Chrome 70 has arrived for Windows, Mac & Linux, Google announced on its recent blog post. The new version will start rolling out in the next few days or weeks. With its Chrome version 70.0.3538.67, Google claims to have covered many fixes, as also improvements. It has put up a list of changes in its log.
With this new update, you can disable linking Google Site & Chrome sign-ins. It also comes with progressive Web apps on Windows, ability for users to restrict extensions’ access to a custom list of Sites, an AV1 decoder & so on. To update to the latest version, users may use Chrome’s built-in updater or download it directly from this Site.
Chrome recently celebrated its 10th anniversary decked up in a new look with more rounded shapes, new icons as also a different color palette.
According to a report by VentureBeat, in Chrome 69, you could sign-in to Google Site & automatically get signed in into Chrome with the same account. However, if you signed out, you were logged out of both Chrome or any other Google Site. This did not go down well with some users who were concerned about Chrome sync being switched on, however, it wouldn’t sync unless you turn syncing of data on to access it on other devices. While users also did not take it well when Google logged them out of both accounts at once.
The report lists down the major changes in Chrome 70:
- Users can now opt for turning off linking Web-based sign-in with browser-based sign-in. By disabling this feature, you’ll be able to sign into a Google Site but not into Chrome.
- You will get an update to the user interface that will communicate your ‘sync state’ in a clearer manner.
- Google auth cookies will be deleted by the browser. Earlier, cookies allowed you to stay signed in even after it was cleared.
The new features can be cataloged as:
- Support for progressive Web apps (PWAs) on Windows.
- As for AV1, it is a royalty-free codec developed by the Alliance for Open Media, stated the VentureBeat report. AV1 betters compression efficiency by beyond 30 % over the codec VP9 which will succeed. Also, Chrome 70 has added an AV1 decoder (no encoding capabilities are included) with MP4 as the supported container (ISO-BMFF).
- Moreover, Google is clamping down on extensions. The reason being that host permissions allow extensions to automatically read & also change data on Sites to allow several creative use cases. However, according to Google, this has given rise to malicious & inadvertent misuses too. Therefore, the current version allows users to restrict extension host access to a “custom list of Sites or to configure extensions to require a click for access to the current page.”
- Furthermore, as part of its strict policy on HTTP Sites, with Chrome 70, these Sites will show a red “Not secure” warning when users enter data.
- Also, the latest version has applied 23 security fixes.
You may take a look at Chrome 70 milestone hotlist to know more about it.
