Google has released Chrome 79 with a number of enhanced security features and improvements for lower CPU usage.
On the security front, when you type your credentials into a website, Chrome will now warn you if your username and password have been compromised in a data breach, and suggest that you change them everywhere they were used.
Google first introduced this technology earlier this year as the Password Checkup extension. In October it became a part of the Password Checkup in Google Account settings, and now it has evolved to offer warnings as you browse the web in Chrome.
In addition to password warnings, Chrome has brought its anti-phishing protections to desktop. Google's Safe Browsing maintains a list of unsafe sites on the web that refreshes every 30 minutes, but Google found that some phishing sites were slipping through that 30-minute window, either by quickly switching domains or by hiding from Google's crawlers.
To counter this, the desktop phishing protection is real-time, and should warn users when visiting malicious sites in 30 percent more cases. Google is rolling out this protection to everyone with the "Make searches and browsing better" setting enabled in Chrome.
Chrome 79 also introduces automatic tab freezing, which aims to reduce the browser's CPU usage, especially when lots of tabs are open. With automatic tab freezing, Chrome pauses any tabs that have been in the background for a while so that they don't load content or do anything else that could tax the system.
Users will still be able to play audio in a backgrounded tab, but if there's no interaction with a tab for a while then Chrome will freeze it until the user returns to it.
Google Chrome for Mac is a free download available directly from Google's servers. Google Chrome for iOS is a free download for iPhone and iPad available on the App Store. [Direct Link]
29 comments
On January 24, 1984, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the first Macintosh at Apple's annual shareholder's meeting in Cupertino, California, debuting the new computer equipped with a...
The Wall Street Journal today published a profile of Tony Blevins, Apple's vice president of procurement, providing an inside look at Apple's corporate culture and what Blevins does for the...
Apple today overhauled its Apple jobs website, introducing a new look and a new video in an effort to better recruit employees. The updated video on the site features the different Apple logo designs...
Apple is preparing to release a third season of its ongoing show "Carpool Karaoke: The Series," with the new trailer shared this morning on YouTube.
"Carpool Karaoke: The...
Apple today announced the launch of a new Apple Watch Connected program that should benefit both gyms and gym-goers.
The program will reward gym-goers for using an Apple Watch to track their...
As noted in our coverage yesterday of the latest Safari Technology Preview 99, Apple has removed all support for Adobe Flash. Safari Technology Preview is basically a beta of the next version of...
Google researchers discovered multiple security flaws in Apple's Safari web browser that let users' browsing habits be tracked despite Apple's Intelligent Tracking Prevention feature.
...
Apple today seeded the third betas of upcoming iOS and iPadOS 13.3.1 updates to developers, one week after seeding the second betas and more than a month after the release of iOS 13.3 with...
