Chrome 70 released with the improved Google Account login system

Google today released Chrome 70, the latest version of its browser. The most anticipated addition to today's version is a new Chrome Control Panel option that allows users to control the behavior of the browser when they connect to an account. Google.

Google added this new setting after the company was charged last month with secretly logging users to their Chrome browser accounts each time they logged in to a Google website.

Many users misinterpreted this move as Google secretly synchronized their browsing history behind their backs. Google has refused to synchronize user data without their specific consent, but the company has been heavily criticized by the media and by its user base.

The new setting added in Chrome 70 calls "Allow Chrome Login" and is enabled by default. If users leave this option enabled, Chrome 70 will behave like Chrome 69 and whenever a user logs in to Gmail or YouTube, it will also be logged into the Chrome Sync account at the same time.

Users can turn off this setting and Chrome will behave as it did before Chrome 69 was released, which irritated most users. In this case, they will be able to connect to a Google website without automatically logging in to their Chrome Sync account.

In addition, Google has also launched a new user interface to view the "sync status" of a Chrome Sync account. This change was also made after last month's critics when users said it was hard to know when Google was actively syncing its data.

According to the new user interface, users will see "No Sync" or "Synchronize To" above their account name, which will allow them to easily determine if their browsing data is being sent to Google's servers.

But these two features were added at the last minute to counter a media scandal last month and are not the only things added to Chrome 70. Google engineers have been working for months on other improvements more legitimate and long-awaited. Chrome 70 includes a full load of other features.

For example, Chrome is now shipped with the final version of TLS 1.3. Chrome had been supporting TLS 1.3 releases for years, but the browser now supports the final version of the standard, which was approved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) earlier this year, in March.

Chrome 70 also includes two Web authentication API updates, which will now allow developers to support authentication via the macOS TouchID sensor and the fingerprint sensor. d & # 39; Android.

Web Bluetooth, an API that allows websites to communicate via the GATT with Bluetooth devices selected by the nearby user, is now also available for Chrome under Windows 10. Web Bluetooth support has been delivered for the first time with Chrome 56 last year, but only for Android, ChromeOS and macOS.

Google has also changed the way Chrome handles AppCache, a legacy system for locally storing website / application data. From Chrome 70, websites will not be able to set or retrieve AppCache data unless they do so over HTTPS, in a secure environment.

Another important change in Chrome's operation is a recent change to prevent websites from intercepting users in full-screen mode. From Chrome 70, when a website displays a / popup dialog box, Chrome exits fullscreen mode. This will help in situations where novice or non-technical users can access a popup / popup box displayed behind the full-screen mode, which also prevents them from leaving fullscreen mode.

Chrome 70 is also the first version of the browser to support the new AV1 video codec.

In addition, Google also organizes an experiment for the form detection API. This API allows Chrome to detect and identify faces, barcodes, and text contained in webcam images or streams.

Google indicates that the form detection API can perform the heavy IT operations required for such tasks without adversely affecting browser performance. Users and developers can sign up for a trial here.

Regarding extensions, from Chrome 70, Google offers users the ability to give extensions permissions per site, for security purposes. In this way, users can limit intrusive permissions to privacy to one or two sites and not grant them access to all of their data.

In addition, Chrome 70 may also limit extensions to a user's click, which means that the extension will not run on a page until the user clicks on it. a button or menu option from Chrome. This feature was announced two weeks ago as part of a broader set of security enhancements for the Chrome Web Store ecosystem.

Chrome 70 also includes fixes for 23 security issues, including two serious issues, a Sandbox escape caused by Chrome's AppCache feature, and a remote code execution vulnerability in Chrome's JavaScript engine, V8.

Many changes have also been made to Chrome's underlying Web APIs and CSS features. Detailed information about developer-driven changes is available in this Chromium blog post.

With the version of today, the new version number of Chrome is 70.0.3538.67. The complete change log is available here (slow loading link).

The only thing missing in today 's version – or, better yet, always present – is the support for Symantec SSL certificates. Chrome 70 was the version in which Chrome was supposed to be wary of Symantec certificates, but they did very well when ZDNet tried to access the sites that used them.

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