Chrome bundling Flash results in faster updates

I like anything that makes the end user more secure, and Google’s bundling of Flash has resulted in a significant drop in users running vulnerable versions of Flash.

Panayiotis Mavrommatis, a developer on Google’s security team, crunches the numbers:

For the latest release, within 2 days, fewer than 30% of Chrome users were running an out-of-date Flash.  In comparison, it took 14 days for this to happen in the previous release.

That’s an impressive response time. The bundling of the Flash package with the browser, combined with Google’s rapid pushing out of the browser update to users, means that the Windows of vulnerability is closed down significantly.

I’m not normally a fan of stealth updates, but an update for a standalone plug-in for a standalone browser makes a lot of sense since installing these updates as soon as possible really is a no-brainer. I can think of no better way to get updates to the masses.

And given that Chrome is now the #3 browser, this means more people than ever and enjoying rapid protection from Flash vulnerabilities.