This is a quick Go program to install or upgrade your Go runtime by downloading the latest release from golang.org:

% sudo goup
You are running Go 1.10.1 for linux (amd64)
Go 1.10.3 linux amd64 is available in tar format
Download and install? y
Downloading go1.10.3.linux-amd64.tar.gz
Fetching https://dl.google.com/go/go1.10.3.linux-amd64.tar.gz
Downloaded and SHA256 checked
Go upgraded successfully
% go version
go version go1.10.3 linux/amd64
%

It works for macOS and Linux, patches for Windows compatibility would be welcomed.

• Interactive

• Examines versions to see if there's an upgrade

• Checks SHA256 checksums

• Checks byte count of download

• Not a shell script and doesn't encourage you to do curl ... | sh

• Sets read permissions on unpacked files for use from sudo

• Allows you to override arch or OS (see --help)

• Usable for initial install, if you download a built binary

• Doesn't attempt to manage having multiple different versions of Go installed, because that's already supported by the standard go get command once you have the latest version installed. See the Go documentation for details.

• Slurps the entire downloaded distribution file into RAM.

• Doesn't work on Windows yet.

• If the Go team distributes a tar file that doesn't have everything under a top level "go" directory, it'll fail (and leave junk in your destination directory).

• Doesn't handle multiple versions. If you want to use multiple versions of Go, install the latest one, then use Go's regular features to handle it:

  go get golang.org/dl/go1.21.1
  go1.21.1 build

  If you want something which can switch versions for you automatically for different projects, you could try asdf.