Google launches Chome 32: Here's a run-down of what's new in the search engine's browser

New ways to track tabs, webcam-incidators and a new look for Windows 8

Zachary Boren
Wednesday 15 January 2014 10:46 EST
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Google’s new Chrome 32, released yesterday, will help users locate pesky noisy tabs.

The latest version of Google’s browser has a few new additions that should prove popular with users, most notably a speaker icon which appears on tabs that are currently making noise.

This tab-tracking function, in the works since February last year, will extend to webpages that use your webcam or are being cast to your TV, for which the respective icons are a red recording symbol and a little TV.

The webcam-indicator is pitched at users concerned with their online privacy following recent shocking revelations of online snooping by intelligence organisations and international corporations.

Chrome 32’s other additions include stronger Safe Browsing malware – in which the browser will now automatically block all malware files and then alert you to it at the bottom of the screen –  and a sleek new look for Windows 8 Metro mode.

The browser’s other big addition is its beta preview for ‘supervised users,’ an application designed to protect younger web-users from encountering inappropriate content.

You create a supervised user and then visit chrome.com/manage to review browsing activity and place restrictions on what can and cannot be viewed.

Coupled with Chrome’s ‘Go Away Cameron’ application – which circumvents the government’s proposed porn filter – released last month, this is the latest way in which Google is empowering the user to privately censor disturbing internet content.

Google has also announced that the new browser has addressed 21 security issues, as well as fixing bugs and improving stability.

If only for helping rid its users of incessant online ads, Google Chrome 32 will be celebrated

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