Does replace-existing-chrome option still need to exist?

[matthewhively]

Orb version

v 1.4.0

What happened

Chrome always reinstalls itself even when it is already running the latest version when the replace-existing-chrome extra option flag is set.

Expected behavior

Chrome should behave similarly to Firefox, and would skip installation when version == latest

---

With firefox there is a place to query the latest version.
https://product-details.mozilla.org/1.0/firefox_versions.json
It looks like historically there was no convenient place to find the latest chrome version.

However I did some quick looking, and found this:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/35144482/6716352
and a bit further down
https://stackoverflow.com/a/68626554/6716352
Supposedly this omahaproxy is what is used internally by the Chrome dev team.
https://omahaproxy.appspot.com/linux <<< this link has exactly the latest stable version number
Also available appears to be this: https://omahaproxy.appspot.com/all.json which could be parsed.

This seems legit as it is listed in the FAQ here:
https://www.chromium.org/administrators/frequently-asked-questions/

So maybe its time to update the scripting for chrome to properly handle version updates?

[matthewhively]

For reference I have this hacky step added before the orb attempts to install chrome

            latest_stable=$(curl -s 'https://omahaproxy.appspot.com/linux')
            touch chrome_version # just in case the file doesn't exist from previous run
            installed_ver=$(cat chrome_version)
            echo "test: ${latest_stable} (latest) == ${installed_ver} (installed)"
            if [ "$latest_stable" != "$installed_ver" ]; then
              sudo rm -f /usr/bin/google-chrome  # symlink
              sudo rm -f /etc/alternatives/google-chrome # symlink
              sudo rm -f /usr/bin/google-chrome-stable # symlink
              sudo rm -rf /opt/google/chrome # folder
              sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin/chromedriver # folder

              echo "Old Chrome browser & driver removed"

[matthewhively]

The https://omahaproxy.appspot.com website is gone now. It now says to use this: https://chromiumdash.appspot.com/releases
I'm not yet sure how to parse it.

[matthewhively]

Apparently this command will work.
latest_stable=$(curl -s 'https://chromiumdash.appspot.com/fetch_releases?channel=Stable&platform=Linux' | jq -r ' .[0] | .version ')