Chrome 97 is out, here are the changes

The holiday season caused a slight delay in the now-regular four week period between stable releases of Chromium and Microsoft Edge. Two months after the Chrome 96 release, Chrome 97 is now available in the stable channel.

What is new in Chrome 97

New keyboard API

For starters, Chrome 97 now has a "keyboard-map" value for Keyboard API. It allows developers to identify a key pressed for different keyboard layouts. Although developers welcome the change, Apple and Mozilla have already raised their concerns claiming the new API can serve as a fingerprinting and tracking tool. Both companies do not plan to implement the improved API in Safari and Firefox.

Delete all data for a website

Feature-wise, users can now delete all the data stored by a specific website. You can navigate to chrome://settings/content/all and remove information you no longer want to keep in the browser.

Customizable title bar for PWA

Progressive web apps now look more native thanks to the ability to utilize the top app bar. Developers can put there search bars, navigation buttons, and other elements.

Mobile-specific improvements

Chrome 97 also brings mobile-specific improvements. Users now can set a website-specific zoom level that Google Chrome will remember the next time they visit the website. Currently, the feature is hidden behind an experimental flag. You can enable it by navigating to chrome://flags/#enable-accessibility-page-zoom.

Google Chrome 97 is now available in the stable channel on all platforms. The browser will install the update automatically, but you can force-install it by navigating to chrome://help. Google plans to drop the next major update on Tuesday, February 1, 2022.

You can also download the browser manually from its official website.

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