Chrome 56.0.2924.76 now available for Linux, Mac and Windows

Jan 26, 2017 02:05 GMT  ·  By

Google promoted today its Chrome 56 web browser to the stable channel for all supported platforms, including GNU/Linux, macOS, and Microsoft Windows, which comes about 55 days after Chrome 55 was released.

The Chrome version promoted today to stable is the same one that landed earlier, also today, on the Beta channel, namely 56.0.2924.76, but Chrome 56 was in development for approximately three months, since it entered the Dev channel on October 21, 2016. It was first promoted to Beta last year on December 8.

The biggest new feature of the Google Chrome 56 release is the enablement of the HTML5 technologies by default for all users, on all supported platforms. Google has started rolling out HTML5 by default for a smaller user base with last month's Chrome 55 stable update, but now it's available worldwide. WebGL 2.0 support is also implemented by default.

With this mind, Chrome 56 is the first version of the web browser to no longer use Adobe's pesky Flash Player plugin, improving the overall performance and safety of the application. Talking about safety, Google implemented a notification that warns users of non-secure websites, following in the footsteps of other major web browsers.

Chrome 56 now warns of non-secure websites
Chrome 56 now warns of non-secure websites

Over 50 security vulnerabilities have been patched in Chrome 56

Chrome 56 also brings FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) playback support, just like Mozilla Firefox 51 brought the other day, as well as a new Web Bluetooth API (Application Programming Interface) that would allow users to control various devices supporting the latest Bluetooth LE (Low Energy) technologies, via web apps.

Watch the video below for more details, but for now, it would appear that this functionality is only supported on Android, Chrome OS, and macOS. Other than that, Google Chrome 56 patches a total of 51 security vulnerabilities discovered during its entire development cycle, making Chrome a more secure place for your browsing habits.

Google has started rolling out Chrome 56 to Linux, macOS, and Windows platforms, but the company should soon promote its Chrome OS to version 56, which hasn't been updated since January 10, 2017, hoping that it will finally enable support for running Android apps on more Chromebooks, as promised last year.

Download Chrome 56.0.2924.76 for GNU/Linux, macOS, and Microsoft Windows.

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