hard integrating this features to 6 like WebGL, 3d Transform, Register Protocol Handler
http://dev.chromium.org/developers/web-platform-status#TOC-M6-
Yeah, no large changes from version 5 visible, at least yet – maybe they’re not activated or in use, but implemented in the code.
I love Chromium.
Since the builds are incremental, there’ll be no special extra changes in the first builds of Milestone 6 compared to two different builds of Milestone 5.
Never do the mistake of making that kind of comparison. :p There was a lot of complaints over “version bumping” in the first builds of Milestone 5, but of course it didn’t have any changes of M4 at first… It’s a very different scenario now, however, and same will go for M6 when it’s done… In something like a year.
I don’t understand why they are in such a hurry to increase the version number…
Version number does not matter and does not represent a lot in Chromium evolution, what matters is quality. If the browser is good, then why complain about its version number ?
If this versionning disturbs you so much, just mentally add a “0.” in front of the version number of Chromium, and let version 10 be the “1.0″ :-)
Yeah. For me, it just represents evolution overall and not some aspects of it. The version number, whatever it is, represents the work that has been and will be done for the browser.
When comparing Chromium V1 and V6…a lot better, a lot new stuff and easier to use too.
I just think its ironic that Chrome is already up to version six and Gmail was beta for god knows how long. I think its more of a marketing ploy then anything.
At least Microsoft doesn’t jump substantial versions for every fix/update. People would be running Windows 3,943,234 instead of 7 :D
:D
“For me, it just represents evolution overall and not some aspects of it. The version number, whatever it is, represents the work that has been and will be done for the browser.”
In that case, the version number should reflect how big the changes are. In other words, a major bump in the version number is not justified for most Chrome releases. They are x.1 releases at best.
“In that case, the version number should reflect how big the changes are. In other words, a major bump in the version number is not justified for most Chrome releases. They are x.1 releases at best.”
there ARE major changes,
2 : Form Autofill, Fullscreen mode, much better New Tab Page
3 : HTML5 video support, themes, another much better New Tab Page
4 : extensions, bookmark syncs, Pinned Tabs
5 : new UI, a lot more syncs, Flash integration, Phantom Tabs
And each time the speed is increased by around 30%
I’d say that kind of improvements justifies new major version numbers alright.
True!
Some open source apps have version numbers suck as 0.021.4 which make you think it’s an early version if it’s your first encounter with it – even if it has been in development for years and is good and stable.
So, for average users Chromium’s way is better, though when it reaches v10 and over like Adobe products.. IDK, everyone has their own opinion.
I like both numbering ways.
Travis – perhaps you didn’t take into consideration that Chromium is open-source, and thus not developed exclusively/at all by Google employees.
Would seem reasonable and smart yo quickspeed versions up to 7, 8 or even 9 to keep up with MSIE and Windows versions. That way Chrome 7 and Chrome 8 would seem to be competing with IE 7 and 8 and suitable for Windows 7.
Never underestimate the simplicity of some people. Most older people 50- years of age I talk to seem to be thinking products with similar or same number go along. That means Firefox 3 seems to be much older than Chrome 6 and they want the latest and best product they can get :D
They just can’t grasp the concept of version numbers and think they all somehow relate to each other.
“there ARE major changes”
Not in all Chrome updates. Some are very minor.