Release checklist for 1.76.x - Release

[kjozwiak]

Feel free to copy this into an issue if you want to keep track of items per-milestone.
Be super sure that is replaced with the version you wish to use.

Prerequisites

• Double check the previous release/milestone and ensure everything has been QA'd
  • Note: If there's issues that need to be checked, create a master GH issue that lists the issues that need to be QA'd
• Ensure that the RC executable installs/launches without any issues on x86 platforms (Note: preferably all three are checked but one should be good enough if others can't be checked)
  • Win 8.1 x86
  • Win 10 x86
• Consult with the security team to ensure that all security issues have been included.
  • Release using the critical feature (forces users to update/restart) if there's a zero-day vulnerability being exploited
• Consult with PR team (@catherinecorre) and provide heads-up on release timing, screenshots, and other deliverables.

Nightly & BETA channels (HF/zero-day chromium releases)

• When pushing out a chromium bump (especially a zero-day chromium release), ensure that BETA builds have also been started/pushed publicly. This is a quick check to avoid cases where a zero-day chromium bump was merged late on Thursday, missing the public build as per https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Brave-Release-Schedule#current-build-schedule. When this happens, users need to wait until Tuesday, when the next public BETA build is pushed out. This leaves users vulnerable and doesn't respect our 1-day SLA promise. In these cases, ensure that BETA also goes out within ~24hrs.

Release Notes to Staging

• Mark closed issues in GitHub as release-notes/exclude or release-notes/include.
• Commit release notes to CHANGELOG_DESKTOP.md in brave-browser master branch, must be completed before release to production Jenkins build job is run.
• Stage release notes to https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/

Certification and Builds

• Upload builds to Omaha test channels (86-r-test, 64-r-test, test(mac))
• Log into Fastly, clear CDN cache for: updates-cdn.bravesoftware.com, updates.bravesoftware.com

Test Staging for Updates

• Install a prior version of Brave and update via test channels (86-r-test, 64-r-test, test(macOS))
  • Confirm version matches expectations
• QA summary and sign off report under #release via Slack.

Release to production download locations

• Publish GitHub release (remove 'pre-release' checkmark)
• Upload Mac/Win build to Omaha production channels (x86-rel, x64-rel, stable(mac))
• Sign Linux builds and upload to S3 repositories
• Upload Mac .dmg and .pkg to S3 bucket (i.e. aws s3 cp ./Brave-Browser-Dev.dmg s3://brave-browser-downloads/latest/Brave-Browser-Dev.dmg --acl public-read)
• Upload Windows stub and silent installer to S3 bucket using similar command to Mac dmg above (i.e BraveBrowserSetup.exe, BraveBrowserSetup32.exe, BraveBrowserSilentSetup.exe, BraveBrowserSilentSetup32.exe)

Clear Production Fastly cache

• Clear Fastly cache for: brave-browser-downloads.s3.brave.com, brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com, brave-browser-rpm-release.s3.brave.com

Updates Testing on Production

• Wait for confirmation that Windows live update works
  • Ensure that delta upgrades are working on both Win x64 & Win x86 platforms
    • Create the needed registry keys
    • Upgrade and you should see C:\ProgramData\BraveSoftware\Update\Log\BraveUpdate.log. Confirm that a x64 delta or x86 delta upgrade has occurred.
• Wait for confirmation that macOS live update works
• Wait for confirmation that Linux live update works
  • ensure that following https://brave.com/linux downloads/installs the expected release (version we just published/released)

Download & Install stub binaries from https://brave.com

• download the stub installer from https://brave.com on Win x64 - https://laptop-updates.brave.com/latest/winx64
• download the stub installer from https://brave.com on Win x86 - https://laptop-updates.brave.com/latest/winia32
• download the .dmg binary from https://brave.com on macOS - https://laptop-updates.brave.com/latest/osx

Announcements

• Publish the release notes to GitHub
• Publish the release notes to https://www.brave.com/latest
• Announce release on https://community.brave.com/ (@hollons)
• Announce release on https://www.reddit.com/r/brave_browser/ (@hollons)
• Notify #announcements of the latest release with a link to the release notes

Additional announcements for 0-day and critical releases

• Announce release on Twitter https://twitter.com/brave (@rebron)
• Announce release on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BraveSoftware (@rebron)

Closing milestones

• Set a release date (if missing) and close the appropriate milestone under https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/milestones
• Set a release date (if missing) and close the appropriate milestone under https://github.com/brave/brave-core/milestones

Creating milestones

• Create milestones under b-b & b-c if needed

---

Enabling Logging to check delta upgrades on Win x64 & Win x86

Once Brave is installed and you're ready to run through an upgrade, the following registry keys need to be added using Powershell:

Win x64

New-Item –Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\BraveSoftware" –Name UpdateDev
New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\BraveSoftware\UpdateDev" -Name "IsEnabledLogToFile" -Value ”1”  -PropertyType "DWord"

Win x86

New-Item –Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\BraveSoftware" –Name UpdateDev
New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\BraveSoftware\UpdateDev" -Name "IsEnabledLogToFile" -Value ”1”  -PropertyType "DWord"

Note: You'll need to run Powershell as an Administrator or you'll get an error message similar to the following:

PS C:\Users\kamil> New-Item –Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\BraveSoftware" –Name UpdateDev
New-Item : Requested registry access is not allowed.
At line:1 char:1
+ New-Item –Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\BraveSoftware" –Name Updat ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : PermissionDenied: (HKEY_LOCAL_MACH...e\BraveSoftware:String) [New-Item], SecurityExcepti
   on
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.Security.SecurityException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.NewItemCommand

Once you've created the above registry keys, update Brave via brave://settings/help and you should see a log file created under the following directory :

C:\ProgramData\BraveSoftware\Update\Log\

You'll see something similar to the following under BraveUpdate.log which indicates that the brave_installer-delta-x64.exe was used for the upgrade:

x64 example

[02/22/22 19:48:16.672][BraveUpdate:goopdate][2304:3864][Running installer][C:\Program Files (x86)\BraveSoftware\Update\Install\{EA78FFA4-26E6-459D-9D48-03CA7B5750EE}\brave_installer-delta-x64.exe][][{AFE6A462-C574-4B8A-AF43-4CC60DF4563B}]

x86 example

[02/22/22 20:04:57.790][BraveUpdate:goopdate][9384:9404][Running installer][C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Update\Install\{0700DFFF-3AD1-406E-9622-B46E1D93C408}\brave_installer-delta-ia32.exe][][{AFE6A462-C574-4B8A-AF43-4CC60DF4563B}]

[LaurenWags]

Checked and ensured that x86 builds for 1.76.73 Chromium: 134.0.6998.45 are being installed without any issues:

• Win 10 x86 - PASSED (restarted browser multiple times)

[rebron]

Closing. Brave Browser Desktop 1.76.73 released on March 5, 2025 at 9:42 am PST.