Google announced a few days ago the release of the stable version of "Chrome 97" in which we can find that some new features have been introduced, as well as that some changes have been made in the privacy and security settings, corrections and more.
In addition to innovations and bug fixes, the new version removes 37 vulnerabilities many of which were identified through automated tests with AddressSanitizer, MemorySanitizer, Control Flow Integrity, LibFuzzer, and AFL.
To a of vulnerabilities assigned the status of a critical problem that allows bypassing all levels of protection of the browser and execute code on the system, outside of the sandbox environment. Details about the critical vulnerability (CVE-2022-0096) have not yet been revealed, it is only known that it is associated with access to a memory area already freed in the code to work with internal storage (API Storage).
For the current release, Google has paid out 24 prizes worth $54 under the vulnerability bounty program (three $000, two $10, one $000, three $5000, and one $4000). Dollars).
Main novelties of Chrome 97
In this new version presented, Google has decided to focus its efforts on strengthen the protection of users' personal data, because now it is possible to delete all the stored data of a website. Previously, only individual cookies could be deleted. This new setting is located in Settings > Security and privacy > Site settings > View permissions and stored data for individual sites.
The new version too brings changes to Web Apps, since they are intended to be a little more native and in fact, developers can use the top app bar to integrate writing areas, navigation buttons, and colored backgrounds.
In addition, the incorporation of a new chrome flag is also highlighted: flags #enable-accessibility-page-zoom, which allows you to save the preferred zoom level on the mobile.
Other new features include enhanced HDR support with CSS. This has been in testing since Chrome 94 and the new version enables it for everyone. This allows developers to enable HDR content without compromising the experience for those without HDR displays.
The improved support for autocomplete fields in web forms, as recommendations with autocomplete options are now displayed with a slight change and are provided with information icons to make it easier to preview and visually identify the relationship to the field being populated. For example, a profile icon makes it clear that the proposed autocomplete affects fields related to address and contact information.
On the other hand it is mentioned that As of January 17, the Chrome Web Store will no longer accept plugins that use version 2 of the manifest Chrome, but developers of previously added plugins will still be able to release updates.
While for the part of the experiments, it is mentioned that added experimental support for the WebTransport specification, which defines the protocol and accompanying JavaScript API for sending and receiving data between a browser and a server.
The communication channel is organized over HTTP/3 using the QUIC protocol as transport. WebTransport can be used instead of the WebSockets mechanism, which offers additional features such as multi-streaming, one-way streaming, out-of-order delivery, reliable and unreliable modes of delivery. Also, WebTransport can replace the Server Push mechanism, which Google has removed in Chrome.
finally too it is noted that the search engine settings page was improved, because now the automatic activation of engines is disabled, the information about which is issued when opening a site through the OpenSearch script and the new engines for processing search queries from the address bar must now be manually activated in the settings (engines previously activated will automatically continue to work without changes).
How to install Google Chrome 97 on Linux?
If you are interested in being able to install this new version of this web browser and you still do not have it installed, you can download the installer that is offered in deb and rpm packages on its official website.