Mark Larson, Google Chrome Program Manager, says this release fixes some of the top issues people using the Beta release have faced, especially with plugins. Along with a fix for some plugins there are also a number of security patches as well as a few minor changes.
Security Update
- This release fixes an issue with address spoofing in pop-ups. A site could convince a user to click a link to open a pop-up window. The window's address bar could be manipulated to show a different address than the actual origin of the content.
Security rating: Medium. This flaw could be used to mislead people about the origin of a web site in order to get them to divulge sensitive information.
Disclosed by: Liu Die Yu of the TopsecTianRongXin research lab.
Top Issues Fixed
- Scrolling with laptop touchpads now works.
- Improved performance and reliability for plugins (like Flash, Silverlight, QuickTime, and Windows Media). We fixed issues with video not loading, stopping after a second, and slowing down or freezing Google Chrome (100% CPU usage).
- Fixed the 'chrome has crashed' message when you close a tab that was showing PDF using Adobe Reader 9.
- We no longer store data from secure sites (they use https: and show a lock in the address bar) in your history. You can still search your history for the site's address, but not the contents on the page.
- Improved performance and reliability for people who use web proxies (thanks to griffinz for the fixes).
- The New tab, New window, and New incognito window options moved from the 'Control the current page' menu to the 'Customize and control Google Chrome' (wrench) menu. Thanks to Szymon Piechowicz for the patch.
- 'New incognito window' always opens a new window. 'New window' always opens a new normal window. Both options are always visible on the wrench menu.>
- The spell checker works on text input fields and underlines misspelled words. You can now add words to the spell check dictionary so they are not shown as misspelled (right click on a misspelled word and choose 'Add to dictionary...').
- The download behavior for files that could run programs (exe, dll, bat, etc.) has changed. These files are now downloaded to unconfirmed_*.download files. Google Chrome asks you if you want to accept the download. Only after you click Save is the unconfirmed_*.download file converted to the real file name. Downloads that you never confirm are deleted when Google Chrome exits.
Users should automatically get updated in the next few days or you can open About Google Chrome (from the wrench menu) to get the update at any time. If you haven't tried out Chome yet, or like me tried it in its early stages and haven't been back but want to try it again, you can download it here.
I hesitate to use even upgraded versions of Chrome, since my last experience using it (first version) left my computer compromised; have they fixed the security issues beyond all doubt?
ReplyDeleteI don't think there are any browsers out there that have security fixed "beyond all doubt". But they did fix several flaws. For me personally I still don't see a reason to switch from FireFox. FireFox does everything I need it to do and does it well.
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