Firefox also upgrades plugins automatically, provided they pass a bunch of automated tests. Unfortunately, it seems many don't.
The openness of their API is certainly a two edge sword; in one way, it lets developers dig deep in the browser's internals, which means addons can be immensely more powerful than on Chrome; on the other hand, it means they have a dependency on those same internal APIs.
They've launched the Jetpack SDK as a stable API for addons that doesn't require browser restarts to install them, but almost no one uses it:|
I wonder if there's anything other than momentum holding Jetpack back. I would be interested in trying to get some add-ons ported just for fun. I do agree that the add-ons in Firefox are way more powerful; I like that Adblock on FF can block ads before they're even retrieved (leaving my Hulu experience punctuated by silence rather than noise).
The openness of their API is certainly a two edge sword; in one way, it lets developers dig deep in the browser's internals, which means addons can be immensely more powerful than on Chrome; on the other hand, it means they have a dependency on those same internal APIs.
They've launched the Jetpack SDK as a stable API for addons that doesn't require browser restarts to install them, but almost no one uses it:|