Delta updates

[alanjrogers]

We should consider shipping Delta updates so downloads can be quicker.

Obviously we should test the hell out of this so we don't install corrupt updates evar.

[dannygreg]

This isn't a priority for me. The app isn't exactly huge.

[jspahrsummers]

Agreed, error-prone and not a priority.

[alanjrogers]

Yeah this really needed the distant-future tag.

[aroben]

This would be nice for Chat, which is 74.5MB (/khanify chromium). But definitely not needed for a 1.0.

[romaincointepas]

Jumping in a little more than 2 years later!

With the rise of electron (atom-shell) integrating Squirrel and creating apps > 30MB including a lot of not-so-frequently-changing files, maybe this feature would make way more sense today?

It's also there in Squirrel Windows (thanks to NuGet) so that would ISO things out.

Thoughts?

[joshaber]

It'd certainly be great! Pull requests welcome 😄

[jonathon-love]

so this could be done, reasonably easily (i think), with xdelta and gsync --rsyncable ... would this be a strategy people would like, or would it make people angry? (or perhaps they just wouldn't like it)

[develar]

@jonathon-love I suggest differential updates. Delta updates are archaic. Please see electron-userland/electron-builder#1138 (comment)

BTW, electron-updater will support differential updates for macOS soon (electron-userland/electron-builder#2199).