Can anyone enlighten me as to the cause of fairly constant browser updates (all of 'em, chrome, firefox...) that exceed 50mb per week?<p>Are there that many new features constantly?
Are there that many bugfixes constantly?
Are bugfixes related to recent features?<p>How are browser updates achieved?
(binary blobs with known ABI's of some kind? Dynamic unshared libraries? Why doesn't my browser need to restart each time? etc.)<p>What are the driving factors of this "new norm"?
The browser is silicon valley's weapon of choice in its war against humanity. Don't think of it as <i>updating</i>. Think of it as <i>reloading</i>.
If you are familiar with modern development thinking, weekly sprints, release often, deliver small chunks all lead to frequent updates.<p>One other thing is to get users used to more frequent updates as well. As I type this, Windows is nagging me to restart so it can update. brb.
50MB isn't exactly a lot these days. It's only a fraction of the browser's total size. With all a browser does it's pretty good IMO. It's a file viewer, video player, code interpreter all in one.