Google launched 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 stopped supporting the software. On January 12, Adobe also began blocking content playback within Flash as part of its last nail in the coffin.
Google is not alone in its move to remove Flash. The decision was taken in conjunction with Adobe and other browser manufacturers, such as Apple, Mozilla and Microsoft, in 2017. Apple and Mozilla also stopped supporting Flash, and Microsoft is scheduled to end support later this month.
Currently, according to the technology research web site W3Techs, only 2.2% of today’s sites use Flash code, a figure that fell from 28.5% recorded in early 2011.
Speaking at a conference in February 2018, Parisa Tabriz, director of engineering at Google, said the percentage of Chrome daily users who loaded at least one page with Flash content per day dropped from about 80% in 2014 to less than 8% in early 2018, a figure that has probably continued to plummet since then.
FTP support is also over
But the current version of Chrome 88 also comes with other features, discontinuations, bug fixes and security patches. One of the most important changes is the removal of support for accessing FTP links (ftp: //) within Chrome, a process that started in Chrome 86:
- Chrome 86 – FTP is still enabled by default for most users, but turned off for pre-launch channels (Canary and Beta) and will be experimentally turned off for one percent of stable users. In this version, you can reactivate it from the command line using the –enable-ftp command line flag or the –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 unsafe downloads
In Chrome 88, Google also completed a plan started last year. With today’s release, Chrome now blocks certain HTTP file downloads.
Cases where Chrome will stop downloads include when a user is accessing a web page that begins with HTTPS, but the file is downloaded from a URL that begins with HTTP. Chrome considers these cases as “mixed” and “unsafe” downloads and, starting with Chrome 88, will block them completely for the protection of users.
Image: ZDNet
Other changes
In addition, Chrome 88 has also removed support for the old DTLS 1.0 protocol, used within Chrome as part of its WebRTC support.
In addition, Chrome 88 will also include a source test to detect the idle state. When enabled by the user, the source test will allow websites to request the ability to see if users are idle in 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 permission drop-down panel, the UI through which websites request permissions to access various user systems, such as microphone, file system and others.
Users will also be able to search in all tabs opened in Chrome 88.
In addition, Chrome 88 also drops support for OS X 10.10 (OS X Yosemite). Going forward, Chrome on the Mac will require OS X 10.11 or later.
Chrome 88 will also block tab crash attacks, as previously reported here by ZDNet, and the browser will also strongly accelerate JavaScript timer operations on background tabs to improve performance and reduce CPU and RAM usage.
Another important change is that Chrome 88 now also officially supports extensions created with Manifest v3 extension rules. Extensions built into this controversial new system can now also be uploaded to the Chrome Web Store.
And last but not least, isolated words inserted in the URL bar will not be treated as intranet locations by default in corporate versions of Chrome 88.
But we’ve only touched on the main features of Chrome 88. Users who want to know more about the other features added or removed in this new version of Chrome can check the following links for more information:
- Chrome security updates are detailed here [not yet live].
- Changes to the Chromium open source browser are detailed here.
- Chrome developer API depreciations and removals are listed here.
- Chrome updates for Android are detailed here [not yet live].
- Chrome updates for iOS are detailed here.
- Changes to Chrome’s JavaScript V8 engine are available here.
- Changes to Chrome DevTools are listed here.