was presented on new version release from the popular web browser "Chrome 103" in which in addition to innovations and bug fixes, 14 vulnerabilities have been fixed in the new version.
One of the issues (CVE-2022-2156) was assigned a severity level of Critical, which implies the ability to bypass all levels of browser protection and execute code on the system outside of the sandboxed environment. No details about this vulnerability have been revealed yet, it is only known that it is caused by accessing a freed memory block (use-after-free).
As part of the Vulnerability Bounty program for the current version, Google paid out 9 prizes worth $44 (one prize of $000, one prize of $20, one prize of $000, two prizes of $7500 and one each of $7000, $3000 and $2000) .
Main novelties of Chrome 103
In this new version we can find that added experimental image editor called to edit screenshots of pages. The editor offers features such as cropping, area selection, brush painting, color selection, adding text labels, and display of common shapes and primitives such as lines, rectangles, circles, and arrows.
To enable the publisher, this configuration must be activated "chrome://flags/#sharing-desktop-screenshots" and "chrome://flags/#sharing-desktop-screenshots-edit". After taking a screenshot via the Share menu in the address bar, the editor can be accessed by clicking the “Edit” button on the screenshot preview page.
Another change that stands out is that improved processing mechanism prior to recommend content in the Omnibox address bar. Proactive rendering complements the previously available ability to load the recommendations most likely to be clicked without waiting for the user to click. In addition to loading, the content of pages associated with recommendations can now be buffered (including script execution and DOM tree formation), allowing for immediate display of recommendations after a click.
Besides that, files in AVIF image format were added to the allowed sharing list via the iWeb Share API and it is also noted that support was added for the "deflate-raw" compression format, which allows access to a raw compressed stream without headers and final service blocks, which can be used, for example, to read and write zip files.
On the other hand, in the version of Android introduces a new password manager which offers the same unified password management interface used for Android apps.
Also in Chrome 103 for Android, added specs rules API, which allows site authors to provide the browser with information about the most likely pages a user might visit. The browser uses this information to proactively load and render the page content.
It is also noted that in the Android version adds support for “With Google” service, which allows the user to express their appreciation to their favorite sites that have signed up for the service by transferring paid or free digital stickers. The service is currently only available to US users.
Of the other changes that stand out from this new version:
- Improved autofill of fields with credit and debit payment card numbers, now supporting cards saved through Google Pay.
- The Windows version uses the built-in DNS client by default, which is also used by the macOS, Android, and Chrome OS versions.
- Stabilized and offered to all API Local Font Access , with which you can determine and use the fonts installed on the system, as well as manipulate fonts at a low level (for example, filter and transform glyphs).
- The implementation of the popstate event has been aligned with the behavior of Firefox. The popstate event now fires immediately after a URL change without waiting for the load event to fire.
- For pages opened without HTTPS and from iframe blocks, access to the Gampepad API and Battery Status API is prohibited.
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
Newly, you 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