chrome

A notorious ransomware group has engaged in a "triple threat" attack. As well as locking files and threatening to expose data, the Qilin group has been spotted trying to steal saved passwords from Chrome. The Qilin group appears to have been ... operating for at least two years but came to wider attention in 2022 when it attacked British hospitals. The group's origins and membership aren't known for certain, but it has communicated in Russian. As is becoming more common, Qilin doesn't simply restrict itself to encrypting files and systems and then demanding a ransom payment to restore access. It ... (view more)

Chrome on Android may soon automatically blur out sensitive data when screen sharing or recording. It's a potentially useful feature that brings some big questions. The feature was spotted as an optional "flag" in Chrome Canary, which means it's at ... the very earliest stage of public testing. Canary is a version of Chrome for people happy to be the first to try new features or update, the name referring to the literal "canary in the mine" whose death would warn miners of a problem such as a gas leak. Making a flag means it's not enabled by default even in Canary. That means it's very possible ... (view more)

Almost one in six Chrome extensions could stop working this summer thanks to a major Google update. They include one of the most prominent ad-blocking tools. An extension is a third party tool that integrates with Chrome to improve the user's ... experience when accessing websites. They can include tools as diverse as password managers, page translators and video downloaders, though ad blockers are perhaps the best known. Extensions are able to integrate with Chrome and access its data thanks for a platform called Manifest. Google has developed a Version 3 of Manifest and is phasing out support ... (view more)

Apple has launched a privacy-focused ad campaign for the iPhone. It's billed as a promotion of its Safari browser but is clearly an attack on Google's Chrome. The ad is loosely based on The Birds but with the creatures replaced by flying ... surveillance cameras that follow and attack phone users with an onscreen graphic reading "Your browsing is being watched." It then ends with users opening the Safari browser, at which point the flying cameras explode, with a new graphic reading "Safari. A browser that's actually private." Incognito Mode Dubiously Named Apple has previously highlighted ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Steve T. writes: " Dear Dennis, I use Chrome as my web browser and when I right click on a web page, I often use the option to 'View page source' so that I can copy its contents and edit the HTML using another program. The problem ... is that in 2023, Google released an update to Chrome that changed the right click menu. Now, I am forced to scroll through the menu in order to get to the 'View page source' option. This is painful and time consuming since I do it many times a day. Last year I came across a few articles that suggested going to 'chrome://flags/' via the web address ... (view more)

Google has begun blocking third-party cookies in the Chrome browser. However, it's letting some websites take longer than originally planned to make the change. When in force, the block means Chrome will disable cookies placed by third parties ... rather than the site itself. That means sites can continue using cookies that can be useful, for example making a note of a customer's preferred movie theater so that they automatically see relevant listings and times. Third-party cookies are more commonly associated with advertising. For example, visiting a fishing equipment website might lead to a ... (view more)

Google has confirmed it will limit the way ad blockers work in Chrome next year. Critics have called it a conflict of interests. The changes are to extensions, the third-party tools that users can add to Chrome to improve their web browsing ... experience. While extensions can do anything from translate web pages to make it easier to browse Netflix, ad blockers are some of the most popular types of extension. Extensions for Chrome must follow a specification called Manifest. Many current extensions use version 2 of this specification, but all newly added ones must use version 3. Google now says ... (view more)

Google is overhauling the way searches work in the Chrome address bar. It should mean faster and more useful results in a range of situations. The changes are to the address bar (sometimes called the omnibox) in the Chrome browser. It's where users ... can type in the full address of the site they want to visit, but also carry out web searches without the need to visit Google.com or another search engine site. The address bar already has an autocomplete option, showing possible site addresses and search terms even when the user has only typed a few characters. At the moment, addresses only appear ... (view more)

Google is testing a Chrome feature that could heavily reduce the time users spend completing CAPTCHA tests. The tests are designed to reduce spam and other automated mischief but can irritate genuine human users. CAPTCHA stands for "Completely ... Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart". It's designed to use a test that's relatively simple for a human to do, but difficult for a computer. Often such tests take advantage of the fact that humans are better at recognizing images and patterns, for example spotting pictures with varying backgrounds that contain a bicycle. Other ... (view more)

Microsoft has experimented with one of its most audacious attempts yet to persuade users to prefer the Edge browser over Google Chrome. It appears the plan, which effectively involved full-size banner "ads" on the Chrome website, will not proceed ... after the tests. Technically speaking, the Microsoft Edge browser is built using "Chromium" code (which is open source), which is the exact same code that Google's Chrome browser uses. The only difference between Edge and Chrome is that Edge has been customized with its own set of unique features and is branded as being Microsoft Edge. That ... (view more)