What’s new in Chrome 108, available today

Chrome 108 includes a power saving mode, better support for high-resolution emoji, and web page switching options for virtual keyboards.

The end of another month means it’s time for a new version of Chrome. Google Chrome 108 is available starting November 29, 2022. This version includes a power saving mode, better support for high-resolution emoji, and adjustments to the appearance of web pages with virtual keyboards.

Power saving mode for desktop and ChromeOS

If there’s one common complaint about Chrome, it’s how resource intensive it can be. Google is working on a new “Power Saving” mode that may help you save some power when using Chrome on battery.

The feature is for Chrome on desktop and Chromebooks. At the time of writing this article, it is behind a function indicator. When enabled, you can choose to have “Power Saver” mode activate when the battery is at 20% or less, or when the computer is unplugged.

The flag can be found at chrome://flags/#battery-saver-mode-available .

Better support for COLRv1 fonts and emojis

Chrome 98 implemented a new set of COLRv1 color gradient vector fonts. The biggest benefit of this was cleaner, more scalable emojis. Chrome 108 builds on this.

Starting with Chrome 108, websites can detect which font formats are supported by the browser. If support for COLRv1 fonts is detected, you can display higher quality emoji.

Resizing options for virtual keyboards

Since almost all phones today have a full touch screen, virtual keyboards are the norm. When the keyboard appears in the browser, websites change things differently to make sure that the focused area remains visible.

Chrome, Firefox, and Safari all have slightly different ways of changing things when the keyboard is swiped up. With Chrome 108, Google allows web developers to choose how they want page content to adapt to the keyboard.

What else is new?

Chrome releases don’t have as many major new features these days. However, there is still a lot going on under the hood. You can read about many of these changes on Google’s developer site, as well as on the Chromium blog. We’ll highlight a few changes here:

• Chrome for Android is getting a slightly redesigned omnibox for Material Design 3.
• Chrome will start rolling out a change that allows developers to use the existing overflow property with overridden elements that paint outside the content box.
• Support for avoid value of CSS chunking properties break-before , break-after Y break-inside has been added for printing.
• DevTools can now identify CSS styles that are valid but have no visible effect.
• Developers can now loop through expressions separated by commas while debugging in DevTools.

How to update Google Chrome

Chrome will automatically install the update on your device when it becomes available. To immediately check for and install any available updates, click the three-dot menu icon and click Help > About Google Chrome.

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