Chrome’s latest update patches 41 security flaws, including six critical ones

Google has pushed out another round of security fixes for Chrome, and this one closes 41 separate holes in the browser. The update moves the stable version to 151.0.7922.108 on Windows and Mac (with a .109 build also going out on Windows) and 151.0.7922.108 on Linux. It’s rolling out gradually over the coming days and weeks, so if you don’t see it right away, that’s normal.

Six of the 41 fixes are rated Critical, which is the most serious tier Google hands out. Most of them are what’s called a “use-after-free” bug, where the browser tries to use a chunk of memory it has already freed. It doesn’t sound like much, but attackers can use it to sneak in their own code and take control of your machine.

The critical ones this time touch parts of Chrome like WebGL, Aura, Skia, and Views, along with one out-of-bounds write in ANGLE. This is a smaller batch than the 382-flaw monster Google shipped at the start of July, and smaller than the 370-fix update from late July too, but it’s still worth installing immediately.

Most of the remaining flaws were caught by Google’s own security people, though outside researchers found a handful and picked up bug bounties for their trouble. One researcher earned $5,000 for spotting a flaw in Contextual Tasks. A few of the reports came from AI-driven security tools, including one credited to “OpenAI Codex Security” and another from XBOW.

As always, Google is keeping the technical details locked down for now. In its own words:

Access to bug details and links may be kept restricted until a majority of users are updated with a fix.

This is just standard practice so that attackers don’t have a detailed roadmap before most people have installed the patch. There’s no sign yet that any of these bugs were being used in real attacks, which is a bit of good news.

If you want the update now instead of waiting, head to Settings, then About Chrome, and the browser will check on its own and ask you to relaunch. Android users get the same fixes through the Play Store, and the iOS build is also out.

Away from the security grind, Google has also been busy tinkering with how Chrome looks. The company spent a good chunk of the summer going back and forth over which “glass effect” to use for the browser’s window frame, and more recent Chromium work shows it’s still refining that experimental Glass Frame.

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