As October comes to an end, it’s time for another Chrome release. Version 107 of Google’s popular browser arrived on October 25, 2022 and includes further work on some features under the hood to make your web browsing safer.
Continue with user-agent reduction
The big 100th release of Chrome marked the beginning of Google’s plan to reduce the information in user-agent strings. This information tells websites what type of device and operating system you are using, but it can also be used to create a profile about you.
Because of this, Google dropped support for unrestricted user-agent strings in Chrome 100. They have been replaced with a more secure “User-Agent Client Hints API”. Google says Chrome 107 is “Phase 5” in this plan:
the
– and -Tokens (ie portions of the user-agent string) are mapped to the relevant ones -Token values reduced and no longer updated.
Preparing for Widevine CDM obsolescence
Watching content from streaming services in your browser is not as easy as you might think. To view DRM-enabled content, Chrome uses the Widevine CDM (Content Decryption Module). It will soon be obsolete.
Chrome 107 is the first version of the browser to ship with the replacement for Widevine CDM, which will be completely deprecated on December 6, 2022. If Netflix suddenly stopped working in December, you need to make sure you update Chrome.
Coming soon: Privacy Indicators for Chromebooks
A recent trend in smartphones (introduced by Apple) is privacy indicators. These are small dots or icons that let you know when your device is accessing the camera or microphone. Google is working to bring the same to Chromebooks.
The feature will: “Show a green icon in the status area and add a silent notification to the taskbar” when the camera or microphone is accessed. It’s expected to be coming to the Canary Channel as a feature flag soon, meaning it might be Chrome OS 108 ready.
TIED TOGETHER: Here’s how to see which apps can access your microphone and camera on Android
What else is new?
You may have noticed that Chrome 107 is particularly light on big features. But there is still a lot going on under the hood. You can read about many of these changes on Google’s developer page and the Chromium blog. We will highlight some changes here:
- In the CSS grid, the
grid-template-columnsandgrid-template-rows-Properties allow developers to define row names and track the size of grid columns and rows. Chrome 107 supports interpolation for these properties. - Web apps that support screen sharing on calls
getDisplayMedia()excludes the current tab from the list of tabs offered to the user. - Passing the option for Chrome to show a button to switch tabs during screen sharing
navigator.mediaDevices.getDisplayMedia(). - You can now customize keyboard shortcuts for your favorite commands in DevTools.
How to update Google Chrome
Chrome will automatically install the update on your device when it becomes available. To immediately check for and install available updates, click the three-dot menu icon, then click Help > About Google Chrome.
TIED TOGETHER: How to update Google Chrome
