Chrome 78 Arrives With Dark Mode Enhancements, Native File System API, SMS Receiver API

In addition to Mozilla Firefox 70 having been released on Tuesday, Google released Chrome 78 as the newest version of their web-browser.

Chrome 78 brings a new File-System API for letting web app developers interact with files on a local device for use-cases like web-based programming IDEs, video editors, photo editing, word processing, and more. The Native File System API should be secure for ensuring web apps do not get unauthorized access to other files/folders on your system.

Chrome 78 also has an SMS Receiver API for knowing when SMS messages are delivered to a phone, in cases of two factor authentication and other purposes where a web service may be trying to SMS a mobile phone number. Also on the developer front are faster WebSockets, WebHID improvements, screen enumeration capabilities, and more.

The browser update also features an improved "dark mode" that will even try to apply a dark mode to web-sites not natively offering this ability, through a Chrome color theory inversion technique.

More details on Chrome 78 via the video above and via the Chrome release blog and ChromeStatus.com.

Fresh Chrome 78 vs. Firefox 70 Linux browser benchmarks coming up today or tomorrow on Phoronix.