Chrome 100 is available: what’s new?

Fourteen years after its launch, the Navigator Chromium celebrating its 100^and version, and it is valid for all platforms, whether on desktop or mobile ! Quickly becoming the number 1 browser, Chrome now weighs 70% of the market share, leaving crumbs to Edge, Safari and firefox. That is to say if each update is an event and for this 100^and version, Google did it right.

First, there is a new logo. The change is subtle, but it’s a first in eight years. In fact, some shadows and some shades of colors have disappeared, and so it’s a more flattened and contrasting logo. Depending on the operating systems, the logo will have some variations.

Goodbye data saver

Then, at the heart of the engine of its android version, Google will abandon its data saver, the “Lite Mode” (or Simplified Mode). This function was useful on mobile to limit data consumption with a compression 60% of the data. Google has found this to be less and less of a problem regardless of country, and the firm will start shutting down servers which were responsible for handling data compression instead of your connection. Always on androidthe New Tab page also allows you to switch to Discover or its feeds RSS.

Another evolution at the very heart of the browser, the evolution of the User Agent which passes on three digits instead of two digits. A priori, Google corrected the possible bugs detected during the release of the various beta versions, and there will be fewer incompatibilities with certain servers.

If you use Chrome to launch presentations, the browser now handles the multi-screen. Google gives some examples to understand its usefulness. So this APIs investment of Windows multi-screen allows you to list the screens connected to your computer and place windows on specific screens. The apps image editors can place various editing tools in precisely positioned windows. Virtual desktops can display market trends in multiple windows, each of which can be viewed in full-screen mode. Finally, slideshow applications can display speaker notes on the internal main screen and the presentation on a projector external.

Nearly 30 security fixes

We also note the return of the mute in one click of a tab. Ideal when a loud ad plays while listening to music or watching a movie in another tab. However, this function is not activated by default, and it will be necessary to “tweak” to activate it. In the address field, enter this command: chrome://flags/#enable-tab-audio-muting.

As usual, this 100^and version brings its share of fixes: 28 in total, of which 9 fix critical vulnerabilities. Just for safety, it is imperative to install this new version. To do this, simply click on Aidthen on About Google Chrome. Here, the browser downloads the update, and when it’s done, just click on Revive. When Chrome restarts, a page shows what’s new in Chrome 100.

Why the arrival of Chrome 100 and Firefox 100 is shaking the internet

Expected respectively at the end of March and the beginning of May, the Chrome 100 and Firefox 100 browsers could cause major malfunctions to the point that certain sites and various services, among the most popular, would no longer be able to be displayed. Explanations.

Posted on 02/18/2022 by Fabrice Auclert

Updated almost monthly firefox and Chromium will soon celebrate their 100^and version. Currently, Firefox is at its 97^and version, while Chrome has already passed the milestone of 98^and version. Which means that at the current rate, in the spring, both will blow out their 100 candles. Barring any setbacks, it’s scheduled for March 29 for Chrome, and May 3 for firefox.

However, it will not necessarily be a party for some site editors… Indeed, Bleeping Computer reports that Mozilla has already anticipated this move to version 100, and the problem is that some of the most popular sites no longer work! And not least since our colleagues report that Yahoo! is no longer displayed, just like the Eurosport player and Slack. Instead, an error message explaining that the browser used is not supported by the site. The full list of bugs is available at this page.

A three-digit problem

The reason for this hiccup compared with that of the year 2000 bug ? This three-digit number: 100. Indeed, when you access a website with a browser, from a computer, a tablet or a mobile, the server needs to identify it to correctly display the site. This is the function User Agent (AU). It detects the browser editor (Mozilla, Safari, Opera…), its rendering engine (Apple Webkit, Gecko) and therefore its version.

Depending on the “identity card” of the browser, the server returns the most suitable version of the website. For example, if you are surfing from mobile, the server will display a mobile-optimized version, not a thumbnail version of the desktop version. The problem is that this function was not designed for three-digit numbers.

Incidentally, it wasn’t originally designed for two-digit numbers either, and when browsers first hit version 10 a little over 12 years ago, many problems had been discovered, and quickly corrected. At the house of firefox, as with Chrome, we therefore anticipated the problem and many tests are in progress; on the side of Google, we assure that most of the malfunctions have been corrected. But, as some remain, it is necessary to find an unstoppable parade.

Two parades planned

So each browser’s developers have a plan B as Mozzilla writes at his blog. At Chrome, it consists of adding an indicator to set the version to 99 and report the real major version number in the so-called “minor” part of the string User Agent. Virtually, it would be version 99.100, while waiting to find a permanent solution.

On the Firefox side, the strategy is different since you can correct, on the fly, the site that is not displayed. Basically, when the server fails to render with version 100, the renderer automatically switches to version 99.

And Edge in all this? Like the browser Microsoft is based on Chromium, the same engine used in Chromiumit will also be affected by this bug, and unless corrected by then, it could therefore upgrade to version 99.100 to avoid any problem.