Google has started rolling out Chrome 76 across desktop platforms.
The new update brings a ton of improvements, a lot of which are aimed at developers. Arguably, the highlights of the release are how the browser will now prevent sites from knowing whether the user is in Incognito mode or not and block Adobe Flash by default.
True Incognito Mode
Staying true to its word, Google is no longer allowing websites to use a loophole to determine whether a user is in Incognito mode or not.
This spells bad news for certain sites that block users from accessing their content. Some news sites dole out a number of free articles a month and put up a soft paywall, and others even require visitors to log in to their accounts or browse in standard mode.
Users typically go into Incognito mode to avoid all that and essentially read all the articles they want for free, and now they can do just that to their hearts' content.
Blocking Flash
It's no mystery that Google has it out for Flash. Over the years, Chrome has been gradually chipping away at its support for the browser software. For instance, it started using HTML5 by default and played down the role of Flash back in 2016.
The latest Chrome update just outrights blocks Flash by default. Users can still flip the switch in the settings if they want to use Flash, but Google is set to completely remove support in December 2020. That doesn't come as much of a surprise. After all, Adobe has also announced that it's killing of Flash in 2020.
It's also worth mentioning that dark mode support for the desktop version of Chrome is in the works. Chrome 76 also comes with the usual fixes and improvements.
Google announced the release of Chrome 76 in its blog, and the update is now available on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
