Google has officially launched the stable version of Chrome 152, rolling out significant security enhancements and feature deprecations. The update addresses a substantial number of vulnerabilities, bolstering the browser’s defenses against online threats.
Comprehensive Security Fixes in Chrome 152
The latest release, Chrome 152, includes fixes for a total of 327 security vulnerabilities. A significant portion of these, 50 in total, relate to memory safety issues such as Use-After-Free (UAF) bugs, with others addressing permission errors. The breakdown of fixed vulnerabilities by severity is as follows:
- 10 “Critical” vulnerabilities
- 61 “High” severity vulnerabilities
- 184 “Medium” severity vulnerabilities
- 72 “Low” severity vulnerabilities
In addition to patching existing weaknesses, Chrome 152 introduces an improved “Safe Browsing” mechanism. For users with enhanced protection features enabled, the browser now presents skippable warning pop-ups before users access potentially malicious websites. This proactive measure aims to provide an additional layer of defense against phishing attempts and malware distribution.
Deprecation of Legacy PDF Viewer and MV2 Extensions
Beyond security updates, Chrome 152 marks the deprecation of the traditional PDF viewer architecture. Google is progressively transitioning to the OOPIF (Out-of-process iframes) architecture, which was first introduced in Chrome 126. The enterprise policy that allowed users to revert to the old PDF viewer, PdfViewerOutOfProcessIframeEnabled, has been marked as deprecated in this version and will be completely removed in Chrome 155.
Furthermore, a significant change impacting developers and users alike is the upcoming discontinuation of Manifest V2 (MV2) extensions from the Chrome Web Store. As of August 31st, MV2 extensions will be completely removed. While extensions installed prior to Chrome 138 may continue to function temporarily, they will no longer receive updates or be available for reinstallation.
Platform-Specific Versions
The release of Chrome 152 comes with specific version numbers for different operating systems:
- Windows 10, Windows 11, and Linux: Version 152.0.7977.64
- macOS: Version 152.0.7977.65
Users are strongly encouraged to update to the latest stable version of Chrome to benefit from these critical security fixes and prepare for upcoming changes in extension support.
