With each release of Chrome, Google take steps to make its web browser more and more secure. The newly released Chrome 86 is no different, with the latest stable build adding an impressive range of new security options and features.
There are different security features depending on whether you're using Chrome on the desktop or on a mobile device, but in either case there are strong reasons to make sure that your have the latest version installed. Among the new features are new options for changing passwords that have been involved in data breaches.
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Newly added support for .well-known/change-password means that should Google detect that one of your saved passwords has been compromised in a security breach, you will be prompted to change it. More than this, you will be taken directly to the password or security page of the affected site to help lock down your account.
Chrome 86 also continues Google's blocking of mix content downloads. The latest extension of this feature sees the browser blocking the downloading of executable files and compressed archives if the download starts via a secure HTTPS connection but would be completed over an unprotected HTTP connection. In a similar vein, and forms that make used of a mixture of HTTP and HTTPS will have the autofill feature disabled.
Safe as houses
Mobile users now benefit from the Enhanced Safe Browser feature that has been available to desktop users for a few months. To help increase security, Chrome now shares information about visited sites and download links with Google Safe Browsing so that URLs can be checked to see if they are potentially dangerous or not.
To make sure you have the very latest desktop version of Chrome installed on Windows, macOS or Linux, fire up the browser open up the Settings menu and click Help followed by About Google Chrome. The most recent version of the software will be downloaded, and you'll be prompted to restart the browser to complete the installation. For the mobile versions of the browser, just pay a visit to Google Play or the App Store to check for updates.
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