Google To Enable Early Access to Google Chrome Updates For Select Users

Google has announced a new release schedule for the Google Chrome updates. The updated schedule will also include an "early stable" release, which would make the latest version of Google Chrome available to select users a week ahead of the fully stable launch. Currently, the search giant has been following a pattern that introduces Google Chrome updates to a "canary" channel that then proceeds to the developers and beta channels before finally releasing a stable channel for all its users.

Google Chrome update version number 110 will be the first browser update from the browser to follow the newly introduced 'early stable' release schedule, which was announced by the search giant through a blog post.

The new release schedule for Google Chrome will see the first public update coming in the form of a Google Chrome beta update, after which an early stable update will be scheduled for select users a week before the final stable version is released to the wider audience.

The Alphabet-owned company also confirmed that a "small percentage" of select users will be eligible for the 'early stable' releases of forthcoming Google Chrome updates. The company claims to have introduced this change to allow for "showstopping" issues to be discovered, addressed, and fixed while remaining limited to a relatively smaller percentage of users.

Google confirmed that the upcoming Google Chrome 110 Beta version will be released starting on January 12, 2023. Meanwhile, the Google Chrome 110 Early Stable version will be launched on February 1, 2023, a week before its fully stable launch on February 7, 2023.

According to a report by 9to5Google, citing Kyle Bradshaw, the "small percentage" of Google Chrome users cited by Google to be made eligible for early stable releases could be still a higher percentage than the number of users who have already enrolled on Google Chrome's beta release channel. It could also be that Google is targeting a different subset of Chrome's user base, added the report.