Chrome 37

Two 'Chrome 37' stories July 2014 - August 2014

Chrome 37 goes stable, brings better font rendering to Windows, 50 bug fixes, more

Google has pushed Chrome 37 to the stable channel for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, with the biggest change being support for DirectWrite on Windows. From this version on, this added technology should make font rendering much better for many Chrome users on Microsoft’s operating system. But this update also packs other additions, including a variety of new app/extension APIs for developers to take advantage of. Rounding off the new features, Google says that version 37 packs the usual under the hood changes to help improve performance.

Google also says that this release fixes a total of 50 security issues, many of which have been credited by Google to external researchers in the release notes. Interestingly, many users are reporting that while the 32 bit version is out right now, the 64 bit version of this update has yet to be pushed. Both versions should be rolling out automatically to users of Chrome stable over the next few hours.

The Chrome team is delighted to announce the promotion of Chrome 37 to the stable channel for Windows, Mac and Linux. Chrome 37.0.2062.94 contains a number of fixes and improvements, including:

– DirectWrite support on Windows for improved font rendering
– A number of new apps/extension APIs
– Lots of under the hood changes for stability and performance

Google seeds Chrome 37 beta with DirectWrite support on Windows

Google announced on Thursday afternoon that it has released Chrome 37 beta with a number of new developer features, making it easier to create richer and faster web content and apps. The beta release includes support for the DirectWrite API on Windows for high-quality text rendering, even on high DPI displays.

The release also adds an HTML element called <dialog> as one of its headline features, allowing for styled boxes that can be controlled with JavaScript. More than a half-dozen other improvements were also made.

The full changelog from the Chromium blog:

Other updates in this release

The Web Cryptography JavaScript API is enabled by default starting in Chrome 37, allowing developers to perform cryptographic operations such as hashing, signature generation/verification, and encryption.
Subpixel font scaling is now supported, which enables smooth animations of text between font sizes.
TouchEvents are now longs instead of integers, enabling higher-fidelity touch interactions on high-DPI displays.
CSS cursor values “zoom-in” and “zoom-out” are now unprefixed.
The number of cores on a physical machine can now be accessed bynavigator.hardwareConcurrency.
The user’s preferred languages are now accessible by navigator.languages, and the languagechange event is fired when this is updated.
The CSS Shapes Module allows developers to define non-rectangular text wrapping boundaries around floated elements.
NPAPI deprecation continues according to our previously-announced plan with a harder-to-bypass blocking UI.
The default monospace font on Windows is now Consolas instead of Courier New.