le has released Chrome 59 for Windows, Linux and macOS. The latest version includes a number of important security fixes and features. The most notable among them is the arrival of Material Design on the desktop. Chrome 59.0.3071.86 is being rolled out on the Stable channel.
In all, Chrome 59 comes with 30 security fixes, updated settings with Material Design, feature upgrade to developer tools, full screenshot capture and various other enhancements.
Chrome 59: The new look Material Design
Since the introduction of Chrome, the browser has had several renovations and fixes, but what has never really changed is the “Settings” page. However, with Chrome 59, the Settings page has been updated to follow Google’s Material Design language.
Although serious onlookers would argue that this is just a beautifying change, but it certainly helps the browser follow the tone of the rest of Google’s apps and services.
Another enhancement that comes with Chrome 59 Material Design is the Image Capture. The Image Capture API lets vsites to take higher resolution images. This helps developers to control the camera setting such as white balance, ISO and zoom.
Headless Chrome is a new feature introduced in Chrome 59. As the name suggests, it is a way to run the Chrome browser in a headless environment. In other words, Headless Chrome lets Chrome run in an automated environment without a user interface or peripherals. This is great for such use cases as automating unit tests with Selenium and converting a web page into a PDF. It is also useful for automated testing and server environments where testers don’t need a visible UI shell.
Chrome 59 also has Navigation Preload API introduced in it. The Navigation Preload API lets the browser preload navigation requests while a service worker is starting up. These requests start before executing the fetch event handler in the service worker intercepting the target URL, giving the worker access to the preload response inside the fetch event handler and allowing it to handle the navigation with minimal delay.
If you don’t like the new UI, read this post on how to enable or disable Google Chrome Material Design.
