Google Chrome 21 Final Improves Adobe’s Flash Plugin Security And Performance

Windows and Linux only.

Thanks to a sharp focus, Google Chrome engineers are able to work just on a few, rather than dozen features at the same time, delivering stable rather than clunky web experience.

Now, according to the recent blog post, the latest final build of the Google Chrome 21 web browser improves something what really matters: security.

While previous iterations of the web browser did offer a level of protection against various Flash Player security flaws (thanks to a sandbox that is based on the NPAPI (Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface)), it wasn’t as secure as the Chrome sandbox itself.

However, things are about to change as Google has now ditched the aging NPAPI architecture and replaced it with its own, PPAPI (Pepper Plugin API).

So what does that mean?

First of all, the new Flash Player sandbox now offers the same level of security as the web browser itself and for the first time ever, it will also work on the aging, Windows XP operating system. But things don’t end there, by removing legacy code, Google Chrome engineers were able to reduce Flash crashes by as much as 20% and improve both rendering and scrolling performance.

What about other operating systems? Linux users have been enjoying the benefits of the PPAPI plugin since the release of Google Chrome 20 while Mac OS X enthusiasts will have to sit tight and wait for the future builds.