New Chrome security update fixes dozens of security flaws

Chrome is by far the most popular web browser in the world and pure and simply because of this reason alone, it has to deal with a variety of new and evolving security threats all the time. It is no surprise then Chrome updates are usually filled with security fixes, which is the case with the latest Chrome update that you should probably go and install right away. Let’s take a look at the main details you need to know.

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Chrome version 104 has been made available to all users via general release. In the update, as well as slight tweaks to features and minor performance upgrades there are also security upgrades and fixes that address 27 different security bugs that had previously been reported by third parties.

If you are sitting there worrying about whether any of these security bugs may have infected your device, you can stop right now. Google says that none of them have been actively exploited and that the move is more about boosting security proactively rather than reacting to any past exposure or exploitation. Google pays out rewards to bug bounty hunters, often in the thousands of dollars, and you can see details of these rewards in the release notes for Chrome version 104.

The fixes include closing down vulnerabilities that affect Google’s omnibox search bar, Google’s Nerrby share feature which runs like Apple AirDrop for Chromebook and Android devices, and the Dawn WebGPU implementation in Chrome.

Google has also released details of another important security update in Chrome 104, which is the removal of U2F API. This has been replaced by the newer Web Authentication API, which has become the official standard for web authentication. Google said:

“U2F never became an open web standard and was subsumed by the Web Authentication API (launched in Chrome 67). Chrome never directly supported the FIDO U2F JavaScript API, but rather shipped a component extension called cryptotoken… U2F and Cryptotoken are firmly in maintenance mode and have encouraged sites to migrate to the Web Authentication API for the last two years”

In other recent Google Chrome news, Google is introducing a new battery saving feature to the browser, which will help you keep you mobile devices powered for longer.