IT Home, October 21: Google announced yesterday (October 20) that Chrome 156 has entered the Stable channel and will be gradually rolled out to Windows, Mac, and Linux users.
Regarding version numbers, the desktop stable version of Chrome 156 is 156.0.8078.47, and some Windows and Mac users may see 156.0.8078.48. In terms of updates, Google summarized the changes in its official release notes as “fixes and improvements,” without separately listing security patches or feature updates in the stable channel announcement.
Regarding the underlying browser storage architecture, IT Home, citing a blog post, reports that Chrome 156 will migrate its IndexedDB implementation to an SQLite backend, replacing the previous solution that combined LevelDB with flat files. Google states that this change will not alter the APIs used by web developers, but is expected to improve reliability and somewhat enhance performance.
For web developers, Chrome 156 introduces several practical features. Among them, CSS now includes the random() function, which allows generating random values within a specified range directly in style sheets—ideal for scenarios such as randomly positioning elements or creating dynamic effects. It also supports controlling the caching and sharing of random values via the random-key property.
The module loading experience has also been improved. Previously, failed module loads on web pages might have been cached, causing users to still struggle with retries even after network connectivity was restored. Chrome 156 allows developers to manually retry failed module loads by calling import() again, helping to enhance web page availability in weak network conditions.
In terms of security, this update includes 353 security fixes, including six critical vulnerabilities.