Google Chrome is a closed source web browser developed by Google, although derived from an open source project called "Chromium".
Google announced the launch of the new version of Chrome 121, version along with which the Chromium version, which serves as the basis for Chrome, was also released simultaneously. Chrome 121 adds experimental AI features such as a new theme builder, interactive wizard, protection improvements, and more.
The new version of Chrome 121 eliminates 17 vulnerabilities and of which none have been identified as critical. Google paid 11 awards worth US$31.000 as part of the cash reward program for discovering vulnerabilities for the current version, with the largest reward, US$11, being awarded for identifying access to already freed memory.
Main novelties of Chrome 121
In this new version of Chrome 121, it has been implemented as an experiment the behavior when clicking on links associated with installed PWA applications, because now when clicking on the link, the user will immediately be shown a separate application interface or they will be shown a list of applications that support the type of content in the link. To test this new feature, it can be done from “chrome://flags/#enable-user-link-capturing-pwa”.
Another change applies to 1% of users, for The Privacy Sandbox initiative is being promoted, whose objective is to achieve the commitment of user privacy without affecting advertising sites from being able to obtain data on visitors' preferences. It is mentioned that the change plans to gradually expand the deactivation of third-party cookies and reach 100% in the 3rd quarter of 2024. To disable it without waiting for changes, it can be done from "chrome://flags/#test-third-party-cookie -phaseout».
In addition to this, in Chrome 121 marks the beginning of the introduction of experimental machine learning capabilities, initially available to users in the United States using versions of Windows and macOS and for which the “Experimental AI” section has been introduced for inclusion in the configurator and which offers the following:
- Smart Tab Grouping Mode (Tab Organizer): This feature allows you to automatically group open tabs that belong to similar topics, providing appropriate names and emojis for the new groups. For example, if you have multiple tabs open related to travel and online shopping, this new feature will allow you to organize these pages into appropriate groups without the need for manual analysis. You can access grouping through the tab management menu or by selecting the “Arrange similar tabs” option in the tab context menu.
- Theme Builder: Allows you to customize the browser layout based on a text description provided by the user in natural language. For example, you can describe the desired theme, mood, style and color, and the browser will generate the corresponding design theme. You can access the interface for generating themes through the “Create with AI” button on the “Customize Chrome/Change Theme” page.
- Interactive Wizard: This function allows you to generate text on a topic specified by the user. You can prepare a detailed and courteous request or comment using a simple text template. You can call the assistant via the “Help me type” button in the context menu that appears for fields in input forms.
Of the other changes that stand out:
- Removed the activation icon from the sidebar header panel.
- CSS implements property inheritance from element highlighting pseudoclasses
- The font-palette CSS property now supports animation.
- Added support for the "scrollbar-color" and "scrollbar-width" CSS properties to customize the color and width of the scroll bar.
- Pseudo-elements » ::spelling-error » and » ::grammar-error » have been added to the CSS to customize the color.
- The version of Chrome for Android on devices running Android 12+ and a Qualcomm or ARM GPU has introduced support for the WebGPU API by default,
- When standard browser protection is enabled, a security check is performed on encrypted file downloads.
Finally If you are interested in knowing more about it, you can check the details in the following link.
How to update or install Google Chrome in Ubuntu and derivatives?
For those who are interested in being able to update to the new version of the browser on their systems, they can do so by following the instructions that we share below. The first thing you should do is check if the update is already available, for this you have to go to chrome: // settings / help and the notification that there is an update will appear.
In case it is not so you must close your browser and you are going to open a terminal and type:
sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade
Again, open your browser and it should have already been updated or the update notification will appear.
In case you want to install the browser or choose to download the deb package to update, we must go to the web page of the browser to obtain the deb package and to be able to install it in our system with the help of the package manager or from the terminal. The link is this.
Once the package is obtained, we only have to install with the following command:
sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb