A user workflow bug that results in users losing Incognito windows on Mac and Windows when running an in-place fix. While this is by design, there should be warnings when users update in-app that Incognito windows will be lost during the dynamic update process.
I reported this to Google, but one of the best ways to get a bug report addressed is to make it high-profile. Enjoy!
On Mac and Windows, Chrome and Chromium can update in-place. The update downloads and then you can click Apply inside the About box and Chrome will relaunch with the update.
The problem happens if you have an Incognito window open. Those windows are closed without warning and not returned when the update is applied. This is actually logical, since Chromium doesn’t write Incognito windows to disk, only leaving them in memory.
There is a quick fix – if you apply the in-place update via About box (by clicking Relaunch) – Chromium should check to see if any windows open are Incognito windows. At that point, if there are any, Chromium/Chrome should pop up with an alert, something to the effect of:
Before updating Chrome, please close any Incognito windows, as they will not be preserved when you relaunch.
Preferably, the default item should be “OK” and postpone applying the update. The alternate button at that dialog box should be to apply the update and close all Incognito windows.
As you can imagine, I lost some browser tabs to the Chrome 30 release this morning, and am a bit miffed about it. Granted, I should have checked, but as I outline above, Chrome should have checked too. This doesn’t apply to Android, Chrome OS, or Linux as they do not update Chrome/Chromium in-app.