Google released Google Chrome 99 Stable and Extended Stable on March 1, 2022 to the public. Both versions of the browser address 28 different security issues in previous versions of the web browser.
Chrome 99 is out now, but the rollout will take weeks to complete. Chrome users who want to update their browser sooner can do so on desktop versions by selecting Menu > Help > About Google Chrome or by loading chrome://settings/help directly.
Note: If Chrome doesn’t find the update when it’s loading the page, you can download the latest version of Chrome from Google to update it.
The official release notes reveal little about the changes in Chrome 99. While you can take a look at the log file, it’s not recommended to do so unless you have hours to spare.
The release notes mention 28 different security issues that are patched in Chrome 99. The highest severity rating is High, second highest after Critical.
Google publishes the list of externally reported issues only on the blog. None of the vulnerabilities appear to be actively exploited, as Google often mentions it.
The company’s platform status page lists 15 changes being tracked for version 99, but the list is developer-focused. One change, Convert Adopted Style Sheets to Use ObservableArray, appears to be controversial as Apple will not implement the change in Safari at this time. Google notes that Mozilla and Microsoft will also ship the implementation.
Chromium is the only shipped implementation of adoptStyleSheets. Gecko would like to submit this feature, but has been waiting for the resolution of this issue (FrozenArray vs. ObservableArray) to submit its implementation. This should unlock Gecko [1]. The Edge team supports this change [2]. WebKit remains skeptical [3] of this usefulness of this feature, despite the general agreement of the rest of the web components community [4]and support from the developer community [5][6][7]. So the interop risk is primarily that WebKit decides not to implement this feature.
The remaining changes affect:
- destination «paintworklet» for PaintWorklet
- Allow infinity, -infinity and NaN in CSS calc()
- Autocompletar and ShadowDOM
- CSS cascading layers
- HTMLInputElement showPicker()
- Handwriting recognition API
- International Enumeration API
- International locale information in ECMA402
- New Canvas 2D API
- Source private file system extension: AccessHandle
- Remove font-family -webkit-standard
- Replace GamepadList with sequence for navigator.getGamepads() return value
- Text emphasis properties without prefix
- Window controls overlay for installed desktop web apps
closing words
Most of these changes will come to all other Chromium-based browsers, including Microsoft Edge, Vivaldi, Brave, and Opera.
Now you: when do they update their browsers?
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