Summary
- Chrome's new Safety Check feature runs automatically in the background, alerting you if your passwords or extensions are compromised, or if you're using an outdated version.
- Safety Check can now revoke site permissions and flag excessive notifications from sites you don't visit, improving user control and reducing distractions.
- The Memory Saver mode has been enhanced, allowing users to see potential memory saved and easily specify which sites to keep active, improving performance and efficiency.
The latest version of the Google Chrome desktop web browser is now rolling out, and it comes with two critical new features that make the browser safer and smarter. The first relates to changes to Safety Check, which can now run automatically in the background. The second feature covers Memory Saver mode and new ways to see how much memory the feature is saving on your device.
With the improved Safety Check feature, you can expect Chrome to alert you in the background if any of your passwords saved in the browser are compromised. It will also alert you if you're using a compromised extension, or if you're not using the most recent version of Chrome. You'll see all these alerts at the top of the three-dot menu in Chrome.
Other than that, there are some quality of life changes, too. You should also notice that Safety Check can now revoke site permissions such as access to your location or microphone, especially if you haven't visited them in a while. Safety Check will even go as far as to flag down if you're getting too many notifications for sites you don't visit.
When it comes to performance, meanwhile, you might remember Chrome's Memory Saver Mode that rolled out last year. Well, there are now some additional options to see how the feature is in action. Whenever Memory Saver is turned on, you can now hover over a tab to see the potential memory saved if that tab is inactive. Google has also tweaked Memory Saver itself so that you can more easily specify the sites you care about and keep them active.
A final feature also coming in the next few weeks is the ability to save the tab groups that you created. There's no specific time frame for this yet, but this should make it easier to access the tab groups you saved on one computer on another. As always, you can update Chrome today to grab all these new features by going to the three-dot menu, and choosing Help, then About Google Chrome. Chrome will then prompt you to restart.