Google pays out nearly $10,000 to flaw finders for Chrome 12, which also jettisoned Google Gears, and features better Safe Browsing and the ability to remove Adobe Flash cookies right from Chrome.

Google released Chrome 12 to the stable channel June 7, introducing a build that boasts better security, privacy and graphics.



The bug-hunting build-up to the launch earned researchers a total of $9970.

Google paid an unusual sum of $3,133 to Sergey Glazunov, a researcher who found a high-risk same origin bypass in the JavaScript V8 engine, which led to "a beautiful chain of lesser severity bugs which demonstrated critical impact," said Chrome Security Team member Jerome Kersey. "It deserves a more detailed write-up at a later date."

Google paid $2,000 to a researcher who found high-risk "use-after-free due to integer issues in float handling." The search engine also paid $1337 for a medium-risk extensions permission bypass flaw.

Several security enhancements have also been made in Chrome 12. In addition to protecting users against malware and phishing web sites, version 12 of Chrome further improves browser security by warning users before they download some types of malicious files, such as .exe files. The feature is essentially an extension of Google's Safe Browsing API, which involves querying an additional list of malicious download links.

Meanwhile, Chrome 12 is also more secure than previous versions in other ways. The company boosted its Safe Browsing technology to warn users before they download some types of malicious files.

Chrome now checks downloaded files for malware, and Google claims it has designed the feature in such a way that it doesn’t have to know which URLs you visited or which files you downloaded to be able to detect malicious files.

Google Chrome 12 is available at www.google.com/chrome. Existing users will be automatically updated to the new version in the next couple of days.

Chrome 12,google,Google Chrome,Technology