Chrome 132 beta

Published: November 13, 2024

Unless otherwise noted, the following changes apply to the newest Chrome beta channel release for Android, ChromeOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows. Learn more about the features listed here through the provided links or from the list on ChromeStatus.com. Chrome 132 is beta as of November 13, 2024. You can download the latest on Google.com for desktop or on Google Play Store on Android.

CSS

This release adds two new CSS features.

CSS Anchor Positioning: allow anchor-size() in inset and margin properties

Originally, anchor-size() was only allowed in sizing properties. The specification was changed to allow anchor-size() in insets and margins as well.

CSS sideways writing modes

Support of sideways-rl and sideways-lr keywords for the writing-mode CSS property. sideways-rl and sideways-lr are helpful to write non-CJK text vertically. They don't have behaviors favorable for CJK languages unlike vertical-rl and vertical-lr.

Web APIs

Capture all screens

Capture all the screens currently connected to the device using getAllScreensMedia().

Calling getDisplayMedia() multiple times requires multiple user gestures, burdens the user with choosing the next screen each time, and does not guarantee to the app that all the screens were selected. The getAllScreensMedia() method improves on all of these fronts.

This feature is shipping on Desktop only.

Dialog toggle events

It's useful to know when <dialog> elements open and close, and popover already has ToggleEvent which is dispatched when a popover opens or closes. Previously, to detect when a <dialog> opens you had to register a mutation observer to check for open, however, this is quite a lot of work where an event would be easier.

This change incorporates the same ToggleEvent that popovers dispatch, but for <dialog> elements: when showModal or show is called, <dialog> dispatches a ToggleEvent with newState=open. When a <dialog> is closed (using the form, button, or closewatcher) it should dispatch a ToggleEvent with newState=closed.

Element Capture

Given a video MediaStreamTrack obtained through pre-existing means to initiate tab-capture, Element Capture allows mutating the track to only capture a subtree of the DOM starting at a given Element.

The API bears some resemblance to the Region Capture API, but affords greater flexibility for applications, because occluding and occluded content are both excluded from the capture.

FedCM authorization features

This bundles a few features that can be used by Identity Providers (IdP) to implement authorization flows such as letting a user grant access to their calendar to an Relying Party (RP). Specifically:

  • The IdP needs to be able to show a custom prompt for the permission (continuation API).
  • The RP needs an extensible way to communicate to the IdP what it wants access to (parameters API).
  • The RP needs to be able to customize or suppress the text referring to the IdP sharing "name, email address and profile picture" because in this situation they are asking for different information (fields API).
  • The IdP may want to use a different endpoint to implement the authorization flow (multiple configURLs).
  • Certain accounts may only be eligible for one of the authentication and authorization flows and so there needs to be a way to show different accounts in the two flows (account labels API).

FedCM Mode API and Use Other Account API

Two new extensions for FedCM:

  • Mode: The active mode allows websites to call FedCM inside a button click (for example, clicking on a Sign-in to IdP button), which requires FedCM to guarantee it will always respond with a visible user interface. Calling the FedCM API in active mode takes users to login to the Identity Provider (IdP) when users are logged-out. Also, because the active mode is called within an explicit user gesture, the UI is also more prominent (for example, centered and modal) compared to the UI from the passive mode (which doesn't require a user gesture requirement and can be called on page load).
  • Use Other Account: With this extension, an IdP can allow users to sign in to other accounts.

Fetch: Request.bytes() and Response.bytes()

Add a bytes() method to the Request and Response interfaces, which returns a promise that resolves with a Uint8Array. While Request and Response have an arrayBuffer() method, you can't read directly from a buffer. You have to create a view such as a Uint8Array to read it. The bytes() method improves the ergonomics of getting the body of Request and Response.

File System Access for Android and WebView

This API enables developers to build powerful apps that interact with other (non-Web) apps on the user's device using the device's file system. After a user grants a web app access, this API allows the app to read or save changes directly to files and folders selected by the user. Beyond reading and writing files, this API provides the ability to open a directory and enumerate its contents, as well as store file and directory handles in IndexedDB to later regain access to the same content.

File System access shipped on Desktop in Chrome 86, with Chrome 132 it's available on Android and WebView.

