The Register: Not just deprecated, but deleted: Google finally strips File Transfer Protocol code from Chrome browser. “The Chromium team has finally done it – File Transfer Protocol (FTP) support is not just deprecated, but stripped from the codebase in the latest stable build of the Chrome browser, version 95.”
Make Tech Easier: 12 Chrome Flags to Boost Your Browsing. “Some Chrome flags are semi-functional, others are obscure things designed for the highly tech-savvy, while there are some that don’t really do much at all. So we’ve sifted through the crowd and picked out the Chrome flags that will actually have a big and positive impact on your browsing experience.”
MakeUseOf: 10 Useful Features of Brave You Didn’t Know Existed. “The Brave browser has been gaining in both popularity and userbase for some time now and for good reason. The privacy-centric browser is full of nifty features that make it a top contender against Google Chrome. Let’s find out what these useful features are that make Brave a good alternative.”
Fast Company: The little-known web browser that beats Chrome for productivity. “On Thursday, Vivaldi released an update that adds web app support, and at long last, I’m gorging on all the powerful tools that the browser has to offer. If you’re suffering from browser tab overload, you should at least give it a try. A full rundown of every Vivaldi feature would to too extensive to list here, but here are the ones I’m enjoying the most.”
Make Tech Easier: Speed Up Chrome with These Extensions. “Chrome is known as the fastest browser, but for some people even fastest isn’t enough. Moreover, Chrome is also a huge memory hog and may lead to a slower browsing experience on low-end devices. Thankfully, there are many Chrome extensions available that will speed things up for you exponentially.”
Free Software Foundation: FSF announces JShelter browser add-on to combat threats from nonfree JavaScript. “The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today announced the JShelter project, an anti-malware Web browser extension to mitigate potential threats from JavaScript, including fingerprinting, tracking, and data collection. The project is supported by NLnet Foundation’s Next Generation Internet (NGI) Zero Privacy & Trust Enhancing Technologies fund. Collaborators include Libor Polčák and Bednář Martin (Brno University of Technology), Giorgio Maone (NoScript), and Ana Isabel Carvalho and Ricardo Lafuente (Manufactura Independente). The JShelter browser add-on is in development and the first release is available.”
ThreatPost: Google Emergency Update Fixes Two Chrome Zero Days. “Google has pushed out an emergency Chrome update to fix yet another pair of zero days – the second pair this month – that are being exploited in the wild. This hoists this year’s total number of zero days found in the browser up to a dozen.”
CNET: Brave browser adds private videoconferencing with $7 premium option. “Expanding its paid services push, browser maker Brave on Wednesday launched a videoconferencing service called Brave Talk designed to protect privacy better than existing options like Zoom. It’s free, though a premium option costing $7 per month adds features like recording video and supporting groups of three or more.”
Ghacks: Firefox Experiment is testing Bing as the default search engine. “Mozilla is running an experiment on 1% of the Firefox desktop population currently, which sets the default search engine to Bing in the web browser. Firefox ships with different search engines by default, and one of these is set as the default search engine. The default search engine is used when users type into the browser’s address bar or use the search field on the browser’s new tab page.”
Lifehacker: 6 of the Best Internet Browsers for Protecting Your Privacy. “Fingerprinting is a relatively new threat to online privacy, allowing companies to know your browsing fingerprint data. This can consist of your browser version, type, operating system, time-zone, location, plug-ins, fonts, and a lot more. There’s so much data here that the cumulated data can be used to identify a single user. So what can you do about it? If you want to go nuclear, you can build your own tracking blocker using Raspberry Pi. Or you can install privacy extensions like Decentraleyes, uBlock Origin, or DuckDuckGo. But first, you should start with a browser that already has good privacy features built-in (so no Google Chrome, we’re afraid).”
ZDNet: Google patches two Chrome zero-days. “Google announced fixes for 11 different bugs in Chrome on Monday, including two zero-days currently being exploited in the wild. Google listed all 11 of the fixes as well as the researchers who discovered them and the bounties handed out. But the two that caused the most stir were CVE-2021-30632 and CVE-2021-30633.”
ZDNet: Want to see just how bad Google Chrome is? Try this simple trick!. “The first thing I noticed what how slow page loadings were. There’s a very distinct lag during page loading. A click. A pause. Pause. Then the page loads. It’s easy to point the finger of blame at things like Wi-Fi or internet connection or even a slow computer, but you’d be wrong. It’s Google Chrome.”
Google Blog: Testing new ways to explore and share through Chrome. “Flags and experiments in Chrome Beta let you choose which in-development features you want to test out before they hit the main stage. With our latest Chrome Beta release, you can try out some upcoming features that can help you more easily explore, keep track of, and share the things you find on the web.”
Ubergizmo: Microsoft, Google Release Urgent Update That Patches Browser Vulnerability. “If you are using either Microsoft Edge or Google’s Chrome, then you might want to update your browsers ASAP. This is because both companies have pushed out an urgent update for both their browsers due to a Level 4 Drive-by exploit that has been discovered that could lead to disastrous consequences.” I have yet to see a patch, but I’m on Linux, so YMMV.
