Google today released Chrome 88, permanently removing support for Adobe Flash Player and ending an Internet era.
Flash reached its official end of life (EoL) on December 31, 2020, when Adobe officially stopped the software. On January 12, Adobe also began blocking content in Flash, as part of its latest nail in the coffin.
Google is not alone in its quest to remove Flash. The decision was made in 2017 with Adobe and other browser manufacturers such as Apple, Mozilla and Microsoft. Apple and Mozilla also stopped supporting Flash, and Microsoft will end support later this month.
According to website W3Techs on the web technology survey, only 2.2% of today’s websites use Flash code, a figure that has dropped from a figure of 28.5% recorded at the beginning of 2011.
Parisa Tabriz, director of engineering at Google, told a conference in February 2018 that the percentage of daily Chrome users who uploaded at least one page containing Flash content per day dropped from about 80% in 2014 to below 8 % in early 2018, a number that has most likely continued since then.
FTP support is also no longer available
But today’s Chrome 88 version also comes with other features, depreciation, bug fixes, and security fixes. One of the major changes is the removal of support for access to FTP links (ftp: //) in Chrome, a process that has already begun in Chrome 86:
- Chrome 86 FTP is still enabled by default for most users, but has been disabled for pre-release channels (Canary and Beta) and will be disabled experimentally for one percent of stable users. In this version you can activate it again from the command line using the –enable-ftp command line flag or the –enable-features = FtpProtocol flag.
- Chrome 87 FTP support will be disabled by fifty percent of users by default, but can be enabled with the above flags.
- Chrome 88 – FTP support will be disabled.
Chrome now blocks mixed, unsafe downloads
In Chrome 88, Google also completed a plan it launched last year. With today’s release, Chrome now blocks certain downloads of HTTP files.
Cases where Chrome downloads will stop include when a user accesses a web page starting with HTTPS, but the file is downloaded from a URL starting with HTTP. Chrome considers these instances to be “mixed” and “unsafe” downloads, and to begin with Chrome 88 will completely block the protection of users.
Image: ZDNet
Other changes
In addition, Chrome 88 also removed support for the old DTLS 1.0 protocol, which was used within Chrome as part of its WebRTC support.
Chrome 88 also includes an original test for idle detection. If enabled by the user, the originality test will allow websites to inquire if users are idle in a browser so that messaging applications can send notifications on the best device.
For some Chrome 88 users, Google will also test a new user interface for the permission dashboard, the user interface through which websites request permission to access various user systems, such as the microphone, file system, and others.
Users can also search through all the open tabs in Chrome 88.
In addition, Chrome 88 also drops support for OS X 10.10 (OS X Yosemite). From now on, Chrome on Mac OS X will need 10.11 or later.
Chrome 88 will also block tab-nabbing attacks, as previously reported here by ZDNet, and the browser will also greatly speed up JavaScript timer operations in background tabs to improve performance and reduce CPU and RAM usage.
Another important change is that Chrome 88 now also officially supports extensions built with Manifest v3 extension rules. Extensions built on this new controversial system can now also be uploaded to the Chrome Web Store.
And last but not least, some words entered into the URL bar will not be treated as intranet sites by default in Chrome 88 operating versions.
But we only touched on the most important Chrome 88 features. Users who want to learn more about the other features added or removed in this new version of Chrome can visit the following links for more information:
- Chrome security updates are outlined here [not yet live].
- Changes to Chromium Open Source Browser are outlined here.
- The debugging of API developers and removal of features are listed here.
- Chrome for Android updates outlined here [not yet live].
- Chrome for iOS updates is outlined here.
- Changes to the Chrome V8 JavaScript engine are available here.
- Changes to Chrome’s DevTools are listed here.