Google Chrome 54 launched for Mac, Windows, and Linux with exciting new features

Fariha Khan
October 13, 2016
763

Offering the bug and security fixes for the browser, now Chrome 54 is available on Mac, Windows, and Linux. While this release focuses on developers, the developments to how the browser manages YouTube embeds is worth mentioning as well.

On Desktop

On the desktop, Chrome will start redrafting embedded YouTube Flash players to use the HTML5 embed method. It will enhance security as well as performance considering that Chrome is all out to phase out Flash by the end of 2016. Support for custom elements and gears with the new V1 spec and a new BroadcastChannel API that gives websites the power to communicate with their own custom tabs in a better way include some other notable features.

On Android

Now android users can download web pages, videos, music and pictures that can be viewed offline. Saved pages will have an offline tag in the address bar which you can access using downloads manager which shows items in a sequence. With a new button on the top row of icons downloads start from the overflow list of options.

New features

On Android the refurbished New Tabs page offers smart suggestions of articles and other pages that you may like. The suggestions get better as Chrome find out the kind of stuff you are wish to learn about. In addition, the New Tabs page will have newly downloaded pages for faster access as well.

Continuous video play

Videos such as YouTube in Chrome will continue to play in the background when the screen if off, you switch tabs or when you enter the home screen. Now Chrome does not closes a media notification at once when a video is not in the front. A playing video yet pauses when your quit the application, but now you can tap play on the media notification to restart a video’s audio by using Google Chrome 54.

Other developer features:

Some other notable features include:

• Sites can make use of Node.getRootNode(options) to get the root for a given node.
• The imageSmoothingQuality attribute for CanvasRenderingContext2D enables developers to balance performance and image quality by regulating resolution when scaling.
• Navigations started in an unload handler will be obstructed and any previous navigation will remain.
• The text-size-adjust property enables websites to control if font size spontaneously scales on mobile phones.
• With the help of PushSubscription.options, websites can track applicationServerKeys without needing to store them offline.