Chrome 54 Released with Support for Custom HTML Tags

Google has released Chrome 54, the latest stable version of the Google Chrome browser, which for this version has added support for a series of features, but none more important than the Custom Elements V1 specification that allows developers to create custom HTML tags.

Chrome had already been supporting custom HTML tags for some time now, but only an intermediary and unfinished version of the Custom Elements specification.

Expect HTML code to become unreadable

Chrome 54 now supports Custom Elements V1, a final version of this WHATWG spec, which all major browser vendors have agreed to support and implement.

Currently, only Chrome 54 and Opera 41 Beta support the new Custom Elements V1 spec, while most browsers still support V0. Google said they plan to support both specification versions until most developers have moved on to V1.

Custom Elements opens the door for custom HTML tags such as < softpedia > and < boaty-mcboatface >, so expect HTML code to become more unreadable in the upcoming future.

BroadcastChannel support

Another important feature added to Chrome 54 is BroadcastChannel, a mechanism through which multiple browser windows, tabs, iframes, web workers, and service workers can talk to each other.

This feature is strictly aimed at developers and will allow them to create web services that can sync data between multiple windows and tabs for the same origin URL, much more easily and without the need of complicated async JavaScript code. Ok... we're wrong, maybe you still need complicated async JavaScript code, but it won't be as complicated as before.

Chrome for Android improvements

Besides the desktop editors, Google devs have added new features for the browser's Android edition, which can now replicate a feature found in the official YouTube app.

Chrome 54 ships with a function called Element.requestFullScreen(), which website developers can use to automatically move video content in fullscreen mode when the phone's orientation changes, like going from portrait to landscape.

Additionally, v54 has also improved the Page Visibility API to allow videos to play as the user scrolls down the page. This behavior is already present in most desktop browsers, but was never included in the Chrome Android version in order to save smartphone resources.

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Users can update Chrome using the built-in update tool, or they can download a fresh copy from Google's site or one of the Softpedia download mirrors for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Below are the security fixes included in Chrome 54. After them, we have included a summary of other features Google added in Chrome 54, modifications, and deprecations.