Google’s next version of Chrome preps more Material You goodness and video conferencing improvements
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Google Chrome is the predominant browser these days, and it’s available on pretty much every device in every form factor. The company keeps things running smoothly with four-weekly updates. Some of these bring bigger changes while others are focused on adding new web technologies for developers to take advantage of. Chrome 109 brings enhancements in both areas, as you can look forward to more Material You progress and some new developer options.
Chrome 109: Secure payment confirmation
As Google announced on the Chrome developer blog, the company is experimenting with a new proposed web standard. The so-called Secure Payment Confirmation (SPC) makes it possible to authenticate yourself with your biometric screen unlock when you want to make a purchase. If supported by your bank or credit card provider, this could allow you to skip the usual confirmation process that you need to go through to make clear it’s really you making this purchase, and not someone with their hands on your card details.
The system needs to be supported by both banks and merchants, so it might take quite some time until we see it in action. If you’re with a small credit union, you might never get to enjoy this, so don’t hold your breath just yet. SPC is already available on macOS and Windows, and it’s only now coming to Android as part of Chrome version 109.
Chrome 109: Screen-sharing improvements for video conferencing
Sharing your screen during a video conference can be daunting. You first need to clean up your desktop to make it look like you don’t have 10,000 files just sitting there, and even then you could have some private details on your screen that you would not like call participants to see. That’s where the Screen Capture API comes in, which Google describes as an option to “let the user select a screen or portion of a screen (such as a window) to capture as a media stream.” With this beta, the company is further improving this API, which is supposed to make it even easier for you to make use of it and preserve your privacy.
Google describes a new Conditional Focus option that makes it possible for developers to decide whether or not windows shared with an audience should be focused as soon as they’re selected for sharing. Alternatively, web developers can ask to keep the capturing page in focus. There is also the option to suppress local audio playback. This will make it easier to share your screen while you’re gathered in a room with colleagues who are in the same video conference as you, as it avoids possible audio interference. Developers will be able to prompt you to make a decision how you want to deal with your audio output in these cases.
Chrome 109: Preparing for a world without third-party cookies
The browser industry is preparing for a life without third-party cookies. This is great news for privacy, because it will limit how well advertising cookies can track you across the web. However, the change might also change or break how websites currently interact with each other, like the Disqus comment system here on Android Police, which relies on a third-party cookie to keep you logged in.
Google wants to work around some of these problems with First-Party Sets, an updated version of which is now coming to Chrome, as announced on the Chrome developer blog. The company has updated a proposal that will make it possible for related sites to share the same data. Here, sites need to make clear to the browser that they belong to each other, like when they consist of the same organization with different top-level domains or addresses (think google.com, google.co.uk, and more). These set members will then be able to share some data among each other and request cookie access from others. For the browser to know which sites belong together, Google will use a publicly hosted Github repository that web developers will be able to submit to.
Chrome 109: Material You and other interface work
Google already started a lot of work on more Material You and Material Design 3 elements in Chrome 108. As far as we can tell, these additions still aren’t live by default and have to be accessed via flags for now. If you would like to see a refreshed look for the address box suggestions, you need to activate the chrome://flags/#omnibox-modernize-visual-update flag.
On desktop systems like macOS and Windows, you can also get a glimpse at Material You theming when you enable the chrome://flags/#customize-chrome-color-extraction flag. This makes the interface automatically switch colors based on the background image you chose for your new tab page.
Chrome 109: Download and install
If you’ve already have the Chrome beta installed, Chrome 109 will roll out to you on your device soon, no matter what platform you’re on. If not, you can get the Chrome beta on the Play Store for your phone or head to the Chrome website to get it for your desktop computer.
