Google's Chrome 88 browser has been released with some noteworthy changes. This, the most popular browser for PCs, has removed Adobe Flash support, as well as the legacy support for accessing FTP sites. As for additions, Google has improved Dark Mode support on Windows and Chrome OS, as well as improved password security and implemented tab searches.
The depreciation of Adobe Flash has been well documented over recent years and months. In 2017 Adobe, Mozilla, and Microsoft decided to phase out the plugin in favour of newer rich web technologies. Apple and Mozilla browsers already removed Flash support and Microsoft is set to do so later this month. Adobe officially stopped support for Flash on 31st Dec 2020, and began blocking content playing in Flash from 12th January this year.
As mentioned in the intro and our headline, FTP support has now gone. This feature has been phased out starting in Chrome 86, when it was turned off in pre-release testing channels. Chrome users will now have to seek out sites with coded FTP web interfaces or use an FTP file managing app for this kind of web file access / uploading now. Additionally, Chrome has started to block insecure HTTP (not HTTPS) downloads.
An improved Dark Mode is present in the latest release of Chrome. Themes have been updated for Chrome OS, and in Windows 10 dark mode the scroll bars have at last got a lick of (dark) paint.
Under the hood we have improved password protections. For example a new feature can help users fix weak passwords by creating and storing something much stronger – updating multiple usernames and passwords in one convenient place.
Last but not least the Tab Search feature that arrived for Chrome OS users in Chrome 87 has made it to Chrome 88 for Windows, Mac and Linux. If you enable this feature a triangle in circle icon on the top bar shows all open tabs with a search option.