Google is pushing out another security update for Chrome 156 on desktop and Android to patch 21 newly discovered vulnerabilities. You are looking for version 156.0.8078.79 or .80 on Windows and Mac, while Linux and Android users will get version 156.0.8078.79 over the next few days.

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In case you’re wondering if this is the same update you installed just a couple of days ago, you’d be wrong. The previous patch fixed 52 security issues and went live as version 156.0.8078.73 or .74 on Windows and Mac and .73 on Linux. More on that here.

Between that rollout and last week’s initial Chrome 156 release, the browser has picked up well over 400 security fixes in roughly a week.

The biggest headache in today’s batch is a critical memory corruption flaw in MediaStream tracked as CVE-2026-76024. MediaStream is simply the part of Chrome that handles audio and video feeds when you hop on a call or let a site use your camera and mic.

When Chrome encounters a memory corruption or use-after-free bug like this, it can lose track of how data is stored in your system memory. For users, that’s important because a malicious webpage could potentially take advantage of the issue to crash the browser or run harmful code on your computer.

Beyond that critical flaw, 19 of the remaining patches tackle high-severity bugs across everyday features like Autofill, file storage, network handling, and the V8 engine that runs website scripts. Even smaller rollouts like the Chrome 155 update with 10 security fixes earlier this month dealt with similar memory glitches.

Anyone following our coverage since the massive 247-bug patch in early October will recognize researcher Xinyang Ge in the credits again. They reported the critical MediaStream flaw alongside three other high-severity bugs here, while Google’s internal team and independent researchers caught the rest.

Google is keeping the exact technical details locked down for now, noting in its post that “Access to bug details and links may be kept restricted until a majority of users are updated with a fix” so hackers cannot study the reports and target unpatched browsers.

 
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PiunikaWeb’s Take

Seeing this many updates drop back-to-back might make Chrome look like a mess, especially when you also count the 37-bug patch from mid-October. In reality, security teams and AI tools are just getting much faster at digging up old bugs that have been hiding in the Chromium code for years.

Rather than waiting for Chrome to update in the background, you can grab the patch on desktop right now by clicking the three-dot menu in the top right corner, heading to Help, and opening About Google Chrome before relaunching. Android users can pull the update straight from the Google Play Store as it rolls out over the coming days.

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Dwayne Cubbins
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I cover fast-moving stories across apps, online platforms, and everyday tech — phones, wearables, consoles, and whatever else people are fighting with this week. Bugs, rollouts, scams, policy enforcement, and the occasional internet-culture rabbit hole are all fair game. My goal is simple — make confusing tech news readable. When I'm not working, I'm working out or chilling with my dog. Got a tip? You can find me on X @dcubbins.