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Chrome 62 arrives with OpenType variable fonts and warning about HTTP sites in Incognito mode

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Google has launched Chrome 62 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Additions in this release include improvements to the Network Quality Estimator API, OpenType variable fonts, media capture from DOM elements, and more warnings related to HTTP, among other developer features. You can update to the latest version now using the browser’s built-in silent updater or download it directly from google.com/chrome.

Chrome is arguably more than a browser. With over 1 billion users, it’s a major platform that web developers have to consider. In fact, with Chrome’s regular additions and changes, developers have to keep up to ensure they are taking advantage of everything available.

While the Network Infomation API has been available in previous versions of Chrome, it only provided theoretical network speeds based on the type of a user’s connection. In Chrome 62, the API now provides developers with network performance metrics as experienced by the client. Developer can thus inspect the current expected round trip time and throughput, be notified of performance changes, and tailor content to network constraints. To simplify application logic, the API even summarizes measured network performance as the cellular connection type most similar to it, regardless of what the actual connection is another technology entirely (such as Wi-Fi or ethernet).

Chrome 62 also gains support for OpenType font variations. Until now, one font file contained just a single instance of a font family, including only one weight (Regular, Bold, Black, and so on) or one stretch (Normal, Condensed, Expanded, and so on). OpenType variations provide a continuous spectrum of stylistic variations while saving space and bandwidth, since they all load from a single compact font file. Stretch, style, and weight can be adjusted using the respective updated CSS properties (which now allow numeric values) and fine tuning of variation axis parameters, such as weight or width, is possible using the font-variation-settings CSS property.


https://developers.google.com/web/updates/videos/2016/07/capture-stream/canvas-pc.webm

The W3C Media Capture from DOM Elements API now allows sites to live-capture content in the form of a MediaStream directly from HTMLMediaElements. Streamed content can be recorded with the captureStream() method, sent remotely using WebRTC, and processed with WebAudio.

Arguably the biggest change in this release, however, is one Google announced back in April. As part of the company’s plan to mark all HTTP sites as non-secure in Chrome, version 62 now marks HTTP sites with entered data and HTTP sites in Incognito mode as non-secure.

HTTPS is a more secure version of the HTTP protocol used on the internet to connect users to websites. Secure connections are widely considered a necessary measure to decrease the risk of users being vulnerable to content injection (which can result in eavesdropping, man-in-the-middle attacks, and other data modification). Data is kept secure from third parties, and users can be more confident they are communicating with the correct website.

With the release of Chrome 56 in January 2017, Google’s browser started marking HTTP pages that collect passwords or credit cards as “Not Secure” in the address bar. Chrome 62 takes this to the next level:

Passwords and credit cards are naturally the most important data to keep private, but ideally no data that users type into websites should be accessible to others on the network. Chrome 62 thus shows the “Not secure” warning when users type data into HTTP sites.

As for browsing in Incognito mode, Google believes users have “increased expectations of privacy.” In this mode, HTTP browsing is potentially visible to others on the network, just like in normal mode. Chrome 62 thus warns users when visiting an HTTP page in Incognito mode.

Eventually, Chrome will always mark HTTP sites as “Not secure.”

Other developer features in this release (some are mobile-specific):

For what’s new in the browser’s DevTools, check out the release notes.

Chrome 62 also implements 35 security fixes. The following ones were found by external researchers:

Google thus spent at least $ 40,337 in bug bounties for this release. As always, the security fixes alone should be enough incentive for you to upgrade.

Google releases a new version of its browser every six weeks or so. Chrome 63 will arrive by early December.

VentureBeat

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