Google's latest version of Chrome has moved to the stable (general availability) channel and is now available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Chrome 44.0.2403.89 contains a number of improvements and security fixes, many of which were discovered by external researchers.
The majority of bugs found and remedied were of the high priority nature. In lieu of posting the entire change log, those looking to dig deeper can check out the bugs reported by security researchers here while those found by Googlers can be viewed by clicking here.
Of the 43 security fixes, 19 were reported by people outside of Google through its Chrome bug bounty program.
Late last year, the search giant increased the maximum reward pricing from $5,000 to $15,000, giving security researchers even more incentive to work with instead of against Google. Particularly great reports can earn even more money, as evident by this $30,000 payout.
This time around, Google collectively paid out nearly $40,000 to researchers and is still debating on how much to award four reports.
That may sound like a lot of money but in reality, it's a drop in the bucket for Google and is likely a fraction of what some of its developers and debuggers earn. Furthermore, each new bug that is reported through the bounty program is one less headache to worry about should a vulnerability get exploited for nefarious purposes.
You can download Chrome 44 for Windows by clicking here. If you need the Mac or Linux versions, those can be had here and here, respectively.