Download Google Chrome 51.0.2704.63
Google has released version 51 of its Chrome web browser. Google Chrome is available for Windows, Linux, and OS X. There are also versions for Android and iOS, but they follow a slightly different release schedule. Since version 50, support for older versions of Windows and OS X has been dropped. In version 51, support for an identification manager API has been added, among other things, and certain parts that are not visible on the screen are no longer rendered to improve performance. Of course, the necessary security vulnerabilities and bug fixes have also been implemented. The most important improvements are listed for you below.
Credential Management API
Many sites allow their users to sign in to receive personalized content. Today that requires remembering and typing credentials, which lowers account security when users reuse passwords across multiple sites. Modern browsers have credential managers that remember and autofill saved passwords, but these managers cannot account for custom login flows or remember federated identity preferences.
The latest version of Chrome now supports the Credential Management APIallowing sites to interact with the browser’s credential manager to improve the login experience for users. The API enables users to sign in with one tap and lets them automatically sign back in when returning to the site.
Reducing the overhead of offscreen rendering
Modern websites commonly embed cross-origin content like videos, social widgets, and ads. Embedding these resources allows sites to offer compelling content experiences, but it also creates a lot of overhead that can jank the page in ways the embedding site can’t control. The latest version of Chrome no longer runs the rendering pipeline or requestAnimationFrame() callbacks for cross-origin frames that are offscreen. This eliminates unnecessary work and reduces power consumption by up to 30% on several popular mobile sites without affecting the user experience.
Additional features in this release
- the Intersection Observer API allows sites to detect element intersections as an asynchronous event, eliminating the need for costly document monitoring.
- The latest version of Chrome supports passive event listenerswhich allow sites to run JavaScript in response to touch and wheel input without blocking scrolling.
- Blobs are now constructed and transferred to the browser asynchronouslyallowing large data files to be moved without janking the page.
- the SameSite cookie attribute allows sites to restrict cookies to requests from the same domain.
- Support for the AES_256_GCM cipher on TLS improves security on servers that choose cipher by key size, where legacy 256-bit ciphers were used over more secure, but smaller, ciphers.
- Array.prototype.values() makes it easier to iterate over the elements of an array.
- the function name property now infers useful names for properties and methods with computed property names, making debugging easier with clearer labels and error messages.
- Iterators that are part of a for-of loop that terminates early now call a developer-provided close() method, making it easier to respond to the end of an iteration.
- Symbol.species makes subclassing built-in classes such as Array and RegExp more powerful by allowing custom constructors to be called for derived objects.
- RegExp subclasses can overwrite the exec() method to change the matching algorithm, making it easier to write custom subclasses.
- Sites can now implement their own Symbol.hasInstance() method to customize behavior of the instanceof operator.
- Sites can now retrieve a service worker’s Client object using Clients.get(id).
- ServiceWorker.postMessage() now fires an ExtendableMessageEvent on ServiceWorkerGlobalScopeallowing the message to extend the service worker lifetime and provide more accurate message sources.
- The HTML referrer policy attribute allows sites to control what information is sent in the referrer headers of ,
, , and - the UIEvents KeyboardEvent |key| attribute allows sites to reliably determine the meaning of the key being pressed.
- Sites can now detect the duration of batched offline audio contexts using the OfflineAudioContext.length attribute.
- SPDY and ALPN support has been removed in favor of the standards-based HTTP/2 protocol.
Other changes
- The ability to customize the message shown in the unforeunload dialog has been removed to protect users from malicious websites and align with other browsers.
- Chrome on Android now uses the same media pipeline as desktop Chrome, improving WebAudio support and allowing sites to interact with the playback rate on
- The latest version of Chrome improves web animations interoperability by supporting lists of values and removing dashed-names in keyframes.
- Chrome now requires a border style to paint border images, improving spec compliance and interoperability.
- Percentages can now be used for the sizes of flex item children.
- DHE-based ciphers have been deprecated and will be removed in Chrome 52 in favor of ECDHE ciphers to improve TLS security.
Version number | 51.0.2704.63 |
Release status | Final |
Operating systems | Windows 7, Linux, macOS, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2012, Windows 8, Windows 10 |
Website | |
Download | |
License type | Freeware |