While we do try to reduce the number of unplanned updates, these releases are an important part of how Chrome works to secure its users, and are an example of Chrome’s vulnerability reporting and security engineering processes working as intended. Updates and rapid response are part of the Chrome security development lifecycle, and Chrome invests in its ability to quickly refresh a release when needed. Chrome may have unscheduled updates between milestones to fix critical security issues, address breaking functional bugs, or patch known in-the-wild exploits. There is a planned security refresh update two weeks into every milestone, with all of the security fixes since the previous release. Milestones are refreshed with updates that can contain security fixes and functional bug fixes for high-impact bugs. Every release of Chrome includes not just security patches, but new security features and other defensive improvements developed by the Chrome Security team.Ĭhrome releases stable milestones every four weeks (MXXX), with “refresh” releases in-between milestones. The Chrome Security team works to protect Chrome users and make it safe to click on links by building features and architecting systems to defend against exploitation, network tampering, malware and phishing. Patching, remediating, and protecting against security vulnerabilities is a core part of the Chrome engineering process. Instead, all updates should be prioritized equally, and considered to be important security fixes.

We recommend against and do not support using the security release notes as a method to prioritize updates. The Chrome Security team believes the best option for security is to apply all updates to Chrome as soon as they are available. Every two weeks, Chrome releases a new version that materially improves security. Chrome UpdatesĪlmost all updates have security fixes. The most secure option is to automatically update Chrome as soon as any update is available, independent of the specific details of any security fixes included in the update. Almost all Chrome updates contain security fixes, and should be prioritized equally.

Chrome security update