Google releases Chrome 71 with extensive security improvements

Google today released version 71 of Chrome web browser. This new release is not so much about new features, but rather about increasing the security of the browser. One of the most important updates focuses on Chrome’s built-in advertising filtering system.

The new version was announced at the beginning of November. Chrome’s ability to detect websites that advertise very aggressively or misleadingly has improved. Secondly, with Chrome, Google also tackles sites that try to entice users into mobile subscription services. In the latter case, Google intends to show a warning page, just like with https errors.

Three major improvements

In fact, there will soon be three major improvements in the area of security. First of all, there is the approach to misleading advertisements. Websites that are more often in violation of the rules that Google has drawn up, will end up on a blacklist and will eventually no longer be able to show advertisements to Chrome users. For the definition of misleading advertisements, Google refers to the definitions of the Coalition for Better Ads, of which it itself is a part.

From Chrome 71 onwards, Google also shows a warning for websites that mislead people in order to get their phone number and to steal money. Some sites rightly do this, but according to Google there are more and more sites that try to deceive people. For example, some sites disguise their payment forms in such a way that people don’t realize that they are signing up for a subscription service. Thirdly, Google permanently removes the Inline Install API for Chrome extensions.

With Chrome 71, Google solves another 43 security problems. On its site, Google has placed an extensive overview of the exact problems. The stable version of Chrome 71 is now available for Windows, macOS and Linux.