Google Chrome 98 Released With COLRv1 For Smaller Emoji Files

Chrome 98 is available today as Google's second web browser update of the new year. The Chrome 98 changes are mostly on the developer-side but with some user-impacting differences.

Among the changes in Chrome 98 as Google's stable browser update for February 2022 are:

- COLRv1 color gradient vector fonts support that is motivated by wanting smaller emoji files for the web while delivering better quality. COLRv1 fonts compress well, are vector-based, and work well with gradients. Google Chrome and Google Fonts teams consider the COLRv1 specification as their successor format to the Google Noto emoji font. The emoji font size is around 20% the size as previously while also having greater rendering fidelity. More details on COLRv1 via developer.chrome.com.

Google is promoting smaller emoji font files in using COLRv1.

- Chrome 98 finally has built-in screenshot capabilities for webpages.

- A new CSS media query to detect a device's display HDR (High Dynamic Range) capabilities. The new query is "dynamic-range".

- Improved windows.open() handling with a new argument to control whether the desired behavior is opening a new pop-up window versus a new tab/window.

- Promise support for blobs in the ClipboardItem object.

- Various other developer changes.

More details on Chrome 98 via the Chrome Release Blog and ChromeStatus.com.