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Chrome

Chrome 81 Arrives With Web NFC Origin Trial, AR Features, and Mixed Images Autoupgraded To HTTPS (venturebeat.com) 46

Posted by msmash from the browser-updates dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Google today launched Chrome 81 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. Chrome 81 includes an Origin Trial of Web NFC for mobile, early Augmented Reality support, mixed images autoupgraded to HTTPS, TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 deprecated, and more developer features. With over 1 billion users, Chrome is both a browser and a major platform that web developers must consider. In fact, with Chrome's regular additions and changes, developers have to stay on top of everything available -- as well as what has been deprecated or removed. Among other things, Chrome 81 removes the "discard" element and FTP support.
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Chrome 81 Arrives With Web NFC Origin Trial, AR Features, and Mixed Images Autoupgraded To HTTPS More

Chrome 81 Arrives With Web NFC Origin Trial, AR Features, and Mixed Images Autoupgraded To HTTPS

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  • Trying to stay ahead of Firefox (Score:3)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Wednesday April 08, 2020 @02:10PM (#59922018)
    With Firefox 75 out, Google had to up their version number to keep their lead.

  • Looks like they rolled back the samesite update (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday April 08, 2020 @02:13PM (#59922020)
    see here [chromium.org]. It was (naturally) breaking a lot of sites and they didn't want to cause problems right now. Good call.

  • Buh-bye FTP (Score:4)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Wednesday April 08, 2020 @02:21PM (#59922036)

    Google has decided you shall go the way of Gopher. We'll miss you.

    • All my FTP access is either done through a file explorer with FTP support or a dedicate FTP app, sometimes scripted.
      • Using a WWW browser for FTP is convenient for transferring (without using Google Drive) files to users who are reluctant to install an FTP client and do not know FTP commands to use at a shell prompt.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Who uses a browser for FTP anyway?

        The majority of people who are given an FTP-link for downloading something does.

        All my FTP access is either done through a file explorer with FTP support or a dedicate FTP app, sometimes scripted.

        You, like me, are in the minority in this. You, unlike me, were unaware of this fact, but now you know.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by arekm ( 1490367 )
      They didn't remove whole FTP support. For example ftp://ftp.icm.edu.pl [icm.edu.pl] works just fine in google chrome 81.

  • We need to save the browser (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Wednesday April 08, 2020 @02:29PM (#59922062)
    With Firefox having a new BonziBuddy address bar and Chrome having a dominating market share there isn't much hope left for the browser. Say what you want about Internet Explorer but it had an intuitive UI back in they day. We are at a point where everyone hates the browsers out there yet we don't hate it enough to do something about it. The same goes for a systemd replacement.
    • I have to admit that the reason for the popularity of Chrome escapes me.

      • Re:We need to save the browser (Score:4, Insightful)

        by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday April 08, 2020 @03:19PM (#59922370)

        I have to admit that the reason for the popularity of Chrome escapes me.

        It works, everyone who doesn't have an iPhone has a Google account. Everyone including people with iPhones use Google sites and get constant advertisements for it. Combine all of that with the fact that pretty much no one really gives a shit about their browser and you end up with people using Chrome.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Chrome is actually good. People seem to forget how much browsers sucked before or provided real competition and actual massive improvements.

          One process per tab was huge. It brought isolation and sandboxing but it also altered the fundamental concept of a browser. It wasn't just a document display app, it treated tabs like an OS treats applications.

          It was very fast too. Faster than even the benchmarks suggested because it could cope with a lot of heavy tabs.

          Firefox has caught up again but lack of a decent mo

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by alantus ( 882150 )
          The only reason I keep using it is for the integrated translator.

        • It works,

          Decently. Far from perfectly.

          everyone who doesn't have an iPhone has a Google account

          Yes, I have one. I use it mainly as a catch-all for junk mail.

          Everyone including people with iPhones use Google sites and get constant advertisements for it. Combine all of that with

          Nope. Wrong. I, among many others, avoid Google sites like the plague. And I actively refrain from using their services. I don't use Google Docs unless that's the only place somebody has posted a document I need. I don't use Google Hangouts unless that's the only way someone will contact me. Etc.

          the fact that pretty much no one really gives a shit about their browser and you end up with people using Chrome.

          Well, a lot of people don't, that's for certain. And it's included in Android so there's that.

          But I have disabled it on m

          • Decently. Far from perfectly.

            Define what you mean by perfectly, and do so in terms of Chrome features which are broken or websites which don't render. Because remember you as a Slashdot user have far higher user requirements than 99.9% of the world, and the topic was "popularity of Chrome"

            IE6 proved quite conclusively that the large portion of the world will happily use something incredibly horrible with the only criteria being that the web page works. And in that regard it's hard to say that Chrome doesn't do that "perfectly".

            Yes, I have one. I use it mainly as a catch-all for junk mail.

            See. So

            • You may avoid it like the plague, yet you have an account.

              Yes... as I clearly stated: for junk mail.

              You admitted that you will use Docs if someone sends you something and Hangouts if someone needs to contact you.

              The Hangouts thing has happened exactly twice. Prospective clients. Who, by the way, gave me an immediate negative impression right off the bat by insisting on meeting up using Hangouts. I prefer even Skype to Hangouts.

