Stable release date: June 11th, 2024
Unless otherwise noted, the following changes apply to Chrome 126 stable channel release for Android, ChromeOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows.
CSS
Cross-document view transitions for same-origin navigations
Previously you had to rearchitect your website to an SPA to use the View Transitions API. This is no longer the case. View transitions are now enabled by default for same-origin navigations. You can create a view transition between two different documents that are the same-origin.
To enable a cross-document view transition, both ends need to opt-in. To do
this, use the @view-transition at-rule and set the navigation descriptor to
auto.
@view-transition {
navigation: auto;
}
Cross-document view transitions use the same building blocks and principles as
same-document view transitions. Elements that have a view-transition-name
applied are captured, and you can customize the animations using CSS animations.
Smooth transitions with the View Transition API | Tracking bug #1372584 | ChromeStatus.com entry | Spec
Web APIs
Gamepad API trigger-rumble extension
Extends the GamepadHapticActuator interface to expose the trigger-rumble
capability on the Web for
compatible gamepads. This extension will allow web applications that take
advantage of the Gamepad API to also vibrate the triggers of gamepad devices
that come equipped with this functionality.
Tracking bug #40834175 | ChromeStatus.com entry | Spec
ChromeOS tabbed web apps
PWAs in a standalone window can only have one page open at a time. Some apps expect users to have many pages open at once. Tabbed mode adds a tab strip to standalone web apps in ChromeOS that allows multiple tabs to be open at once.
The feature adds a new display mode of "tabbed" and a new manifest field to
allow customizations to the tab strip.
Tracking bug #40598974 | ChromeStatus.com entry | Spec
toJSON() method for GeolocationCoordinates and GeolocationPosition
Adds .toJSON() methods to the GeolocationCoordinates and
GeolocationPosition interfaces. This enables serialization of these objects
with JSON.stringify().
WebGLObject Web IDL superinterface
This feature exposes the WebGLObject type in the same contexts where the WebGL
API is exposed—on the main thread and workers.
Re-enabling the CloseWatcher API and close requests for <dialog> and popover=""
The CloseWatcher API allows handling close requests, like the ESC key on
desktop platforms or the back gesture or button on Android, in a uniform way.
This feature was originally shipped in Chrome 120,
but was disabled due
to an unexpected interaction with <dialog>.
It has been reenabled
in Chrome 126 after some improvements to its behavior to minimize the problems
seen there.
Demo | Tracking bug #1171318 | ChromeStatus.com entry
Attribution Reporting API: Referrer policy for attributionsrc requests
attributionsrc requests are treated like other subresources on the page.
Previously when the API is called through the use of the attributionsrc attribution as part of various html elements (such as <img>, <script>, <a>, or window.open), it ignores the resource-level referrer policy attribute set on the <html> element.
With this change the attributionsrc request will now apply the same resource-level referrer policy set in the <img>, <script>, <a>, or window.open.
This allows ad-techs more control over whether or not they want to be more or less restrictive regarding the referrer information on their attributionsrc requests.
Media
MP4 container support for MediaRecorder
Adds support for muxing audio and video into MP4 containers with MediaRecorder.
MediaRecorder | ChromeStatus.com entry | Spec
OpusEncoderConfig signal and application parameters
The OpusEncoderConfig.signal and OpusEncoderConfig.application parameters
are mapped directly to implementation specific encoder knobs. These allow web
authors to provide hints as to what type of data is being encoded, and in which
context the data is being used.
signal can be one of "auto", "music", "voice". It configures the encoder
for the best performance in encoding the specified type of data. application
can be one of "voip", "audio", "lowdelay". It configures the encoder to
favor speech intelligibility, faithful reproduction of the original input, or
minimal latency.
JavaScript
visualViewport onscrollend support
The scrollend JavaScript event fires to signal that a scrolling operation has
come to an end.
The visualViewport interface includes an onscrollend event handler that should
be invoked when a scrolling operation on the visualViewport has ended. Chrome
already supports adding a scrollend event listener through
visualViewport.addEventListener("scrollend"). This just makes it possible to
also add an event listener using visualViewport.onscrollend.
