Google Chrome 88 released without Flash support, ending an era

Google released Chrome 88 today, permanently removing support for Adobe Flash Player and ending the Internet age.

Flash reached its official End of Life (EoL) on December 31, 2020, when Adobe officially discontinued support for the software. On January 12, Adobe also began blocking content from playing in Flash, as part of its final nail in the coffin.

Google is not alone in wanting to remove Flash. The decision was made with Adobe and other browser makers such as Apple, Mozilla, and Microsoft, in 2017. Apple and Mozilla also stopped supporting Flash, and Microsoft is expected to end support later this month. this.

Currently, according to the web technology survey site W3Techs, only 2.2% of current websites use Flash code, a number that has fallen from the 28.5% recorded in early 2011.

Speaking at a conference in February 2018, Parisa Tabriz, director of engineering at Google, said the percentage of daily Chrome users who loaded at least one page with Flash content per day has increased from ‘around 80% in 2014 to less than 8% in early 2018, a number that has likely continued to fall since.

FTP support is also gone

But the current version of Chrome 88 also includes other features, deprecations, bug fixes, and security fixes. One of the most significant changes is the removal of support for accessing FTP links (ftp: //) in Chrome, a process that started in Chrome 86:

• Chrome 86 – FTP is still enabled by default for most users, but disabled for pre-release channels (Canary and Beta) and will be disabled experimentally for 1% of stable users. In this version you can re-enable it from the command line using either the –enable-ftp command line indicator or –enable-features = FtpProtocol flag.
• Chrome 87 – FTP support will be disabled by default for fifty percent of users but can be enabled using the flags listed above.
• Chrome 88 – FTP support will be disabled.

Chrome now blocks mixed and insecure downloads

In Chrome 88, Google also completed a plan it started last year. With today’s release, Chrome now blocks some downloads of HTTP files.

Cases where Chrome will stop downloads include when a user goes to a web page that starts with HTTPS, but the file is downloaded from a URL that starts with HTTP. Chrome considers these instances to be “mixed” and “unsafe” downloads, and starting with Chrome 88 will block them completely for user protection.

Other changes

In addition to this, Chrome 88 also removed support for the older DTLS 1.0 protocol, which was used in Chrome as part of its WebRTC support.

In addition, Chrome 88 will also include an original test to detect the state of inactivity. When activated by the user, the original trial will allow websites to request the option to ask if users are inactive on a browser, allowing messaging apps to direct notifications to the best device.

For some Chrome 88 users, Google will also test a new user interface for the permissions rollout, the user interface through which websites request permissions to access various user systems, such as microphone, file system, etc.

Users will also be able to search all open tabs in Chrome 88.

Additionally, Chrome 88 is also removing support for OS X 10.10 (OS X Yosemite). Going forward, Chrome on Mac will require OS X 10.11 or later.

Chrome 88 will also block tab attacks, as previously reported here by ZDNet, and the browser will also severely slow JavaScript timer operations in background tabs to improve performance and reduce CPU and RAM usage. .

Another major change is that Chrome 88 now also officially supports extensions created with the Manifest v3 extension rules. Extensions based on this controversial new system can now also be downloaded from the Chrome Web Store.

Finally, single words entered in the URL bar will not be treated as intranet locations by default in enterprise versions of Chrome 88.

But we’ve only touched on the main features of Chrome 88. Users who want to learn more about the other features added or removed in this new version of Chrome can check out the following links for more information:

• Chrome security updates are detailed here [not yet live].
• The changes to the open source Chromium browser are detailed here.
• Chrome Developer API feature drops and removals are listed here.
• Chrome for Android updates are detailed here [not yet live].
• Chrome for iOS updates are detailed here.
• Changes to the Chrome V8 JavaScript engine can be found here.
• Changes to Chrome DevTools are listed here.