Google has released Chrome 84. You can download it from the download links provided on this page or simply upgrade it using the Chrome update function. The release comes with security features like blocking notification spam, blocking mixed content and deprecating insecure TLS protocols.
It is more of a maintenance update that focuses on fixing security vulnerabilities and tightening the noose for better user security. When you upgrade and open Chrome 84 for the first time, you will not notice anything new.
Still, the Chrome 84 browser update fixes 38 critical security vulnerabilities in which 7 have been marked as highly dangerous. The initial release version is 84.0.4147.89.
Table of Contents
Release Summary
Complete release build: 84.0.4147.89
Release date: Tuesday, July 14, 2020
Compatibility: Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7 (32-bit and 64-bit), Linux, Mac, iOS and Android.
Previous build: Chrome 83
Bug fixes: 38. You can read about the security fixes here.
Let’s go through some of the features introduced in Chrome 84.
Block push notification spam
Push notification system is one of the most abused browser features that is even more annoying than email spam. Push notifications serve a very useful purpose of notifying the user of updates without leaving the browser.
Some of the good examples include WhatsApp, Gmail, Facebook notifications etc. Many sites nowadays offer push notifications for their regular users so that they can get the latest updates instantly.
But there are bad guys who are abusing this useful browser feature. Google Chrome 84 makes use of a system called Abusive Notifications Check to determine if a website offering push notifications is fair or malignant.
Chrome 84 will automatically silence push notifications from websites that fail its abusive notification checks. You will get a bell icon in the address bar notifying you of the blocked notification. From there, you can choose to allow notifications or continue blocking.
Block Mixed Content Downloads
Google is slowly blocking insecure content from the web. It makes it mandatory for every website to load secure files into the browser.
It all started with Chrome 81 where Google would throw a warning in the Chrome Developer console when a website was downloading insecure or HTTP executables, archives, documents or multimedia files including images.
Slowly, Google blocked executables and archives loading insecurely in the browser.
With Chrome 84, the browser will block executables, show a warning while downloading document files like pdf, docx, xlsx, pptx etc and show console warning when a website loads insecure multimedia content like images, audio and video.
Here is the timeline image of this feature implementation. With Chrome 86 and later, Google will not allow any type of insecure content to be loaded by any website.
Removal of Insecure TLS 1.0 and 1.1 protocols
The removal of TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 was planned to be removed from Chrome 81 but it got delayed due to the Coronavirus pandemic situation across the world.
Finally the support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 has been removed from Chrome 84.
When visitors try to visit a website with the old SSL certificates, they will get the warning that “Your connection is not fully secure”.
The full warning message reads out that this site uses an outdated security configuration, which may expose your information (for example, passwords, messages, or credit cards) when it is sent to this site.
You can either click on the Back to safety button which will close the site or you may go to Advanced and visit the site at your own risk.
Website owners should upgrade their SSL certificates and webservers to support the latest and most secure protocols.
Download Google Chrome 84
There are a few methods that can be used to update your Chrome browser to the latest version including:
- Update using Google update
- Use the download Chrome installer
- Using Ninite
- Download Chrome without using a browser
All these methods have been discussed on a separate page here:
All methods to download and run the latest Google Chrome
You can use any method of your choice to download, install and run the latest Chrome browser. Otherwise, simply download it using the links given below:
Download: Google Chrome web installer
Download: Google Chrome offline installer
Download: Google Chrome MSI Installer [Enterprise Edition]
Download: Google Chrome for macOS
Download: Google Chrome Offline Installer for Linux
Download: Google Chrome for Android
Download: Google Chrome for iOS
Download: Google Chrome Portable
Chrome 85 is scheduled to be released on August 25, 2020. Interestingly, Google will be disabling the Windows 10 Version 2004 built-in feature that allows Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge to use a lot less RAM while consuming more processor power. Read more about it here.
Chrome 85 is scheduled to be released on August 25, 2020. Interestingly, Google will be disabling the Windows 10 Version 2004 built-in feature that allows Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge to use a lot less RAM while consuming more processor power. Read more about it here.
While Google Chrome is always the first to get all the latest Chromium features, these features will be available in the next versions of Microsoft Edge, Opera and Vivaldi very soon.
It is always recommended to keep your browser updated as it is the most used software while surfing the Internet. What do you think of Chrome 84? What features do you use the most in Chrome?
