The updater may be installed per-user or system-wide. The server process hosts an engine that conducts most of the work of updating software, and it is driven by client processes that issue commands to it and potentially display UI to the user.

Once installed, the updater operates as a collection of processes that are launched on-demand and orchestrate their operations over IPC. It applies updates the server instructs it to, and then reports the results of the operation back to Omaha servers. To keep applications up-to-date, the updater periodically polls an Omaha server, communicating the state of installed applications, and receiving update instructions. components/update_client is also used by the component and extension updaters in Chrome. The updater is layered atop //components/update_client, which implements a cross-platform mechanism to interact with an Omaha server for the purpose of updating CRXs. Additionally, some updater behavior related to installs and uninstalls are tailored to platform conventions. However, platform-specific modules exist to translate cross-platform concepts (such as IPC interfaces) to platform-specific technologies (such as COM). The behavior of the updater is mostly platform-independent. The updater is written for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Detecting the uninstallation of those applications, and automatically removing itself when all other applications have been uninstalled.Providing update servers with anonymous telemetry about those applications.

Providing those applications with services to manage their installation.

Silently keeping those applications (and itself) up-to-date.

The updater is an open-source drop-in replacement for Google Update/Omaha and can be customized by 3rd party embedders for updating non-Google client software. Chromium updater is an program that keeps itself and other programs up to date by downloading new versions of software over the Internet.