The Chrome team has started rolling out a new major build of the browser for Windows, Mac and Linux. Chrome build 56.0.2924.76 has a long list of security fixes and enhancements but also has an impressive list of new features along with it. In all there are 21 specific issues addressed in the release notes, 7 of which were considered high priority. As is the usual case, Google hasn’t released all the details of what was addressed. They will do that after a majority of users have upgraded to the new build.
In this build, full HTML5 is supported which means the end of Adobe Flash plug-in for everyone. You should get a prompt when you first open up the browser about Flash and the idea here is to make it a better browsing experience for everyone. And safer.
Continuing the security theme, non-secure sites will now be highlighted in the browser bar. This will be for sites that collect sensitive data so you as
Chrome Browser for Windows
an end user know that the connection between you and the site is not encrypted. HTTPS is something Google is seriously pushing for the web in general to adopt.
The update to Chrome for your laptop or desktop is rolling out now and you can always force a check by typing in chrome://help and have it manually check and apply the update.
The big question for Chrome OS users is when Chrome 56 will hit those devices. That should be soon, perhaps this week but more likely next week. While it will have all of these updates too, the big news for Chromebooks is that build 56 is expected to enable Android app support across the board.
