Chrome 134 released with quick settings pane and various improvements

Google has released Chrome 134 to the stable branch. The update adds quick settings with several options that open in the sidebar. Also, the ManifestV3 enforcement has become active for more users. Finally, Chrome is actively using AI in its various components. This release uses it for detecting fraud pages, autofil forms.

What's new in Chrome 134

Quick Settings

The interface for customizing the contents of the toolbar and managing the placement of shortcuts has been redesigned. The interface is called via "Menu -> Additional tools -> Customize Chrome".

Manifest v2 deprecation

The Chrome Manifest v2 deprecation initiative has expanded its reach. The deprecation of the second version of the manifest is being done gradually and is currently only affecting a small percentage of users. However, in recent days, there has been a significant increase in the number of Chrome user complaints about the uBlock Origin add-on ceasing to work due to manifest change. The add-on author offers the new uBlock Origin Lite (uBOL) extension. The latter is compatible with ManifestV3, but lacks a number of features.

In turn, Mozilla has confirmed its intention to maintain support for the blocking mode of the webRequest API in Firefox , which is necessary for classic ad blocking add-ons to work.

Form auto-fill

To improve the quality of the web form autofill system, Chrome is using an AI model to detect password input. It runs locally on the user's system.

Security

• Chrome can now use a large language model to identify fraudulent pages based on their content. The AI ​​model is executed on the users' side. But if suspicious content is detected, an additional check is performed on Google servers. The new feature can be enabled in the browser's enhanced protection mode (Safe Browsing > Enhanced protection). In Chrome version 134, the check is performed for pages that use the Keyboard Lock API.
• The Android version has a system for detecting annoying notifications that uses a large language model running on the device.
• Extensions manually unpacked and installed via the chrome://extensions page can now only be activated in developer mode. For that, you need to enable the "Developer mode" switch on the chrome://extensions page. The change is expected to improve the browser's security against malicious extensions.
• For 1% of google.com users, support for the DBSC (Device Bound Session Credentials) mechanism is enabled, which offers to use short-lived or cryptographically tied device credentials instead of long-term credentials, such as those transmitted via cookies. The purpose of implementing DBSC is to protect against credential interception by malware.

Password change prompt

When opening websites for which compromised credentials have been detected, Chrome now shows a warning with a suggestion to directly change the password.

Reading mode

The Reading Mode, which leaves only the content and hides the navigation elements on the page, has been updated with the Read aloud mode for reading the content aloud using a speech synthesizer. It is possible to select a voice, change the speech rate and highlight the word currently being spoken.

Chrome 134 addresses 14 vulnerabilities, primarily identified through automated testing tools like AddressSanitizer, MemorySanitizer, Control Flow Integrity, LibFuzzer, and AFL. One vulnerability (CVE-2025-1914) in the V8 engine, causing out-of-bounds memory access, is classified as high severity. No critical issues enabling sandbox bypass or system-level code execution were found. Under the vulnerability reward program, Google awarded nine bounties totaling $27,000, with individual rewards ranging from $1,000 to $7,000.

The press release is here.

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