Ignore Strict-Transport-Security for localhost

Strict-Transport-Security (STS) response headers can cause problems for localhost web servers because STS applies host-wide, across all ports. This causes compatibility problems for web developers testing locally. It also affects end-users who use software packages that commonly start localhost web servers for ephemeral reasons. For example, communication of an auth token from a web login to a local software package. If one local listener sets Strict-Transport-Security on a localhost response, it's applied to all subsequent localhost requests regardless of port.

Chrome 132 resolves this problem by ignoring Strict-Transport-Security headers on responses from localhost URLs.

Keyboard focusable scroll containers

The rollout of this feature (from Chrome 130) was stopped due to an accessibility regression. This is fixed and the feature continues to rollout with Chrome 132.

Private State Token API Permissions Policy default allowlist wildcard

Access to the Private State Token API is gated by Permissions Policy features. Chrome 132 updates the default allowlist for both private-state-token-issuance and private-state-token-redemption features from self to * (wildcard).

PushMessageData::bytes()

The PushMessageData interface mimics the Body interface, which was amended earlier this year with a new bytes() method, following the principle that APIs should generally vend byte buffers as Uint8Arrays. Chrome 132 realigns with the Body interface by providing the bytes() accessor on the PushMessageData interface as well.

Saved queries in sharedStorage.selectURL

sharedStorage.selectURL() now allows queries to be saved and reused on a per-page basis, where the two per-page-load budgets are charged the first time a saved query is run but not for subsequent runs of the saved query during the same page-load. This is accomplished with a savedQuery parameter in the options for selectURL() that names the query.

Throw exception for popovers and dialogs in non-active documents

Previously calling showPopover() or showModal() on a popover or dialog that resides within an inactive document would silently fail. No exception would be thrown, but as the document is inactive, no popover or dialog would be shown. As of Chrome 132, these situations now throw InvalidStateError.

WebAuthn Signal API

Allows WebAuthn relying parties to signal information about existing credentials back to credential storage providers, so that incorrect or revoked credentials can be updated or removed from provider and system UI.

Learn more about the Signal API for passkeys on Chrome desktop.

WebGPU: 32-bit float textures blending

The float32-blendable GPU feature makes GPU textures with formats r32float, rg32float, and rgba32float blendable.

WebGPU: Expose GPUAdapterInfo from GPUDevice

The GPUDevice adapterInfo attribute exposes the same GPUAdapterInfo as the GPUAdapter object.

WebGPU: Texture view usage

Adds an optional field to WebGPU texture view creation to request a subset of the usage flags from the source texture.

By default, texture view usage inherits from the source texture but there are view formats which can be incompatible with the full set of inherited usages. Adding a usage field to texture view creation allows the user request a subset of the source texture's usages that are valid with the view format and specific to their intended usage of the texture view.

WebGPU implementations can also optimize the creation of low level resources and improve performance when using views with more specialized usage flags.

New origin trials

In Chrome 132 you can opt into the following new origin trials.

Document-Isolation-Policy

Document-Isolation-Policy allows a document to enable crossOriginIsolation for itself, without having to deploy COOP or COEP, and regardless of the crossOriginIsolation status of the page. The policy is backed by process isolation. Additionally, the document non-CORS cross-origin subresources will either be loaded without credentials or will need to have a CORP header.

Explicit Compile Hints with Magic Comments

This feature lets you attach information about which functions should be eager parsed and compiled in JavaScript files. The information will be encoded as magic comments.

Deprecations and removals

This version of Chrome introduces the following deprecations and removals. Visit ChromeStatus.com for lists of planned deprecations, current deprecations and previous removals.

This release of Chrome removes two features.

navigator.storage was made an EventTarget for the Storage Pressure Event, which never made it past the prototype phase. This dead code is being removed and as a result, navigator.storage will no longer extend EventTarget.

Remove Prefixed HTMLVideoElement Fullscreen APIs

The prefixed HTMLVideoElement fullscreen APIs have been deprecated from Chrome

They were replaced by the Element.requestFullscreen() API, which first shipped unprefixed in Chrome 71, in 2018. As of 2024, most browsers have had support for the unprefixed APIs for a few years now.

Chrome 132 removes the following from HTMLVideoElement:

  • The webkitSupportsFullscreen attribute.
  • The webkitDisplayingFullscreen attribute.
  • The webkitEnterFullscreen() method.
  • The webkitExitFullscreen() method. Note the different capitalization of the "S" in FullScreen.
  • The webkitEnterFullScreen() method.
  • The webkitExitFullScreen() method.

These methods are now only aliases for the modern API. Their use has declined steadily over the years.