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Release: Google Chrome 56

Google Chrome Browser Logo: Blue gradient circle with a thick white outline and a larger circle behind it with red, yellow, and green trisection coloring from top to bottom left.

Google has released version 56 of its web browser, based on the open-source Chromium web browser. There were 51 security-related bug fixes and one security researcher nabbed over thirty-thousand dollars ($30,000) for reporting some particularly nasty cross-site scripting (XSS) issues in Blink, Chrome’s rendering engine.

Here are the other new and fixed features:

For Users

  • WebGL 2.0 Support
  • HTML5 by Default
    • For all users the browser will now attempt to load HTML5 content over Flash and will only fall-back to Flash when it is absolutely necessary
    • Around October of this year Flash will require the user to explicitly approve its use
  • Built-in FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) codec/support
  • The URL input bar now shows “Not Secure” next to the information icon for sites that are not encrypted and requesting username and passwords
  • Improved Bluetooth support via Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE) and the Web Bluetooth API
  • Page reloading up to 28% faster

For Developers

  • Added “system-ui” font-family value that uses the operating system’s (OS’s) default font
  • Network
    • Support added for Referrer-Policy (CSP referrer) header
    • reflected-xss header deprecated
  • CSS
    • background-image-repeat: space value support added
      • Fills background with repeated tiles but no so much that it goes outside the container and will “space out” the tiles equally
    • position: sticky value support added
      • Works as “relative” until it reaches a maximum value, then works as “fixed”
    • offset-rotate motion path property now supported
    • Scroll anchoring support added, new overflow-anchor  with possible values of auto or none (to disable)
      • Locks the browser to a specific element so that content reflows do not force the browser away from the anchor element as images & other content load
      • touch-action: pinch-zoom property support added
  • SVG
    • SVGElement.currentView, SVGElement.useCurrentView, and SVGViewSpec interface deprecated
  • JavaScript
    • Chrome will no longer fetch the src (source) property of <script>  tags with non-script MIME types (suggests using the link preload element instead)
    • Removed deprecated MediaStreamTrack.getSources()
    • Shadow DOM: Will now dispatch synthetic events when target and relatedTarget event property values are identical/same
    • Showing/hiding the URL bar will no longer affect the page size or elements with vh units
      • overlay with “extra at the top” rather than pushing content around
    • KeyboardEvent.isComposing read-only value which returns true after compositionstart event has fired but before compositionend has
    • MediaStream Image Capture now allows for taking images/video from attached camera/imaging devices
    • Fixed attached mouse on Android devices incorrectly firing TouchEvent instead of MouseEvent
    • Large images now allowed to be sent as notification content via Notification API
    • OPUS audio codec support
    • PaymentRequest.canMakePayment() returns true or false if a payment can be accepted via Payment Request API
    • Remote Playback API support added
      • Android only, desktop support will be added in a later version – desktops currently report no available playback devices even when there is at least one available
      • Can control external devices’ (like Smart TVs, Chromecasts, Rokus, etc.) media playback
    • Shaddow DOM: slotchange events are no longer re-fired at slot’s assignedSlot (correct odd behavior and comply with specification change)
    • Streams API: WriteableStream is now supported
    • Added ImageBitmapRenderingContext
      • Provides low-level context for rendering an image on Canvas
    • Document-level TouchEvents are now passive by default
    • Web Bluetooth API supported
    • WebGL 2 supported
    • WebAudio API
      • Added ConstantSourceNode
      • ChannelSplitterNode channelCount and channelCountMode are constant
      • PannerNode.rolloffFactor clamps to nominal range
      • Removed deprecated Doppler API
  • Security
    • Added early support for TLS 1.3
    • Removed various ECDSA TLS cyphers
    • SHA-1 certificates are no longer trusted
    • Touch scroll events no longer allow popups to be opened
    • window.prompt() no longer brings background/inactive tabs to the foreground/active state
      • Background tabs will just not display a prompt
  • DOM
    • Rare case-insensitive matches for <input> group name are no longer done
    • Non-white-space Unicode control characters are now rendered in compliance with the specification
    • Delay running rendering pipeline (including requestAnimationFrame requests) inside iframes until all stylesheets have loaded
    • Allow any element below the body to be defined as the root scroller (which allows hiding URL bar, generate overscroll glow, etc.) via document.rootScroller

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/01/google-chrome-56-flac-webgl-supprot

Chrome now reloads pages 28% faster

https://www.chromestatus.com/features#milestone%3D56

Jim

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