An “early release” of Chromium 114 source code was published a few days ago, the release notes are on the developer blog. Since Chromium 110, Google rolls out new major releases to a small sub-set of its users to monitor any potential breakage and apply fixes before the majority of users get upgraded. The formal release of Chromium will be on May 30th, but I decided to go along with the early release this time, and offer this version to Slackware users already this weekend, to celebrate the Pentecost 🙂
Looking at the new stuff in Chromium 114, there’s two things you might want to play with, since they are already contained in the browser and mostly usable in Chromium 114, but not yet enabled by default.
- By toggling the flag “
chrome://flags/#chrome-refresh-2023” from “default” to “enabled” the ongoing work will be revealed to bring a new User Interface design (Material You) to the desktop browser. A new tab design, new icons and work on the dark theme is visible. This new UI is scheduled for release in September 2023.
- The toggle “
chrome://flags/#password-manager-redesign” will enable a revamped Google Password Manager. It wants to look more like a standalone application and Chromium will ask you if you want to “install the app” which basically just adds a shortcut to “chrome://password-manager/passwords” in the “three-dots” sidebar menu. I was not yet impressed with this one, as it was unable to show me the passwords I had already saved in Chromium before. Yet is was obvious that my passwords were present since the password manager was able to check them all for compromise and weakness. So, I toggled this one back to “default” and will wait for Google to mature and stabilize it.
Also obvious is the disappearance of the “lock” icon which was an indication that you were visiting a secure “https” site. The lock has been replaced by a settings icon but functionally nothing much changed, as is shown when you click that icon.
Slackware packages (15.0 and -current) for Chromium 114.0.5735.45 are available for download from my repository or any of its mirrors.
The Un-googled version of my Chromium browser package will probably have to wait until May 30th – the formal release date of Chromium 114. There is no sign that Eloston will release a tarball sooner.
Enjoy! Eric
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