My Firefox had just auto updated to 1.5.0.7. The best part is I do not have to do anything except restarting it.
The update was quietly downloaded in the background and a message prompted me to restart. Upon restart, the update was, well, updated. Done.
The whole process was so simple and easy I sure many software will be following this update strategy. Automated update and install is a recent trend in softwares brought about by the ubquitious always-on internet access.
When the computer connected, the software could check for update, download update and even installs it.
I noticed the progression of different stages of update automation over the years.
Link to update. First there was a link to the download site or homepage, probably in the “Help->About” menu. Irfanview and 7-Zip are examples. With Internet, software don’t comes in disk anymore.
Alert to update. How often do you update your software? Not very often if you are like me. So why not get the software to alert you? This was the second stage in the evolution. ClamWin uses this strategy.
Download and install is the final holy grail. The update is downloaded and installed, with your permission and with little intervention. The latest Firefox does this very nicely.
In is a known fact that many security and stability issues are actually caused by old softwares that are not updated. Auto download and install is good news for the typical business users who may not be that tech savvy to keep softwares up-to-date.
This trend is sure to catch-on on more softwares. Will this trend spell the gradual demise of download sites like downloads.com and tucows.com?
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