Chrome 90 is here with an AV1 encoder and new augmented reality APIs

[mood]

Chrome 90 is here with an AV1 encoder and new augmented reality APIs

 

Google released Chrome 89 over a month ago, offering a bunch of new features and improvements including enforcing developers to offer offline experiences for progressive web apps (PWAs) and new APIs for content sharing. Now Chrome 90 is here, headlined by enhancements such as support for read-only files in clipboard, a new AV1 encoder, and blocking of HTTP port 554.

 

 

Chrome 90 includes an AV1 encoder that is optimized for video conference calls. The AV1 codec offers better compression efficiency which means that it will be very beneficial to users on networks with low bandwidth speeds.

 

The browser will also be blocking port 554 for HTTP, HTTPS, or FTP servers as it has been used in some attack vectors. It is interesting to note that Chrome previously blocked this port too but unblocked it after backlash from enterprises. However, Google has once again decided to restrict connections via this port as its usage on Chrome's Dev channel is just 0.00003% of all requests.

 

Other developer-facing improvements in Chrome 90 include allowing web applications to query device attributes, a CSS property for smoother interpolation between aspect ratios and two others for handling clipping margins, enhancements to certain HTML tags, as well as a shared superclass and constructor for ranges. Similarly, an API has been released that allows web components that make use of Shadow DOM to use server-side rendering (SSR) to reduce reliance on JavaScript and improve performance. Custom elements will also be able to expose their state using the state() pseudo class.

 

WebAssembly now supports exception handling, and Chrome will now be placing protections against the application/x-protobuffer MIME type by adding it to the list maintained by Cross-Origin-Read-Blocking (CORB). The browser also used a content security policy directive to allow developers to disable Flash. But now that Flash is dead, this directive is being discontinued too. Furthermore, Chrome will manage file pieces which are downloaded out-of-order in a simplified way, making the job easier for web developers who previously had to write code for this themselves. WebAudio and file URL management techniques are also being changed to align with industry standards and offer better interoperability with other browsers.

 

Over on the consumer-facing side of things, a significant addition is the ability to paste read-only files from the clipboard instead of having to rely on drag-and-drop. With respect to augmented reality (AR), sites can now use WebXR to query and estimate environmental lighting conditions to offer more natural effects. In the same vein, the WebXR Depth API allows calculation of environmental depth to enhance physics-based effects and occlusion.

 

If Chrome on your device has not updated to version 90 automatically, head over to Help > About Google Chrome to trigger the update. Next up is Chrome 91 which is currently in the Dev channel, scheduled to hit Beta on April 22, with a Stable release expected on May 25.

 

 

Source: Chrome 90 is here with an AV1 encoder and new augmented reality APIs

[mood]

Google Chrome 90 released with HTTPS as the default protocol
 

 

Google has released Chrome 90 today, April 14th, 2021, to the Stable desktop channel, and it includes security improvements, a new AV1 encoder, and the default protocol changed to HTTPS.

 

Chrome 90 fixes 37 security bugs, including a zero-day used at the Pwn2Own competition and publicly released Monday on Twitter.

 

Originally scheduled for release yesterday, it is believed Google pushed it back a day to fix the zero-day vulnerability.

 

Today, Google promoted Chrome 90 to the Stable channel, Chrome 91 as the new Beta version, and Chrome 92 will be the Canary version.

 

Windows, Mac, and Linux desktop users can upgrade to Chrome 90 by going to Settings -> Help -> About Google Chrome. The browser will then automatically check for the new update and install it when available.

HTTPS is now the default protocol

With the release of Chrome 90, any URL entered in the address bar that does not contain a protocol (https:// or https://) will automatically be considered to be an HTTPS connection.

 

For example, if you type example.com in the address bar and press entered, Google Chrome previously would attempt to connect to the URL using the http:// protocol.

 

With Chrome 90, Google has switched the default protocol to https:// to increase security while browsing the web. Furthermore, as many sites redirect HTTP connections to HTTPS connections, this new default will increase performance as browsers will no longer be redirected.

 

Illustrating Google Chrome's change of default protocol

 

However, there are some exceptions to this new rule.

 

In a blog post announcing this feature, Google noted that "IP addresses, single label domains, and reserved hostnames such as test/ or localhost/ will continue defaulting to HTTP."

 

This feature is currently rolling out to Chrome users, so it may not be available to everyone as of yet.

Continued NAT Slipstreaming protection

Chrome 90 includes additional protection from NAT Slipstreaming attacks by blocking FTP, HTTP, and HTTPS connected on port 554.

 

NAT Slipstreaming attacks abuse a router's Application Level Gateway (ALG) feature to gain access to any port on an internal network, potentially allowing threat actors to gain access to services that are normally secured by the router.

 

This port was previously blocked to prevent attacks but was opened again after Google received complaints from developers.

 

After performing further analysis of this port, Google has determined that it is used for only approximately 0.00003% of all requests.  Due to its low usage, Google is once again blocking it.

Google Chrome gets an AV1 Encoder

With Chrome 90, Google now includes an AV1 encoder to increase performance in videoconferencing software using WebRTC.

 

Google states that the benefits of the AV1 Encoder are:

• Better compression efficiency than other types of video encoding, reducing bandwidth consumption and improve visual quality
• Enabling video for users on very low bandwidth networks (offering video at 30kbps and lower)
• Significant screen sharing efficiency improvements over VP9 and other codecs.

Google Tab Search continues to roll out

Google Chrome Tab Search feature continues to roll out in Chrome 90, with hopefully more users getting it without having to enable it via a flag.

 

The  Tab Search feature allows you to search through your open tabs among all open browser windows to find a specific page.

 

If you are like me and have 50+ tabs open at once, trying to find a particular page among all your open browser windows is a major pain.

 

With Tab Search, you can click on the little down arrow to the right of your tabs and search for a particular keyword found in a page's title or URL. Tab Search will then display a list of open tabs that match that search keyword and allow you to quickly select and make the the active one.

 

Google Chrome Tab Search feature

Developer changes in Chrome 90

This release brings numerous new APIs, trials, and changes to Google Chrome. Below we have listed the main developer changes:

• There's a new value for the CSS overflow property.
• The Feature Policy API has been renamed to Permissions Policy.
• And there's a new way to implement and use Shadow DOM directly in HTML.
• Clipboard: read-only files support
• WebAssembly Exception Handling
• URL protocol setter: New restrictions for file URLs
• WebXR Depth API
• WebXR AR Lighting Estimation

For more details, be sure to check out the Chrome 90 developer changes blog post.

 

 

Source: Google Chrome 90 released with HTTPS as the default protocol