Google on Tuesday rolled out Chrome 66 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. Google Chrome 66 comes with several design changes, policy changes, new features (both for developers and users) and improved security.
Google Chrome 66 will be made available to all over the next few weeks. Some of the major features accompanying the updated browser are the ability to export passwords and media auto-play changes. In Chrome 66 auto-playing of the content is switched off by default. For example, YouTube videos no longer automatically play when you open a link in a new tab.
Google Chrome 66 furthers Google’s effort to give users more control over the audio. Unexpected media playback is one of the major concerns of the users as it is not only irritating, but also consumes unwanted data. In Chrome 64, which was released earlier this year, the search giant allowed users to mute some of the sites.
According to the search giant, Autoplay will now only be allowed if a user has explicitly expressed an interest in the media, or if the media won’t play sound. The update, according to Google, would ensure that autoplay occurs only when a user wants “media to play, and respect users’ wishes when they don’t.” Also, the changes will help in unifying the desktop and web experience by “making web media development more predictable across platforms and browsers.”
Talking of the other additions with Chrome 66, the Export Passwords can be found under the Manage Passwords section under the Advanced Settings option. The feature will ask a user to enter their computer password, and once the user authorizes the download, the feature will export the password saved on Chrome in a CSV file.
The Export Passwords exists for Android and iOS as well. However, before continuing with the feature, a user will need to verify their identity via passcodes, facial recognition, fingerprint scan, etc. The option for Android and iOS can be found by tapping the overflow icon in the Passwords menu.
Another major update with the Chrome 66 is that now Google will start giving SSL certificate errors for all the Symantec certificates issued before June 1, 2016. Eventually, the search giant plans to completely phase out Symantec certs by Chrome 70, which is due in October.
Further, “Strict Site Isolation” is a security-focused feature that goes live with the Chrome 66. Though the feature had been available since Chrome 63, it was switched off by default. Now, the search giant is turning the feature on for some users to prepare for the broader launch.
“To diagnose whether an issue is caused by Site Isolation, use chrome://flags#site-isolation-trial-opt-out as described here,” the tech firm says. Strict Site Isolation was one of the security features that lowered the risk of the Spectre CPU vulnerability in early January.
Also, Google will now give out warnings if any third-party software is pushing a code into Chrome’s process. The search giant aims to completely block the third-party code injections starting with Chrome 72, which is expected in January 2019.
Google Chrome 66 also addresses many more security flaws and bugs that are rated ‘critical’ or ‘high’ in severity. To know more about the bug fixes, just visit the changelog of all security issues that the latest Chrome version is fixing.
“Access to bug details and links may be kept restricted until a majority of users are updated with a fix,” the company says.
For the developers, Chrome 66 offers a new rendering context. The new feature would streamline the display of ImageBitmap objects by getting rid of the memory duplication. According to the search giant, the update brings in CSS Typed Object Model (OM) Level 1 to lower the burden on the developer and browser “by exposing CSS values as typed JavaScript objects rather than strings.”
Another feature for the developers is the asynchronous Clipboard API supporting reading from and writing to the clipboard. Future versions will support more forms of data, like images. According to the search giant, the new feature is simpler to use than the execCommand API, which came with Chrome 43.
To update to the Google Chrome 66, select About Chrome from the Chrome menu bar. There you will find information on the browser version that you are currently using and how you can update to the latest version. It must be noted that Google is not yet done with the browser updates. In fact, the tech firm plans to come up with a new browser every six weeks or so. Thus, we can expect Chrome 67 to arrive sometime later next month.
