Google announced the launch of the new version of your web browser "Google Chrome 101" which arrives, at the same time, as a stable version of the free Chromium project, which is the basis of Chrome.
In addition to innovations and bug fixes, 30 vulnerabilities have been fixed in the new version. Many of the vulnerabilities were identified as a result of automated testing tools.
As part of the current version exploit bounty program, Google paid out 25 prizes worth $81 (one $000 prize, three $10 prizes, three $000 prizes, one $7500 prize, two prizes of $7000, four prizes of $6000, three bonuses of $5000 and one of $2000).
Main novelties of Chrome 101
In this new version presented by Chrome 101 Side Search feature added, which allows the search results to be displayed in the sidebar at the same time as another page is displayed (both the content of the page and the result of accessing the search engine can be seen simultaneously in a window).
After visiting a website from a Google search results page, an icon with the letter “G” appears in front of the input field in the address bar, when clicked, a sidebar with search results opens. a previously performed search. By default, feature is not enabled on all systems, you can use the "chrome://flags/#side-search" setting to enable it.
Another change that stands out in this new version is in the address bar of Omnibox which now, besides charging, also are processed in the buffer (including the scripts that are executed and the DOM tree is formed), allowing instant display of recommendations after one click.
Removed business policy names (chrome://policy) that contained non-inclusive terms. As of Chrome 86, replacements have been proposed for these policies that use inclusive terminology. Clean terms like “whitelist”, “blacklist”, “native” and “master”. For example, the URLBlacklist policy was renamed to URLBlocklist, AutoplayWhitelist to AutoplayAllowlist, and NativePrinters to Printers.
Improvements have been made to the tools for web developers, of which was provided ability to import and export in JSON format recorded user actions, improved calculation and display of private properties in the web console and code display interface, added support for working with the HWB color model, and added the ability to view defined cascading layers via the @layer rule in the CSS panel.
In Origin Trials mode, so far only on builds for the platform Android has begun testing the Federated Credentials Management API (FedCM), which enables you to create identity federation services that ensure privacy and seamless working. -Site tracking mechanisms, such as the processing of third-party cookies. Origin Trial implies the ability to work with the specified API from applications downloaded from localhost or 127.0.0.1, or after registration and receiving a special token that is valid for a limited time for a specific site.
In addition to this, it was added support for WebRTC streams to the MediaCapabilities API, which provides information about the capabilities of the device and the browser to decode multimedia content (supported codecs, profiles, bit rates and resolutions).
The third version of the Secure Payment Confirmation API is proposed, which provides tools for additional confirmation of the payment transaction being carried out. The new version adds support for identifiers that require input, the definition of an icon to indicate a validation failure, and the optional payeeName property.
Finally, it is also noted that removed the ability to use the WebSQL API in third-party scripts. By default, WebSQL blocking on scripts not loaded from the current site was enabled in Chrome 97, but an option to disable this behavior was left. In Chrome 101, this option was removed.
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
You open your browser again and it must 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
The next version of Chrome 102 is scheduled for May 24.