Chrome 145 is now stable

Chrome for Android rolling out pinned tabs

Google is rolling out pinned tabs in Chrome for Android, allowing users to pin important tabs to the top of the tab grid for easier access. This feature, which was announced in December, is now more widely available with Chrome 144. To pin a tab, long-press on a card in the tab grid and select 'Pin tab'. Pinned tabs are moved to the front/top of the grid, and the 'x' is replaced with a pin to prevent accidental closure. Swipe to close is disabled for pinned tabs. Users can unpin tabs and close them with another long-press.

Spying Chrome Extensions: 287 Extensions spying on 37M users

This blog post reveals that 287 Chrome extensions are exfiltrating browsing history, affecting 37.4 million users. The research utilized an automated scanning pipeline to detect these leaks, identifying actors like Similarweb and others involved. The implications include profiling, corporate espionage, and credential harvesting. The post provides technical details on how data is being exfiltrated and includes examples of affected extensions.

Google Plans To Terminate ChromeOS In 2034, Court Documents Reveal

Court documents from Google’s U.S. antitrust case reveal that ChromeOS will end support in 2034, with a phase-out starting in 2033. Google plans to merge ChromeOS with Android into a unified desktop platform known as Aluminium OS.

Microsoft rolls out native Sysmon monitoring in Windows 11

Microsoft has started rolling out built-in Sysmon functionality to some Windows 11 systems enrolled in the Windows Insider program. Sysmon, a tool for monitoring and blocking malicious activity, is now natively supported in Windows 11, though it is disabled by default. Users can enable it through the Windows Event Log, and it is available to Insiders in the Beta and Dev channels with specific builds.

Microsoft ends Azure Blob Storage support for legacy TLS versions today

Azure outages ripple across multiple dependent services

Microsoft Azure experienced two outages in two days, affecting Virtual Machine management operations and Managed Identity for Azure resources. The Managed Identity outage impacted East US and West US regions for six hours, affecting multiple dependent services. The Virtual Machine outage was due to a configuration change that restricted public access to certain storage accounts. These incidents highlight the interdependencies between cloud services and the need for thorough testing before deployment.

MIT engineers design structures that compute with heat

MIT researchers have designed silicon structures that can perform computations using excess heat instead of electricity, potentially enabling more energy-efficient devices. The structures encode input data as temperatures and perform calculations through heat flow, with output represented by collected power. While still in the early stages, this technique could be applied to detect heat sources and measure temperature changes in electronics without consuming extra energy.

Gemini Arrives In Chrome With The ChromeOS 144 Update

ChromeOS 144, rolling out from January 27, introduces Gemini AI directly into Chrome on Chromebook Plus devices, offering page-aware assistance and new classroom tools. Features include Gemini Chat and Live, wireless screen sharing, live annotations, and expanded session sizes. Additionally, ChromeOS 144 enhances productivity with support for multiple Progressive Web Apps as protocol handlers and introduces admin improvements.

Generally Available: StandardV2 NAT Gateway with zone-redundancy and StandardV2 public IPs 

StandardV2 SKU NAT Gateway is now generally available.

Throttle individual network requests

Starting with Chrome 145, DevTools now supports Individual Request Throttling. You can pick individual network requests to apply specific network conditions to, alongside the existing capability to block them.

Google Chrome is Finally Embracing Vertical Tabs

Google Chrome is set to introduce vertical tabs, a feature that will allow tabs to be displayed along the side of the browser. This feature, long requested by users, has appeared in Chrome Beta and is expected to roll out to the stable version by January 28. Vertical tabs improve usability by making better use of screen space and reducing tab shrinking, aligning Chrome with other major browsers that already offer this option.

Critical flaw in Google's Fast Pair protocol lets hackers track an eavesdrop via Bluetooth

Release updates from the Chrome team

This page from the Chrome Release Team provides updates on the latest Chrome releases.

Android and iPhone users can now share files, starting with the Pixel 10 family