Google Doles Out Over $14K for Chrome 14 Bug Fixes

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Sept. 15 updated its stable channel to version 14, which offers improvements for gaming, Mac OS X “Lion,” and squashes 32 bugs in the code for which the company paid $14,337.

Developers may now add fancy audio effects such as room simulation and spatialization, thanks to the Web Audio API. Chrome for Mac will employ Lion’s overlay scroll bars,and support for Lion’s full-screen mode.

Also, Chrome 14 supports Native Client, an open-source project that allows C and C++ native code to run inside the browser. Developers can take the C or C++ libraries and use them to build their Web applications.

Meanwhile, Google paid out over $14,000 to finders of Chrome 14 flaws.

These range from $500 for a high-risk garbage-collection error in PDF to $2,337 for a high-risk flaw that enables unintended access to built-in objects in the V8 JavaScript engine, which helps soup up JavaScript processing in the browser. Google also paid $2,000 for a high-risk cross-origin bypass in V8.

There were several $1,000 payouts for use-after-free exploits, which perpetrators can use to inject attack code. These flaws were found in unload event handling, document loader, ruby/table-style handing and focus controller.

Native Client support in Chrome might be the biggest news in this build for many developers because it provides a great deal of convenience in allowing Web applications to run at near native application speeds.

For example, a Website publisher who wants to run photo filters on their Web gallery application could use existing C or C++ tools that allows users to perform image manipulation of photos without leaving the Website to install other software.

Native Client will only support Chrome Web Store applications for now, though Google plans to add plug-ins for other browsers.

Chrome now has 15.5 percent browser market share, according to Net Applications.