Google Chrome 61 is out
Google's Chrome team announced the general availability of Google Chrome 61 Stable today on the official Chrome Releases blog.
The new version of the web browser will be rolled out over the coming days and weeks to all devices that run the browser on Windows, Mac or Linux systems.
Since Chrome 61 is a security release, it is recommended to update to the new version as soon as possible.
You can run an update check for the new version by loading chrome://help/ in the browser's address bar. Chrome will query the update server when the page opens and download new versions immediately.
You may notice that the location of the help page changed after the update, as Chrome's help page is located at chrome://settings/help in Chrome 61. It also looks different to the help page before as it is now more in line with the Settings page of the browser.
The Chrome team offers little information on the new release; the only information that is provided is that Chrome 61.0.3163.79 "contains a number of fixes and improvements", and that it includes 22 security fixes on top of that.
You can check out the full change log on this page, but will spend an hour or more going through it as it is full of entries and difficult to go through quickly because of how the entries are displayed on the page.
Here are some of the more important changes in Chrome 61 according to the official changelog:
- Add initial set of new default user images.
- Autoplay policy for HTML5 video: chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy
- Data Saver site breakdown doesn't add up to totals on version update. Also, don't show negative savings.
- DevTools: Add 'Save profile' toolbar button to performance panel.
- Disable first run for mananged profiles.
- [Extensions] Don't allow content scripts on the New Tab Page.
- Enable automatically detected CUPS printers in the print preview dialog.
- Enable asm.js -> WebAssembly by default.
- Keep scanned host devices in the cache for longer (from 5 minutes to 2 hours).
- Move extension unzip/unpack to background thread to prevent the blocking of the main utility thread.
- On dual-GPU macs, blacklist MSAA for both GPUs if either is Intel.
- Switch pause/mute buttons' locations in RTL languages
The bulk of the changes that went into Chrome 61 are under the hood changes.
Now You: Did you notice anything new in Chrome 61 after the update?
Thanks to 61, it’s now not possible to export bookmarks and more importantly the 100s of passwords. I have a new laptop, and am without luck, trying to copy over both of these. Sync DOESN’T work, so please don’t suggest using it. I’m more upset that the google drive cloud storage, where I’ve kept important docs and images of my grandchildren has managed to lose the WHOLE LOT. Is Google drive safe? YOU CAN BET your bottom dollar, IT IS NOT. Thanks a lot Google, you’ve taken a backwards step with 61 – it’s probably badly thought out and implemented without enough thought. I don’t really expect an answer from one of the ‘experts’ on here, and with sadness am ditching Chrome. It WAS good, now it’s a disaster.
On Liferay 6.2 for borderless portlets, the portlet-action class is broken since Chrome version 61 … as a result, the icons are not displayed
Hiya. A customer of ours has upgraded to Chrome 61 and has noted that now when they navigate in our site, the loading indicator does not appear in the tab when the contents of an iframe is being refreshed (not using AJAX but directly navigating). Only when changing the contents of the top-level document does the indicator appear. We checked against version 60 and it was still ok in that version. Any idea if this has to do with the new policies for iframes? (all our frames come from the same web server as the main page).
New bug in Chrome 61,”Failed to execute ‘toDataUrl’ on ‘HTMLCanvasElement’: Tainted canvases may not be exported.”
Our HTML page/app loads image certainly from other domain, display in element correctly/successfully using attribute usingcrossorigion=”use-credentials” and composes on another element. afterward reports issue as Tainted canvas can not exported.
Why is it appearing in chrome 61 (what has changed) and what could be solution?
Found a bug on version 61. Try scrolling on a touchscreen laptop with your fingers and after a minute or so, scrolling begins lagging big time forcing you to either switch browsers or use the touchpad (which works fine). Canary (version 63) does not have this issue. Tested two laptops. Went back to version 60 and all is well. WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT!
Yes!!! Very annoying!!! Please fix this!
I love the Material Design. The scrolling having no coasting with touchscreens is frustrating.
Yes it is. I had to roll back.
How can I disable Material Design!!!. I’ve created a new profile but it still stuck and the Flags to disable it won’t work!!!
Also scrolling is buggy with touch devices on my Windows 10/8.1 Tablets.
chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy is still not working correctly, sometimes it works sometimes not.
I really don’t like the Material design in the settings. WTH Google?!? Is that supposed to be an improvement?
I’m pretty sure that the flag for Autoplay was there before the update to v61. What changed is the addition of a new option in the flag. The new option is: “Document user activation is required”, which for me works much better than, “User gesture is required for cross-origin iframes” which is still an option.
Two of the new flags that I’ve noticed in v61 are “Enable picture and picture”, and “AsyncImageDecoding”. For me AsyncImageDecoding makes a big improvement in the ability to very quickly scroll through graphics heavy webpages like Flickr/Explore. With auto-scroll I can scroll through a page at stupid fast speeds compared to not using the flag.
The one thing I wish Chrome would change is the relatively low GPU usage, compared to Firefox, on my hardware. I can understand the reasoning for that on a laptop but for a desktop with a discrete graphics card the GPU usage is disappointingly low. Firefox makes much better use of my graphics card. FF has zero dropped frames with YouTube 60fps video, Chrome drops a few frames. That said, Chrome is still the performance heavyweight champ. ;)
Hmm, well, we’ll wait when the API is added.
Thank you for responding. ;)
Hmm, well, let’s wait while these APIs are added …
Thank you for responding. ;)
“Enable picture and picture”
Hey, I never found what this function is for, and where does it work?
