Chrome 90 is out with AV1 encoder and read-only file paste

Google Chrome 90 is now available for download. This is quite and interesting release of the world's most popular browser, which includes such novelties as an AV1 encoder, the ability to paste read-only files from the clipboard. It also comes with a number of security enhancements, including blocking of the port 554 for HTTP, HTTPS, or FTP servers.

Chrome 90 is the first release to ship an AV1 encoder in the browser desktop, specifically optimized for video conferencing with WebRTC integration.

AV1 encoder

AV1 encoding is supposed to be utilized by a number of WebRTC applications, including Duo, Meet, and Webex. The primary benefits of AV1 are:

• better compression efficiency to reduce bandwidth consumption and improve visual quality
• Enabling video for users on very low bandwidth networks (offering video at 30kbps and lower)
• Significant screen sharing efficiency improvements over VP9 and other codecs

Eventually it will supercharge the RTC calls as well.

Clipboard: read-only files support

Thanks to this new feature, users to be able to use clipboard keyboard shortcuts such as Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V for a task such as attaching a file to an email rather than only drag and drop. It brings read-only files on the clipboard to renderers using a similar approach to drag-and drop.

Renderers will have access to read file paths from the clipboard, but not write paths to the clipboard. For file paths on the clipboard, renderers will have read-only access. Here's an example of the code:

async function onPaste(e) {
let file = e.clipboardData.files[0];
let contents = await file.text(); 
}

Chrome earlier supported files via DataTransfer for drag-and-drop, but not for clipboard. This has finally changed.

Block HTTP port 554

Chrome won't establish connections to HTTP, HTTPS or FTP servers on port 554 any longer. This change has been done as a mitigation for the NAT Slipstream 2.0 attack. Some NAT routers and firewall products inspect traffic on port 554 and use it as instructions to open UDP forwarding back to the original host running the browser.

Other browsers have blocked port 554, and statistics collection indicates that use of port 554 for HTTP is in fact minimal.

Other changes

• You can now a window in Google Chrome. The appropriate option is available to everyone.
• Chrome now uses HTTPS by default for site URLs you manually type in the address bar.

Download Links

If you are an existing Chrome user, all you need to do is to wait until the Chrome update will be received automatically in your operating system. You can also manually trigger the update process by opening Help > About Google Chrome from the browser's menu.

Web installer: Google Chrome 64-bit
MSI/Enterprise installer: Google Chrome MSI Installers for Windows

Note: The offline installer doesn't support the automatic update feature of Chrome. By installing it this way, you will be forced to always update your browser manually.

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