14 DAY TRIAL // Google has just released a new stable build of Google Chrome. It’s a bug-fixing release, focusing on stability and security issues, but also packs a couple of new features, the bundled Adobe Flash Player now being enabled by default and extensions enabled in incognito mode. Both features had been available in development and beta builds of the web browser, but they’re only now making their debut in the stable version.
“When we first released extension support in Chromium, we left out all support for running extensions in incognito mode... When your muscle memory is trained to expect certain features, it's pretty jarring to find them missing. So in the latest stable version of Google Chrome, I added support for running extensions while in incognito,” Matt Perry, a Software Engineer at Google, wrote.
“One of the main reasons we delayed adding incognito support was that Chrome has no way to ensure that extensions obey the incognito rules: in short, that your browsing data is not saved after you close the incognito window,” he explained.
The decision to enable support for extensions in incognito mode was not made easy. The purpose of incognito is to allow users to browse without leaving traces and without websites being able to track them, to a degree. But an extension has the possibility to track the user’s actions even in incognito and there is no way for Google to prevent this or to even know if it’s being done, apart from fully reviewing every extension submitted to the online gallery.
If the developer acts in good faith, there should be no worries as there are ways for extensions to adapt to running in incognito, but it’s a matter of trust. Now, Google has introduced support for incognito extensions though they are still disabled by default. If you feel you trust a particular extension, you can enable it in incognito from the extensions manager.
Also new in the latest Google Chrome 5.0.375.86 is the built-in Flash Player now enabled by default. The search giant started bundling Flash with Chrome a couple of months back in the developer builds and, while the technology was ready for introduction in the previous stable release, the company postponed it until Adobe launched the final version of Flash Player 10.1. With that out of the way, the stable release now uses the bundled Flash version by default, which is also automatically updated through the Chrome update system.
Google Chrome for Windows is available for download here. Google Chrome for Linux is available for download here. Google Chrome for Mac is available for download here.