The second Chrome 68 based build has been made available for the Chrome OS Beta Channel. Build 68.0.3440.34 (Platform version: 10718.29.0) is now available to most devices in the channel, the last stop before a build of Chrome OS is made available to everyone in the Stable Channel.
If you have a device that is running in the beta channel, you can type chrome://help in the browser bar and manually check for the update. Given it was released on Friday, chances are you can get it on your device this morning pretty quickly.
As for Chrome 68 itself, most of the attention right now in the build is on bug fixes. There are expected to be a few new features like the new wallpaper picker and non-secure websites will be clearly noted in the omnibar of the browser across all platforms. Crostini, the project name for Linux app support in Chrome OS, had been expected to go live in Chrome 68 but that has pushed to Chrome 69, the build that is currently in the Dev Channel of the platform. While there will certainly be a few tweaks and improvements in 68, it is looking to be more of an incremental update to the platform.
The Chromium team within Google has published a list of changes in this build which you can find here.
As for the date, Chrome 68 is expected to land in the Chrome OS Stable Channel on or around July 24, 2018. Translating that, it means that we likely will see another three or four beta builds between now and then. It is possible a new feature or two will slip into the build during that time – but don’t hold your breath.
Remember that you can always get information on all the Chrome OS channels and the current builds for each of them on the Builds page here on the site.
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