Chrome

There are a few things that can ruin an otherwise ideal web browsing experience. Malicious and misbehaving ads are the ones blamed most of the time but pages that load too slowly also waste your time and patience. Often, people will immediately presume it's either the connection or their device that's causing the slow experience but websites might also be unoptimized for today's browsers and use cases. That's why Google is planning on labeling sites that regularly load slowly so that you know that it's them and not you that's the problem.

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Virtual reality and even augmented reality seem to have taken a backseat to other tech news of late but that may be partly due to the growing maturity of the technologies. In other words, they're no longer as groundbreaking or as odd as they were at the start. That said, VR and especially AR are still pretty much out of reach of the majority of users and even developers, which is why Google is heavily pushing for the wide adoption of WebXR standards that are coming to Chrome starting with version 79 beta.

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Given how it profits from ads, it's almost ironic that Google is pushing technologies and features in Chrome seem to block ads. The truth is that Google is only after misbehaving and malicious ads so that users will eventually develop a level of trust for good ads. When it comes to misbehaving ads, none can be more debilitating to a computer than a "heavy" ad that consumes CPU cycles and battery life. That's why Chrome's next move is to offer a heavy-handed option to prevent these heavy ads from loading in the first place.

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Browser makers are implementing features that prevent sites from tracking users through various technologies, particularly encryption in HTTPS and TLS. Hackers of the dark kind, however, love to play this game of cat and mouse with security experts and software developers. A particularly notorious group hailing from Russia is proving that by turning the tables on browser makers. They are using the very same technologies Chrome and Firefox use for secure browsing, these hackers are modifying these web browsers on the fly to keep tabs on users and circumvent those privacy features.

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As the company with the biggest presence and influence on the Internet, Google has taken it upon itself to make the Web a safer place. From misbehaving ads to insecure pages, Google has used its Chrome web browser to steer developers and administrators towards more industey best practices. Google boasts that Chrome users spend 90% of their time on secure HTTPS pages but soon it will be tightening the noose on remaining insecure content by blocking them completely starting next year.

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Duplex is one of Google's most interesting, and sometimes most worrying, products to be revealed in recent years. It combines a few key Google technologies, including Google Assistant, Search and Knowledge Graph, language processing, and, of course, machine learning. When it first came out, it was at the service of those trying to book restaurants or even services. Now Duplex is preparing to help smartphone users book movie tickets but, this time, without even saying a word.

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Google is expected to launch a new Pixel-branded Chromebook in just a few weeks and those vying for that device will have a shiny new Chrome OS release waiting for them. Of course, all Chromebook owners will be able to enjoy the new stable release of Chrome OS 77, though some might have features unavailable to older devices. With the latest release, Chrome OS is delivering features that makes the honestly odd operating system not only more accessible but also more productive.

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Many people live in their browsers to the point that having 30 or more tabs open at the same time, some of them might even be days old. And that's on just one device, with some people these days owning at least a phone in addition to a computer. In other words, managing browser tabs can be quite the mess and Google is finally giving Chrome users a bit of help with new features that won't exactly reduce the number of tabs you open but at least make them more manageable.

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Security flaws are never a good thing to encounter, but when those flaws can potentially compromise a password manager, that's when things get particularly alarming. LastPass has notified users of a flaw with some of its browser extensions which may have allowed certain passwords to be revealed. The good news is that the flaw has already been patched out and that users would have needed to carry out a specific set of actions for their passwords to be compromised.

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We're now a couple of days out from the launch of World of Warcraft Classic, and unfortunately, the insanely long queue times don't seem to be getting any better. Players are facing 6+ hour queue times just to get into some of the more popular WoW Classic realms, and though Blizzard has added more servers in the time since launch, it doesn't seem to be helping the problem much.

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Almost all the major browsers these days have an incognito or private browsing mode. This offers users some peace of mind to go anywhere they like without fear of web sites tracking them to serve them ads. At least that's the theory but in practice, there might be other ways sites and even ISPs from knowing your activities. It turns out, there might even be ways for sites to know whether you're browsing Incognito or not and Google is putting an end to that in Chrome.

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Google is adding a play/pause button to Chrome that will greatly simplify media control for users. The new feature has appeared in the Chrome Canary distribution, revealing a button located near the URL bar that, when clicked, retrieves media that is currently available to play and pause in a tab. The button supports both video and audio content and works across multiple tabs when applicable.

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