Google Chrome is getting several privacy-focused changes: Details here
A few days back, Google had announced the plan to update its browser Chrome with features like grouping tabs by topic and blocking resource-hungry ads. Now, building on the same effort, the internet giant has detailed more improvements that focus on the privacy, security, and safety of users and will roll them out over the coming weeks. Let's take a look at them.
Redesigned interface for better control
To make essential controls easier to find and access, Google is tweaking the interface of Chrome by moving around certain settings and buttons and adding clearer labels. As part of this, the company is bringing all extensions under a single puzzle icon on the toolbar; you can access extensions from the icon, change their permissions or remove them from there.
Easy-to-access Cookies, Sync settings
Along with extensions, Chrome is making Cookie controls more prominent in the Privacy and Security settings section, with clear descriptions telling users what will happen if they choose to allow or block cookies. Additionally, when you open Chrome settings, you will see a tab titled 'You and Google' to show all the data that is stored on Google's servers and shared across your devices.
In Incognito mode, cookies will be blocked by default
Google says it will start blocking cookies by default in the privacy-focused Incognito mode. There will be an 'eye' button in the address bar that can be used to let a site use cookies for one time.
More prominent Safety Check tool
Google Chrome will also show a new Safety Check section, which you can use to run a complete safety check of your whole Chrome experience. It will check if your browser is not updated, Safe Browsing - which warns about malicious sites, extensions - is not on, or some saved passwords have been compromised in breaches and help you fix all these issues.
Enhanced Safe Browsing protection
Chrome's next version will also have an option of Enhanced Safe Browsing protection which will take a more aggressive approach to check whether pages and downloads are dangerous by sending information about them to Google in real-time. If you are signed-in on Chrome, the feature will also work with Gmail and other Google apps to warn you about suspicious links.
Finally, Google will also enable DNS-over-HTTPS
Google will also enable Secure DNS or the DNS-over-HTTPS protocol similar to Mozilla Firefox. This will encrypt DNS lookup, making the process of determining the server on which a site is hosted more secure and keeping attackers from snooping in.
