Get updates from your favourite websites with the new ‘push notifications’ in Chrome 42

Google has released an updated version of its browser for Windows, Mac and Linux, bringing Push Notifications to your desktop. Along with over 45 security vulnerabilities that have been quashed in this new release, Push Notifications now adds the ability for web developers to ‘push’ notifications directly to your browser when you subscribe to them. This functionality is facilitated by two components--the Push API and the Notifications API--that work in tandem to bring things like new deals, price changes and other such updates on websites that are of interest to you. Other than receiving a mail about these changes or reading about it via an RSS feed update, users can now be updated in real time as these changes happen, even when that page is not open.

Other key updates in Chrome 42 include a disabled Oracle Java plugin along with other browser extensions that use Netscape Plugin API (NPAPI), which has often been the cause of browser-based security incidents, crashes and code complexity. Also NPAPI is notorious as it grants full user permissions to the extension that use it, opening the browser to malicious web-based code.

Here’s how you can check whether you’re running this latest version of Chrome: Open Chrome on your desktop/mobile, go to Settings, click/tap ‘About Google Chrome’ and ensure the version number is 42.0.2311.90.