Chrome 106 also includes some enhancements and new features that we will discuss in detail in this article. These features include selective translation options for highlighted text, a built-in RSS reader, and better bookmarks and notes for websites. There are some new enhancements for the developers that we’ll discuss in the next section.
Release Summary
Complete Release Build: 106.0.5249.62Release Date: Wednesday, September 28th, 2022Compatibility: Windows 11, 10, 8.1, 8, 7 (32-bit and 64-bit), Linux, Mac, iOS, and Android.Previous Build: Chrome 105.0.5195.54Bug Fixes: 20. More information about security fixes can be found here.
Improvements in Chrome 106
Translate Highlighted Text
Chrome 106 now has the ability to translate highlighted text only. Previously, it was only possible to translate the complete page by selecting the “Translate to English” context menu item. Now you can translate selective text. This is especially useful if a website uses more than one language on its pages.
Release Summary Improvements in Chrome 106 Translate Highlighted Text Built-In RSS Reader Advanced Search Capabilities Improvements for the Developers Update to Chrome 106 Download Google Chrome 106 Install Google Chrome 106 Google Chrome Changelog History
This feature also needs to be enabled. To enable the Desktop Partial Translate feature, open the following URL in Chrome 106: chrome://flags/#desktop-partial-translate Enable the item and restart your browser. Now whenever you have selected text on a webpage, the context menu item “Translate to English” will automatically translate only the selected text by default. You can translate the full page by unselecting everything on the page and then selecting “Translate to English” from the context menu. Note: I use Vivaldi as my primary browser and Vivaldi already has this feature implemented far better than Chrome at the moment.
Built-In RSS Reader
Google has once again released Chrome with a built-in RSS reader. Previously it was only possible to add RSS feeds in Chrome using Google Reader. Since Google Reader has been discontinued but RSS still remains a popular format to get updates from websites, Google has added the feature to Chrome itself. Once you have updated Chrome to version 106, you can right-click on any webpage and select “Follow site” to start getting updates for the site. The feature seems to be in the early stages of development and is quite confusing. When I click on Follow site context menu item, it does nothing. The side panel for sites followed is still an experimental feature where you can see all the sites you’re following. To enable the side panel for following sites, open the following URL in Chrome: chrome://flags/#following-feed-sidepanel Select Enable from the dropdown in front of “Following Feed in the sidepanel”. Once enabled, relaunch your browser and you’ll see a sidepanel icon in the toolbar beside the addressbar. Since I use Vivaldi as my primary browser, I can see that Vivaldi is way ahead of Chrome in terms of RSS features. Vivaldi already has an RSS feed reader built into the browser and it’s easier to use than Chrome’s.
Advanced Search Capabilities
Users can now limit their searches to search history, opened tabs, and bookmarks, directly from the Omnibox at the top of the browser. Instead of navigating through different pages to get to a search result, you can now directly enter what you are looking for in the Omnibox. For example, if you want to search through all the opened tabs, you can simply type in “@tabs“, press the spacebar, and then enter the tab you are looking for. You can then select an option from the list, and the selected tab will then be on the top. Note that this won’t open the same tab in a new tab, but take you to the one which is already opened. Similarly, you can also perform a quick search directly from your Omnibox in your browsing history. To do so, type in “@history“, hit the spacebar, and then enter the keyword for your search, as in the image below: You can then select the search result you are looking for and it will open it in a new tab, or you can simply press Enter when the Omnibox is in focus to take you to the browsing history page. Additionally, you can also search your bookmarks by typing in “@bookmarks” followed by the search keyword(s). That said, this is still an experimental feature, which means that it needs to be enabled through a Chrome flag. To enable this advanced search feature using Omnibox, open the following URL in Chrome: chrome://flags/#omnibox-site-search-starter-pack Select Enable from the dropdown in front of “Omnibox Site Search Starter Pack”. Once enabled, relaunch your browser and you’ll be able to perform these advanced searches.
Improvements for the Developers
A total of eight features have been added for the developers in Chrome 106. CSS ‘ic’ Length Unit: Support for expressing CSS lengths relative to the used advanced measures of CJK water ideograph. Deprecate Persistent Quota: Support of the window.PERSISTENT quota type in requestFileSystem() will be deprecated soon. Deprecate non-ASCII characters in cookie domain attributes: To align with the latest specification in RFC 6265bis, Chromium will reject cookies with a “Domain” attribute that contains a non-ASCII character. Enforce CORS in subresource SignedExchange prefetching: Changes the request mode and credentials mode of prefetch requests used in Subresource prefetching+loading via Signed HTTP Exchange. Intl.NumberFormat v3 API: Intl.NumberFormat v3 API is a new TC39 ECMA402 stage 3 proposal extend the pre-existing Intl.NumberFormat, with the following new features: SerialPort BYOB reader support: Updates the underlying data source for the ReadableStream provided by the SerialPort to be a readable byte stream. This change is backward-compatible with the existing code that calls port.readable.getReader() with no parameters. Developers can detect support for BYOB readers by calling getReader({ mode: ‘byob’ }) as older implementations will throw a TypeError when the new parameter is passed. Unprefix -webkit-hyphenate-character CSS property: This change supports unprefixed hyphenate-character, not only -webkit-hyphenate-character. WebCodecs dequeue event: This feature tracks adding a single event named “dequeue” to the audio, video encoder, and decoder interfaces. For detailed information on these updates, please visit chromestatus.
Update to Chrome 106
If you already have Google Chrome installed on your computer, then updating it would be easy. Follow the guide below to update your existing Chrome browser to version 105. The browser will now close and reopen. Once it does, you can navigate to the About Google Chrome page again and confirm that it has indeed been updated to version 106. Note: The browser closes when you click Relaunch and then reopens, restoring all closed tabs. There are a few different methods that can also be used to update your Chrome browser to the latest version, including:
Update using Google updateUse the downloaded Chrome installerUsing NiniteDownload Chrome without using a browser
You can learn more about these methods in this guidepost. You may also download the Chrome browser from the links given below if you do not already have it.
Download Google Chrome 106
Click on the links below to download Chrome 106: Download: Google Chrome web installer Download: Google Chrome offline installer Download: Google Chrome MSI Installer [Enterprise Edition] Download: Google Chrome for macOS Download: Google Chrome Offline Installer for Linux Download: Google Chrome for Android Download: Google Chrome for iOS Download: Google Chrome Portable
Install Google Chrome 106
Installing the Chrome browser on a Windows PC is as easy as downloading them. The process may vary for different platforms. Download the file from the links above and then double-click it to execute. The rest of the process is pretty much automatic. The setup will download the required files (if the web installer was downloaded), install them for you and the browser will launch itself as soon as it is installed successfully. The process is the same for all Windows versions.
