Chrome 77 Released – EV Indicator Removed, Security Fixes and More Customization Controls

Chrome 77 released to the Stable channel for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The update covers various improvements and fixes 52 security vulnerabilities.

With the update, Google started experimenting with the DNS-over-HTTPS upgrade and removes the EV indicator form the browser address bar.

EV Indicator Removed

Starting from Chrome 77 the Extended validation certificate indicator has been moved from the address bar to page info, now users can get the details only clicking the lock icon.

“Through our research as well as a survey of prior academic work, the Chrome Security UX team has determined that the EV UI does not protect users as intended. Users do not appear to make secure choices when the UI is altered or removed, as would be necessary for EV UI to provide meaningful protection.”

Here you can find the list of SSL checker that to be used for checking certificate installation and vulnerability scanning.

Customization Controls

The new version lets you create a custom browser theme, which lets you pick the favorite colors, which can be used with New Tab page background and the Chrome browser toolbar itself.

If you are installing the Chrome browser for the first time, then you will be seeing a page “Make Chrome your own,” on the computer.

Chrome 77 also introduces new performance tools for developers that let you measure how quickly the web page is available for the users.

Another notable addition is the Contact Picker API, which allows users to select entries from their contact list and limit the details shared to the website.

How to Update

Android and iOS users can update the Chrome browser app from their respective App stores.

Security Fixes

Chrome 77 fixes 52 bugs discovered by external security researchers. Following are the Critical and high impact vulnerabilities reported.

• Critical CVE-2019-5870: Use-after-free in media. Reported by Guang Gong of Alpha Team, Qihoo 360 on 2019-08-29.
• High CVE-2019-5871: Heap overflow in Skia. Reported by Anonymous on 2019-08-03.
• High CVE-2019-5872: Use-after-free in Mojo. Reported by Zhe Jin，Luyao Liu from Chengdu Security Response Center of Qihoo 360 Technology Co. Ltd on 2019-07-05.
• High CVE-2019-5873: URL bar spoofing on iOS. Reported by Khalil Zhani on 2019-07-31.
• High CVE-2019-5874: External URIs may trigger other browsers. Reported by James Lee (@Windowsrcer) on 2019-08-01.
• High CVE-2019-5875: URL bar spoof via download redirect. Reported by Khalil Zhani on 2019-06-28.
• High CVE-2019-5876: Use-after-free in media. Reported by Man Yue Mo of Semmle Security Research Team on 2019-08-23.
• High CVE-2019-5877: Out-of-bounds access in V8. Reported by Guang Gong of Alpha Team, Qihoo 360 on 2019-08-29.
• High CVE-2019-5878: Use-after-free in V8. Reported by Guang Gong of Alpha Team, Qihoo 360 on 2019-09-03.

You can follow us on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook for daily Cybersecurity and hacking news updates.