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 113 along with which at the same time a stable version of the Chromium project is available, which is the basis of Chrome.
In this new version of Chrome 113, in addition to innovations and bug fixes, 15 vulnerabilities have been fixed in the new version. As part of the vulnerability bounty program for the current version, Google paid out 10 prizes in the amount of $30,500 (one prize of $7500, $5000 and $4000, two prizes of $3000, three prizes of $2000 and two prizes of $1000).
Main novelties of Chrome 113
In this new version that is presented of Chrome 113, the WebGPU and WGSL graphics API support (WebGPU shader language) is enabled by default, It should be noted that WebGPU support is only enabled on builds for ChromeOS, macOS, and Windows for now, and will be enabled for Linux and Android at a later date.
Another change that stands out is that Storage sharding mode, Service Workers, and APIs have begun to be gradually enabled communication networks, which are separated by domains during page processing, isolating third-party controllers. The mode Allows you to block movement tracking methods of users between sites based on the storage of identifiers in shared storage and areas not intended for permanent storage of information ("Supercookies"). To force activation without waiting for regular inclusion, the "chrome://flags/#third-party-storage-partitioning" setting can be used.
In addition to this, Chrome 113 highlights the First-Party Sets (FPS) mechanism, which allows determining the relationship between different sites of the same organization or project for the general processing of Cookies between them. This feature useful when the same site can be accessed through different domains. Cookies for such domains are completely separate, but with the help of FPS they can now be linked to a common storage. To enable FPS, you can use the “chrome://flags/enable-first-party-sets” flag.
On the other hand, it is highlighted that an important AV1 video encoder software implementation optimization (Libaom), which has improved the performance of web applications using WebRTCsuch as video conferencing systems. When Advanced Browser Protection is enabled (Safe Browsing > Enhanced Protection), to detect malicious activity on Google's side, plugins collect telemetry about the operation of uninstalled browser plugins from the Chrome Store catalog. Data such as the hashes of the supplementary files and the content of manifest.json are sent.
In the version of Android, implemented a new service page "chrome://policy/logs" for administrator debugging of centralized administration policies set for users.
It is also highlighted that on Android, the ability to display more personalized content is implemented in the recommended content section (Discover). Besides, added the ability to customize preferred types of recommendations that are displayed (for example, you can hide content from some sources) for users who are not connected to a Google account.
On Android, Chrome 113 too offers a new interface to select media files for uploading photos and videos (Instead of its own implementation, the standard Android Media Picker interface is used.)
Finally, if you are interested in knowing more about it, you can consult 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
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
For those who need more time to update, the extended stable branch is supported separately, followed by 8 weeks. The next release of Chrome 114 is scheduled for May 30.