Google has a new version of its Chrome browser out, fixing the bug leading to the clickjacking vulnerability we discussed yesterday, as well as including an interesting work-around for certain website compatibility problems.

Chrome 1.0.154.46 closes a hole that hackers might have been able to use to implement a certain kind of clickjacking attack, one that disguises a website to trick you into interacting with it in a way you normally wouldn't. This particular patch keeps individual frames on a page from being able to interact with each other inappropriately. If a hacker were to slip a nasty frame into a site you normally use, say, by packing it into an ad banner or something similar, that frame could then access the other, legitimate parts of the page.

The fix for Hotmail compatibility is a bit funnier than a dry security patch. Hotmail wasn't behaving correctly when you tried to connect to the site with Chrome. It's not that Chrome was doing anything wrong, but that Hotmail's servers freaked out when you tried to access with the browser. Google's solution? Pretend to be another browser. Now whenever you connect to Hotmail, Chrome changes its user agent string, a bit of text that tells servers what web browser and OS you're using, to tell Hotmail that you're actually running Safari. When Microsoft's servers think you're running Apple's browser, they behave just fine.

The Hotmail team is aware of the issue and plans to fix it when it gets around to next updating its code. We're just glad Google is a little faster on the draw. The new Chrome is available now in both beta and stable versions.

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