According to a report from researchers at Google Switzerland and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, user browsing the Internet using Safari and Opera are behind when it comes to using the latest secure version of their browsers, as opposed to users of Google Chrome and Firefox.

The results of this study were analyzed from data gathered from logs at Google’s web servers. The study shows that 97% of Chrome users are using the latest release version of the browser within 21 days of that particular version’s release. Firefox users, on the other hand, show 85% user compliance to the latest release within 3 weeks of the release date. This was only a slight increase from an earlier report last summer, where the results reported 83% of Firefox users were up to date.

The study praises the merits of having an automatic update feature being built into browsers – the feature is implemented (although differently) in both Firefox and Chrome. Chrome's implementation can't be turned off, and the browser will check for updates every five hours and if any updates are found they are automatically installed in the background without interrupting use. Firefox on the other hand only checks for updates during browser startup and will install updates automatically once it has finished downloading. However, updates only take effect after restarting Firefox.

Only 53% of Apple Safari 3.x users were using the latest version, installed 21 days after release.  Apple does release the patches for Safari updates through the Software Update application built in the OS X. It can check for updates daily, weekly or monthly – as preferred by the user. Opera users scored even lower, logging in only 24% of the recorded user base browsing with the most updated version three weeks after release. Opera has always had a difficult time updating; requiring users to visit its official download page and download a new installer.

The study did not including usage statistics for Microsoft Internet Explorer. However, another report from Forrester Research that Internet Explorer is still the top default browser among corporate users, at 78 percent – with 60 percent still using the older IE6. And while Google Chrome may seem to have the most protected users, they only control 2% of the market share of corporate users.

Even if Chrome does have auto-update, the reason why there is still a fraction of users still not using the latest version is because a few machines such as those in public terminals have copies of Google Chrome which are not restarted. The browser does not inform the user that a restart is needed to apply the latest updates installed.