Google pushed out another update to its Chrome Web browser Sunday (March 4), fixing 14 holes three days before Chrome's trial by fire in an annual hacking competition.
The latest version, 17.0.963.65, fixes errors with cursors, backgrounds and plug-ins not loading, as well as issues with copying and pasting text and using touch controls on websites, according to the official Chrome blog.
It also pushes out the latest version of Adobe Flash Player, which ought to restore functionality to the "Plants vs. Zombies" app that's been unusable since the last Chrome update in mid-February.
As is customary with Chrome updates, Google will be paying the finder of each patched flaw $1,000. But this update brought added prizes — three of the four people who found the latest round of bugs have been so prolific recently that Google's giving each of them an extra $10,000 just for being "awesome" and bringing "significant pain" to bugs.
"We have always reserved the right to arbitrarily reward sustained, extraordinary contributions. In this instance, we're dropping a surprise bonus," wrote Jason Kersey of the Chrome team on the blog posting. "We reserve the right to do so again and reserve the right to do so on a more regular basis!"
On Wednesday (March 7), several teams and individuals will begin the three-day Pwn2Own hackathon at the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver, B.C., trying to crack the most recent versions of Apple's Safari, Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer. All will be running on fully patched versions of Windows 7 or Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.
Chrome has made it through the last two Pwn2Own contests unblemished.
