Another month, another launch of Chrome: after the normal beta testing period, Google has just started releasing version 88 of its browser and there are some significant improvements and changes on board. The launch enhances some password protection features and paves the way for more web apps on the Play Store, but it also says goodbye to FTP connections and places the final nail in the Flash Player coffin.
Password protection
As we have already seen, Chrome 88 comes with a number of new password protection features. In addition to checking your saved passwords for breaches, the browser now also warns you when you want to save a password that is considered too weak to be secure. If you have to change your saved passwords, a new button in the integrated password manager will now allow you to do this for the first supported services. On Android, biometric authentication for automatic password filling is planned to arrive soon.
Support for manifest V3
Chrome 88 is the first version to fully support Google’s controversial new Manifest V3. The main change in Manifest V3 is the discontinuation of the webRequest API in favor of the declarativeNetRequest API. Instead of allowing extensions to examine and filter all network requests that reach Chrome, which is not the safest option for privacy and security, the declarativeNetRequest API only allows extensions to provide Chrome with a list of filters that the browser itself analyzes. Developers are not happy with the change because extensions can only apply a maximum of 30,000 rules in Chrome 88, while some of the most common blacklists, like EasyList, have more than 60,000 rules. Google has already promised to increase that number to 300,000 in Chrome 89, but that may still not be enough to display more than a few blacklists at once.
Google will begin approving and submitting the first extensions using the new manifest after the launch of Chrome 88. At the moment, Google has not communicated the inevitable shutdown date for Manifest V2 and the webRequest API. Other manufacturers of Chromium-based browsers, like Vivaldi and Opera, have pledged to continue supporting the older API.
Read more about Manifest V3 in our coverage here.
Play Store billing for web apps
Chrome 88 adds support for in-app purchases from the Play Store for web apps as part of the payment request API. On Android, this allows sites to access the Google Play billing library. This is important for developers who want to monetize their web apps on the Play Store, as their policies prohibit in-app payments using other billing methods. Developers interested in implementing this can find more details here.
Suspension of use of Flash and FTP
This has been going on for years and Chrome 88 is finally the first version of Chrome to remove all remnants of Flash Player. In the early days of the Internet, when HTML, Javascript and other web tools were not as versatile as they are today, Flash Player was a fantastic plugin that allowed video playback, many browser games and more. But with the emergence of certain phones without Flash (clear your throat iPhone) and more powerful web tools, Flash Player has increasingly fallen from favor as it is a slow and resource-consuming security risk. Adobe has also removed the plug from its tool and has been blocking playback of Flash content since January 12, 2021.
Likewise, all support for FTP has been removed from Chrome, following the discontinuation of the feature in Chrome 80. FTP is still a widely used protocol for accessing and transferring files over the internet, but web browsers have always been poorly equipped for browsing files. There are much better client programs for FTP connections, like open source FileZilla.
Incognito screenshots
Incognito screenshots work as expected in Chrome 88.
For a long time, Chrome has not allowed you to take screenshots when browsing incognito to prevent you from saving certain potentially infringing content, but there are circumstances when you want to retain information from anonymous tabs. This is finally possible with Chrome 88, thanks to a new # incognito-screenshot flag that brings back screenshot support in Incognito mode when activated. It is not clear when the functionality will be implemented for everyone by default.
Tab search
If you’re like me, you’ll have dozens of tabs open during a normal browsing session and that’s where tab search can be useful. The feature has been available on Chrome OS for a while now and is finally making the leap to other desktop operating systems with version 88. You must enable it at chrome: // flags under # enable-tab-search (copy and paste the link address in the address bar). After restarting the browser, you will find a new icon on the right side of the tab strip, which you can click to see an overview of all your open tabs, including a search bar. You can also access it with Ctrl + Shift + A.
Tab search is limited to desktop browser versions for now, and we don’t know whether Google will expand it to mobile devices.
Tutorial videos
Google is working to add tutorial videos to your browser. At the moment, you can activate them using the # video-tutorials flag, but at the moment, they only consist of placeholder videos from the Google Go app. They are visible as cards on the new tab page, among the most visited sites and the Discover feed.
The titles already suggest the content we can expect in the future: there are “How to use Chrome”, “How to download content for later”, “How to search with Chrome”, “How to search with your voice” and “How to use it incognito. “Videos are limited to Android, and Google will presumably only activate tutorials for everyone when appropriate content is available.
Other changes
In addition to these major tweaks to Chrome, there are a few minor changes:
- Chrome has long supported dark themes, including Microsoft’s on Windows 10, but some quirks have never been addressed in the desktop operating system until now. The dark mode finally darkens the scrollbars properly in more places, such as Settings, History, Favorites and other internal sites.
- Chrome 88 drops support for macOS 10.10 Yosemite and now requires macOS 10.11 El Capitan or later.
- Chrome previously added the left and right buttons to navigate the tabs, and a new # scrollable-tabstrip-buttons flag is available that keeps the buttons visible at all times.
The # scrollable-tabstrip-buttons resource flag.
- Google’s Legacy Browser Support extension, which allowed IT managers to set rules to automatically open other browsers when certain pages were loaded, is no longer supported as of Chrome 88. Most of the extension’s functionality is now directly integrated with Chrome .
- Links that open in a new tab ( tags with “target = _blank”) automatically behave as if “rel = noopener” was defined. This will help prevent so-called nap attacks.
- WebXR experiences (AR and VR content) can now dynamically scale your content, which can improve frame rates in some cases.
- Web applications can optionally enable a new feature called Source Isolation, which increases the security of a page in exchange for certain unavailable APIs.
- A new # destroy-profile-on-browser-close flag is available for “[releases] memory and other resources when the last browser window is closed, “instead of by default, which happens when the Chrome browser is closed completely.
- A new # permission-predictions flag is available and changes to a less intrusive interface for page permissions, when Chrome predicts that you are less likely to grant this permission (for example, a website you never visited before requesting notifications).
- DevTools (Ctrl + Shift + C) are about 37% faster thanks to JavaScript improvements. There are also new CSS angle viewing tools for debugging angles, emulation for unsupported image types, storage quota size simulation in the Storage panel, and much more for developers.
- The addEventListener class has a new AbortSignal option to make it easier to close EventListeners when it is no longer needed.
- Chrome 88 controls chained JavaScript timers for hidden pages, which will reduce CPU usage and use less of your precious battery.
- Support for Web Components v0 has been removed from Chrome.
- Google now allows developers to enable or disable pointer acceleration and other underlying platform modifications. This is particularly valuable for games.
- A new class of aspect ratio CSS properties allows developers to define proportions for any element, not just images.
Download
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