Google Chrome 116 released with downloads and sidebar improvements

Google has released Chrome 116, a new version of the world's most popular web browser. The new version is part of the 4 week release schedule. For those who need more time to update, the Extended Stable branch is supported separately, followed by 8 weeks. The next release of Chrome 117 is scheduled for September 12th.

What's new in Chrome 116

Chrome 116 starts a rapid security update release cycle. From now, security updates that close vulnerabilities will be issued every week.

The new browser version also enables the sidebar, where you can find more info about the open website, run extra search queries, and perform similar web actions. Also, when you right-click selected text on a web page and perform a search, it opens in the sidebar. If you aren't happy with this new behavior, you can disable it in chrome://flags.

The Downloads UI now appear as a shortened list behind a Firefox-like circle button in the toolbar. The bottom bar is now removed, but you can restore it manually.

There are also changes made to Memory Saver and Energy Saver modes. Discarded tabs now have better visibility, and display more detailed memory usage information.

Chrome now allows adding exceptions right from the open tabs currently open in the browser, and exclude the tab from memory optimization from the page information pane.

Android changes

• Android 14 users will notice a new link sharing UI that allows copying extra link details, such as text+URL, taking a screenshot, and displays frequent contacts and apps.
• The address box will now show trending searches.
• When you tap on an URL of the open page, Chrome will display search queries related to the topic of the page.
• Improved scrolling performance.

Finally, Chrome 116 fixes 26 vulnerabilities. There are no critical issues that allow bypassing all browser protection levels and executing code in the system outside the sandbox environment

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