Tracking bug #325307785 | ChromeStatus.com entry
Privacy
Align navigator.cookieEnabled with spec
navigator.cookieEnabled currently indicates if "the user agent attempts to handle cookies" in a given context. A change in Chrome, shipping as part of third-party cookie deprecation (3PCD), would cause it to indicate whether unpartitioned cookie access is possible (causing it to return false in most cross-site iframes). We should restore the prior behavior of navigator.cookieEnabled which indicated only if cookies were enabled or disabled for the site and rely on the cross-vendor function document.hasStorageAccess to indicate if unpartitioned cookie access is possible.
Tracking bug #335553590 | ChromeStatus.com entry | Spec
Accessibility
Support for the UI Automation Accessibility Framework on Windows
Modern assistive applications on Microsoft Windows use the platform's UI Automation accessibility framework to interoperate with other applications' user interfaces. Until now, Chromium has supported the older Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) and IAccessible2 (IA2) framework for this purpose, which has led to problems with accessibility tools on Windows.
To solve this problem, Microsoft has worked with the Chrome team to support the UI Automation (UIA) framework on Windows directly, making it easier for accessibility tools to communicate with the browser. We'll be starting a gradual rollout to stable, starting in Chrome version 126. This will enable Voice Access to function in all Chromium-based browsers and will enhance the user experience for all UIA-based accessibility tools, such as Narrator and Magnifier.
Introducing UIA support on Windows
New origin trials
FedCM as a trust signal for the Storage Access API
Reconciles the FedCM and Storage Access APIs by making a prior FedCM grant a valid reason to automatically approve a storage access request.
When a user grants permission for using their identity with a third-party Identity Provider (IdP) on a Relying Party (RP), many IdPs require third-party cookies to function correctly and securely. This proposal aims to satisfy that requirement in a private and secure manner by updating the Storage Access API (SAA) permission checks to not only accept the permission grant that is given by a storage access prompt, but also the permission grant that is given by a FedCM prompt.
A key property of this mechanism is limiting the grant to cases explicitly allowed by the RP through the FedCM permissions policy, enforcing a per-frame control for the RP and preventing passive surveillance by the IdP beyond the capabilities that FedCM already grants.
Origin Trial | Explainer | ChromeStatus.com entry
Media previews opt-out
This reverse origin trial excludes sites from the launch of Media Previews.
Chrome will provide real-time previews of camera and microphone input at the time camera and microphone permissions are requested by websites. These will also be available from the site's pageinfo.
In addition, users with multiple devices will be able to select a camera and microphone at the time permissions are requested, unless the site has requested a specific device through getUserMedia().
Origin Trial | Tracking bug #330762482 | ChromeStatus.com entry
FedCM: Continuation API, Parameters API, Fields API, Multiple configURLs, Custom Account Labels
Developers can start taking part in an origin trial for a bundle of desktop FedCM features that can include authorization. The bundle consists of FedCM Continuation API, Parameter API, Fields API, Multiple configURLs, and Custom Account Labels. This enables an OAuth authorization flow-like experience involving an IdP-provided permission dialog.
Tracking bug #40262526 | ChromeStatus.com entry
Page-Embedded Permission Control
Provide a new HTML element that interacts with the permission flow.
The permission prompt is currently triggered directly from JavaScript without the user agent having any strong signal of the user's intent. Having an in-content element that the user uses to trigger the permission flow allows for improved permission prompt UX for users as well as a recovery path from the "denied" permission state for sites.
Deprecations and removals
Dreprecate and remove import assertion 'assert' syntax
Deprecate and remove the assert keyword in favor of the new with keyword in import attribute syntax.
That is, import m from 'foo' assert { type: 'json' } will now throw a SyntaxError, and developers must change to import m from 'foo' with { type: 'json' }.
Further reading
Looking for more? Check out these additional resources.
- What's new in Chrome 126
- What's new in Chrome DevTools 126
- ChromeStatus.com updates for Chrome 126
- Chrome release calendar
- Upcoming deprecations
- Upcoming removals