Google Chrome 18 Stable Released

Google has just released an update that brings the stable channel of the Google Chrome web browser to version 18. Chrome users running version 17 or other previous versions should receive automatic updates once they start the browser. Those who do not can click on the Wrench icon, and then About Google Chrome to force the browser to check for new updates.

Those who have blocked automatic updates can download the latest version of the web browser from the official Chrome download page as well. The release is available for download for the supported operating systems Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Google Chrome 18 Stable

The new version introduces several new features and resolves security related issues. The following security issues have been fixed in Chrome 18.

• Medium CVE-2011-3058: Bad interaction possibly leading to XSS in EUC-JP.
• Medium CVE-2011-3059: Out-of-bounds read in SVG text handling.
• Medium CVE-2011-3060: Out-of-bounds read in text fragment handling.
• Medium CVE-2011-3061: SPDY proxy certificate checking error.
• High CVE-2011-3062: Off-by-one in OpenType Sanitizer.
• Low CVE-2011-3063: Validate navigation requests from the renderer more carefully.
• High CVE-2011-3064: Use-after-free in SVG clipping.
• High CVE-2011-3065: Memory corruption in Skia.
• Medium CVE-2011-3057: Invalid read in v8.

No critical security issues were fixed in the release, only three with a severity rating of high, five with a medium rating, and one with a low rating. It is still recommended to update asap to protect the browser from possible exploits.n  The new version of Adobe Flash has also been integrated into Google Chrome 18.

The developers have added the SwiftShader software rendering technology into Chrome 18 which provides better performance if hardware acceleration is not available on the system. While not nearly as effective performance-wise as a hardware accelerated solution, it provides users with older hardware access to these new technologies.

Google furthermore has added GPU-accelerated Canvas 2D on compatible Windows and Mac systems, which, according to the company, should "make web applications like games perform even better than a pure software implementation".

Chrome users can check on the chrome://gpu/page whether the browser on their system is making use of hardware or software acceleration.