              And by the way: Hangouts failed for videoconferencing. It kept disconnecting. I had to resort to using the phone... so Hangouts turned out to be completely useless, as we could have just talked on the phone without it. But I've used Skype, Facetime

            • Well, a lot of people don't, that's for certain.

              The statistics say otherwise.

              No, they do not. The statistics say a majority use Chrome, but they also say a lot of people (far fewer, but still a lot) do not.

              Also Android is one of the few places that Chrome does not have a popularity advantage since it is not shipped by default on most handsets.

              It was until relatively recently.

              Users love defaults. It's why Samsung Browser is so popular on Samsung devices, and why we just ran an article about Edge becoming more popular despite it's long history of actually breaking websites, which as I postulated above is one of the few things that is a red line for users.

              True, many users do love defaults. And I do admit -- freely and quite proudly -- that I am not one of those.

              I have a Samsung phone, and I think it's a great phone. But I do not use Samsung software for the most part, except for the camera. And even then, Open Camera does a much better job at some things.

              I think I have used the Samsung browser

      • Firefox (perceived) performance has been horrible for seemingly a decade now. Every time i click the orange button to cross-check something against chrome I regret it. Firefox used to have an edge as they were more efficient if you had more tabs open but that hasn't been the case for a long time now.
        • Have you checked it lately?

          I've used Firefox since it was (basically) Netscape, and it works fine for me. No noticeable lag versus Chrome.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nashv ( 1479253 )

        It is extremely performant, and not as much of a battery hog. I just moved from Firefox after using it since Phoenix 0.4 to Edge (chromium) on all my devices. I was wondering since the benchmarks don't show that much of a difference. But in the end , there is no doubt about it. The gap between Chromium and Firefox is very large. And it is ridiculously vast on mobile. Chromium on Android has performance that makes Firefox look like it is one of those "will Linux run on my VCR" projects.

        • I've noticed no such gap.

          People keep talking about it, but I don't see it on my setup (Firefox on an i7 Mac).

          • Maybe it is a Windows thing, or it shows up on low TDP processors. On an iMac, battery life is not an issue. But Firefox battery life issues on Mac laptops have been circulating all of last year. It is certainly there for most people. This is the likely reason that Edge (Chromium) which is *not* installed by default, has overtaken Firefox within 3 months of its release.

    • With Firefox having a new BonziBuddy address bar and Chrome having a dominating market share there isn't much hope left for the browser.

      That's non sequitur if I've ever heard one. What has Chrome's market share got to do with "saving the browser". It sounds like you have a very specific desire for a very specific feature. Even if your personal desires aren't met, the

      We are at a point where everyone hates the browsers out there

      You don't speak for me or most of the world. In fact I think you're personal opinion is causing complete blindness to the world around you. Not everyone thinks like you. You're still an individual.

      The same goes for a systemd replacement.

      Oh you're one of those couldn't RTFM guys I guess. That big shift to Devuan or BSD

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Browsers and init systems are not trivial. Even just contributing to a browser is a lot of work. Lots to learn, building the thing takes hours on average computers, any changes are a security and performance minefield.

      The old address bar is being ditched due to lack of maintainers. Maintaining it is a lot less work than building a whole new browser.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      So, use others. I still use SeaMonkey based on Firefox and Thunderbird.

  • What other purpose but more spying and invasive tracking by Google would NFC support for a web browser serve?

    • So then do not use google, or the internet ever. If you hate them, why use their inventions?

      I don't use the internet. Never have, never will.

      • So then do not use google, or the internet ever. If you hate them, why use their inventions?

        Since Google didn't invent the internet, one can quite happily use the internet while not using anything Google "invented".

        For that matter, Google didn't really invent Chrome... they forked something Apple initially developed - which, itself, was based on KDE's Konqueror.

  • NFC must suck (Score:3)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Wednesday April 08, 2020 @02:51PM (#59922154)

    Why is it that nobody has yet invented an NFC powered door lock that works off a smartwatch?

    Seems like an obvious thing, yet no smartwatch appears capable of it.

    • The problem is that there is no way to encrypt NFC communications at the moment. Though it has a much shorter range than Bluetooth, anyone within that range can read what you sent with nothing but a smartphone and the right app. Bluetooth can be encrypted on handshake (Not that any of the smart lock companies seem to be actually USING this ability right now!) and can be encrypted the entire time.

      • Then how do they use it for payments? Why not use something like that? I mean, can't it be augmented with bluetooth? Use NFC to wake up and then use bluetooth to confirm.

        • For payments, they gamble on the short official effective range for NFC (4-10cm) for security. The problem is, with specialized equipment, you can listen in on the signal from much further away (I've read a device that can read the communication 300 feet away!) than the protocol specification.

  • To kill all competitors. With accelerated development of "the web".
    Which, at this point, means Firefox.

    So vote with your installations.

  • OK so WTF is an Origin Trial?
  • personally, i recently switched to alternative browsers like brave or kingpin https://kingpinbrowser.com/ [kingpinbrowser.com] major browsers track every click of yours :-( yes, they write they improved security, but is it really so? canvas fingerprinting, tracking cookies, you can block them by default but they are not doing it.

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