mood Posted March 2, 2021 Share Posted March 2, 2021 Chrome 89 rolling out: Reading list, Tab Search, Profiles redesign, and more Following version 88’s release on Android, Mac, Windows, and Linux, the next release of Google’s browser is rolling out. Several user-facing enhancements will start rolling out with Chrome 89. For those that share computers (and browsers), version 89 is revamping Chrome profiles. It starts with a modernized page for selecting profiles “when Chrome opens.” A picker is also available in the dropdown menu that appears after tapping your avatar image next to the Omnibox. The creation experience has also been updated with users first prompted about turning on Chrome Sync to get “bookmarks, passwords, history, and more on all your devices.” This involves signing in to your Google Account, while the next step is to customize your profile with a name and theme color that helps differentiate windows. This feature is rolling out to desktops over the coming weeks. Chrome 89 is also getting a simple Reading list that’s available by tapping the star icon in the address bar. In addition to “Add bookmark,” there’s a new “Add to reading list” option. A “Reading list” folder appears in the Bookmarks bar. It’s partitioned by “Unread” and “Pages you’ve read,” with the latter achieved by tapping “Mark as read” — “Delete” is right next to it — when hovering over pages. After launching on Chrome OS in December, Tab Search is coming to desktops. You can tap the dropdown icon in the top-right corner or use Shift+Command+A (Mac) to get a list of pages open across all windows. The browser displays five at a time, while you can also quickly close tabs from this view. If it’s not yet live, manually turn it on: chrome://flags/#enable-tab-search Chrome 89 continues work on less intrusive permission requests. Google will automatically block prompts — like for website notifications — that you’re unlikely to permit. Instead of a prompt, a struck-through bell icon will appear at the end of the address bar. Tapping opens a pop-up to allow alerts that you’re interested in and link to manage settings. Google’s work to encourage HTTPS adoption continues in this release. When users don’t specify a protocol as they enter a URL, Chrome 89 will first attempt to use HTTPS before falling back to HTTP (as necessary). This change is coming to Mac, Windows, Linux, and Android first with iOS following in the next update. The WebHID (human interface devices — keyboards, pointing devices, and gamepads) API is enabled by default in Chrome 89 on desktop to help improve connectivity. Similarly, this release allows web pages to control 3D printers and microcontrollers without the need for additional adapters or drivers through the Web Serial API. Enabled in Chrome 89 for Android, Web NFC allows websites to read and write to NFC tags. Following the desktop browser in version 85, today’s release allows Android to decode AVIF images natively. This format is smaller in size than JPEG or WebP for faster loading, and features HDR color support. Chrome 89 and newer will require x86 processors to support Streaming SIMD Extensions 3, or otherwise the browser will not install. SSE3 was introduced on Intel CPUs in 2003 and on AMD chips two years later. This change does not impact ARM processors. Source: Chrome 89 rolling out: Reading list, Tab Search, Profiles redesign, and more Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mood Posted March 3, 2021 Author Share Posted March 3, 2021 Here is what is new in Google Chrome 89 Google released a new stable version of its Chrome browser on March 2, 2021. Google Chrome 89 is a security release that includes improvements and bug fixes. The Chrome Releases blog reveals that engineers patched 47 different security issues that affected previous versions of the browser. The highest severity rating is listed as high, but Google lists only issues reported by external researchers on the page. Chrome users can select Menu > Help > About Google Chrome to check the installed version and run a manual check for updates. Starting with Chrome 89, devices with x86 CPUS need to support SSE3 for Chrome to run on them. The standard was introduced in the early 2000's by Intel and AMD Chrome Status provides information on new features in Chrome 89. The new Chrome version introduces support for First-party sets, a new option to mark sites as belonging to the same party or entity. Google could for instance use the feature to link google.com and youtube.com together, ensuring that certain data can be shared across these sites. The feature takes cues from Firefox's Enhanced Tracking Protection feature and from Microsoft Edge's Tracking Prevention feature; both of these include functionality to link sites to make sure that these work properly with the protective features enabled. Google's plan with First-party sets is to standardize the approach. Chrome 89 introduces other privacy-related features: Platform-provided trust tokens -- An experiment to "ascertain the value of tokens incorporating on-device state as a mechanism for anti-spam and anti-abuse systems, and to evaluate the feature’s performance relative to standard web-issued trust tokens". Schemeful Same-Site - evolves same-site definition to include the URL scheme. User-Agent Client Hints -- designed to provide sites with information about a "user's device or conditions" without needing to use the User-Agent String. Anti-Fingerprinting mechanics -- the interest-based targeting API FLoC, designed to work with groups of users instead of individuals, and an event-level conversion API, to enable the correlation between ad clicks on sites and conversions on the advertisers site without identifying users individually, are available as experiments. What else is new in Chrome 89? Open Tabs can be searched now. Is still being rolled out, enable chrome://flags/#enable-tab-search to get it right now. Chrome prefers HTTPS over HTTP when the user does not specify the protocol in the address bar. Chrome won't lookup single word entries anymore when entered in the address bar by default, meaning it won't assume that the word is an Intranet location. May be changed using the IntranetRedirectBehavior policy. Chrome on Android requires that a device is Play Protect certified, otherwise it won't run anymore; this does not affect WebView nor Chrome on virtual machines. Play Protect certified devices include Google apps and have passed Android compatibility testing. Version pinning is a new option to keep extensions or applications on a specified version. May be configured via the ExtensionSettings policy. Access to certain Google Account features even without Chrome Sync. New profile picker and profile options. BeyondCorp Enterprise customers may check URLs for phishing attacks in realtime. New BrowsingDataLifetime and ClearBrowsingDataOnExitList policies to clear browsing data after a specific amount of time or on exit. Users may turn of metrics reporting even if set to on by an administrator. The feature is controlled by MetricsReportingEnabled. Support for the Serial API that allows sites to perform read and write operations on serial devices. Chrome on iOS gets biometric authentication support in Incognito Mode tabs. Web Share API support to share data from the Web with an app of the user's choosing. WebHID support that enables web applications to interact with human interface devices that have not been supported before. Web NFC is supported by default. Source: Here is what is new in Google Chrome 89 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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