Chrome 77 for Mac, Windows rolling out: ‘Send this page’ sharing, new favicon animation, more

Abner Li | Sep 10 2019 - 12:41 pm PT

Google is rolling out the latest version of Chrome for Mac, Windows, and Linux. Chrome 77 more widely introduces the “Send this page” cross-device sharing functionality. It also features a new favicon loading animation and welcome experience, as well as security improvements.

Chrome 77 introduces a new welcome experience that’s longer than the current single-page walkthrough. After installing, Google invites you to “Make Chrome your own” by adding bookmarks to major first-party apps under the address bar. This includes Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps, News, and Translate.

The next screen asks about setting Chrome as the default browser to get “Google Search and Google smarts every time you browse.” “Set as default” will open a system prompt to confirm the choice. The last page details the benefits of enabling Chrome Sync to get “bookmarks, passwords, and more on all devices.”

Chrome Sync already lets you view what tabs are open on devices signed in to your Google Account. Instead of having to manually check and then launch, Chrome 77 lets you directly send a link to another device. There are a handful of ways to send a page, including tapping the address bar where a “Send this page” devices icon appears, or by right-clicking on a page, link, or tab.

The “Send to your devices” menu presents your list of devices logged in to Chrome, including Android, iOS, and other desktops. After clicking, a notification will appear on the target device to load the link. This feature has been available for some since Chrome 76, but there should now be a wider rollout.

: Android

To boost security, Site Isolation now protects cookies, HTTP resources, and other cross-site data, even if you’re visiting “attacker-controlled websites.” The feature will also be “enabled on some Android devices to protect websites and data where mobile users enter passwords.”

Site isolation works even if an attacker finds a bug in an untrusted renderer process and tries to execute arbitrary code in it.

Lastly, there’s a delightful new loading animation where you can see the icon of the site you’re navigating to as it loads. Once complete, the favicon expands to full size.