Chrome 61 is finally hitting the stable channel with a focus on security fixes, as well as improvements to the browser that should help it to run more smoothly overall. Part of the new improvements includes support for the WebUSB API, which focuses on enabling support for various USB devices that are not as commonly used with web apps. This can include USB accessories that are designed for education or industrial use, and allow them to work as intended with a web app just as keyboards have had support for a while.
Another new improvement is the full support of the PaymentRequest API, which Google introduced back during the beta channel version of Chrome 61 that began hitting desktop back in the middle of August. The PaymentRequest API is designed to make the acceptance of mobile payments available to web applications and websites, just as the way mobile payment applications already do, making it much simpler for consumers in the long run to check out more easily when buying things online as developers will be able to create simple checkout experiences using this API and have them used across various platforms that can access and use Chrome as a browser.
In addition to the above-mentioned changes and a small number of others, all of which at the base level are really meant for developers and not end-users, there is a pretty sizeable list of fixes that Google has made to the browser that patch up security risks, including a heap buffer overflow in WebGL, a memory lifecycle issue in PDFium, and quite a few others as there were 22 security fixes in all that Google patched with this stable release of Chrome 61. For end users there aren’t any major front-facing changes or new features to take notice of but the improvements and fixes will all benefit end users in a roundabout way. Google says that the release of Chrome 61 on desktop in the stable channel is beginning to make its way to users, but that it will also stake the next several days and weeks to hit all users, so don’t be surprised if your version of Chrome isn’t update immediately.