Google Chrome 36 Brings Web Components to the Browser

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Google is out with a new version of its Chrome web browser, providing users with new features and security fixes for over two dozen vulnerabilities.

Among the user facing improvements in Chrome 36 is a new look for the Incognito mode. Chrome has had an incongito mode since Google first debuted the browser back in 2008. Incognito mode, which is sometime referred to as ‘Porn Mode’, enables a user to view websites without having those websites or cookies stored in the browser’s history.

Chrome users on Linux now get the Chrome App Launcher, which enables users to launch a web application directly from the desktop.

From a developer perspective, Chrome 36 now supports a web technology known as HTML Imports, which is a component of the larger Web Components W3C specification.

“HTML Imports are a way to include and reuse HTML documents in other HTML documents,” the W3C HTML Imports draft specification explains.

Another key element of the Web Components specification that Google’s Chrome 36 now includes is known as Custom Elements. According to the draft W3C specification for Custom Elements, it is a component that enables a web author to define and use new types of DOM elements in a document.

On the security front, Chrome 36 provides users with 26 fixes, though Google is only providing visibility into two of them at this time.

Google credits security researcher Christian Schneider with the discovery of CVE-2014-3160, which is a Same-Origin-Policy bypass vulnerability in the SVG graphics library. Google is awarding $2,000 to Scheider for his discovery.

The only other flaw that Google is publicly disclosing is CVE-2014-3162, which is titled, ‘various fixes from internal audits, fuzzing and other initiatives.’ Google also credits the use of its own Address Sanitizer tool for finding the CVE-2014-3162 flaws. The Address Sanitizer technology is an open-source tool for detection of memory errors in C and C++ code. Address Sanitizer has also been used by security researchers to find use-after-free memory flaws in Apple Safari as well as Mozilla’s Firefox web browser.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at Datamation and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist

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