I currently have that flag disabled because I couldn’t get it to work anywhere. From what I understand, a website has to specifically make use of the API for it to work. I couldn’t figure out how to get it to work on YT which is where I would expect one of the first sites to make use of the feature but noooo! SMH
As a longtime Chrome x64 beta user by default, I’ve been using Version 61.0.3163.79 (Official Build) beta (64-bit) for as long as it’s been out and have no issues with it.
Man, I swear… Chrome only gets worse day after day.
Now the Google Translate extension is broken with this update, with the bubble icon appearing out of place (for example, on the top of a page after you select a word/text from the bottom) all the time.
Seeing that the last update of the extension was in 2015, I doubt they will fix it.
Google forgot about this browser since the moment they dominated the marketshare, that’s pretty much it.
I’ve lost all my bookmarks (I use onetab for that) after upgrading it and restarting the computer. I am really pissed off. I tried to find some kind of older version of the data base, but it is impossible.
@John: Try Jeremy Schomery’s Dictionary Anywhere extension (also available for Opera and FF): https://add0n.com/dictionary.html
@ShintoPlasm: Thanks for your suggestion, I will try.
For Firefox, I’m using Googleâ„¢ Translator (webextension)[1] at the moment and, although it’s pretty good, there’s a lot of bugs.
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-translator-webextension
What google have to do with the fact that the extension developer need to fix that? Right nothing. The extension developer (doesn’t matter if Firefox or Chrome) need to stay on the line with the changes, and this takes some time. So before you complain, check the facts.
Extension is made by Google.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that. Google Translate is made by Google: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-translate/aapbdbdomjkkjkaonfhkkikfgjllcleb
There’s a lot of folks complaining about this bug if you look at the reviews sorted by “recent”, so I can only conclude that (indeed) version 61 broke it. I hope they fix it because it’s an excellent extension.
I have something ferry strange happened with this new Chrome 61 version update.
Being that I can not instal (define) main one personal startpage.com settings defined start page anymore
who is popping/starting up at the startup moment of the Chrome 61 browser?
I am getting right now a page at browser startup with 8 thumbs with pages who I have visted before?
Up to the Chrome 61 version, it was possible?
I have checked main settings on this page and I did nothing wrong?
https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/2/0/how-do-i-make-startpage-my-startup-page-and-homepage-in-chrome
Do you Martin or anybody else know what is wrong?
Am I doing something wrong? What should I do?
I suspect that one of your extensions is causing a problem. I would start disabling extensions starting with whatever canvas extension you are using until you are able to set a new home page. If you end up disabling all of your extensions and still can’t set a new home page it’s probably time for a clean profile. I would suggest for most people to start by doing a “Reset”.
“Settings/Advanced/Reset” will: reset your startup page, new tab page, search engine, and pinned tabs. It will also ‘disable’ all extensions (extension settings are saved) and clear temporary data like cookies. Your bookmarks, history and saved passwords will not be cleared. I’ve never really used Reset but it should work fine. I’ve always saved profile folders and I’m just used to doing things manually.
If doing a Reset doesn’t solve your problem and you use Chrome Sync, delete your profile folder from App/Data Local (Windows). Before getting rid of the profile, backup your extension settings, just be aware that reusing those settings might re-introduce the problem. Then open Chrome and do a sync. Most but not all of the settings will be restored, none of the flags will be. If you don’t use Sync save your profile folder somewhere, you want the ‘Default’ folder. You will then be able to reuse your Bookmarks, Favicons and Login Data files, copy/paste them into the new profile Default folder. For anyone that doesn’t know, an easy way to access the profile folder is from the chrome://version page, copy/paste the Profile Path into the address bar of Windows Explorer or into the Start/Search box or into Start/Run. Personally, I have the App/Data folder pinned to Windows Explorer which is pinned to the Taskbar. Good Luck! ;)
https://imgur.com/a/ZoX8a Chrome Profile Path
I use StartPage as my Home Page and the update to v61 did not change that, it’s working fine in Chrome Dev also. Sounds like you were seeing the NTP (new tab page). Settings–Manage on startup pages–Open a specific page or set of pages–Add a new page
https://s26.postimg.org/ev1hydlop/Chrome_Home_Page.png
Thanks, Richard Alen, For responding to the question of me concerning that with the new version of Chrome (being release 61) that the personally defined startpage.com URL by me is not more appearing directly at startup page from the Chrome browser 61.
I have followed yesterday, again and again, the path that you are describing but even after a few fresh starts from the computer, I am keeping at startup the blank screen.
It’s only after I tip (I noticed this procedure (Method) late last night) (or click) with the mouse on the URL part of the browser that the by me defined start page is showing himself.
And again I have installed all the possible rights you can image for start page in the add-on’s Umatrix, Ublock and canvas fingerprint.
Should I uninstall may be Decentralys?
Anybody, any idea how this is in any name is possible and any idea how to improve this so the self-defined start page is showing again?
There is a “Manage on startup pages” feature.
Thanks for your response Ilev.
But no What I am getting is a blank page with nothing on it when I am putting startpage.com as the standard place to go at startup.
I can see in the URL that the right page is called on but no picture of the web page (even without main personal preferences settings on startpage.com)
I have installed all the possible rights you can image for start page in Umatrix, Ublock and canvas fingerprint.
Should I uninstall maybe Decentralys?
The settings page seems to be all material design now, I used to disable that in chrome://flags but I can’t find that switch any longer..so stuck with material then. Oh well.
I thought I ws the only one after just updating chrome today, now it’s a total nightmare!!! and convuluted in MD.