Google’s Chrome browser has added a new feature that could go a long way in preventing a form of account takeover that’s grown increasingly common as users adopt two-factor authentication, passkeys, and similar protections.

The new Chrome protection is known as device-bound session credentials (DBSCs). The measure stores a unique encryption key in a silicon-resident fortress that’s built into the device running the browser. On Windows machines, this fortress is called a TPM, short for Trusted Platform Module. On macOS and iOS, it’s known as a secure enclave. Other platforms have differing names. Recently released versions of Chrome for Windows and macOS generate a key that’s stored in this fortress.

An antidote to session cookie theft

DBSCs protect against the theft of session cookies, the unique strings of characters that websites store on browsers. Session cookies greatly speed up browsing on sensitive sites that require user authentication. Instead of requiring the exchange of credentials each time a user opens a new site page, the server sets a session cookie that effectively proves the user has already successfully logged in.

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Google has been all-in with Gemini for the last several years, and despite some animosity online, the bet is paying off. CEO Sundar Pichai announced today that Gemini has reached 1 billion monthly active users (MAUs), an important milestone for any Google product. While 13 other Google products have managed that feat, Gemini has done it faster than any other.

Gemini has wormed its way into virtually every Google product and service, powering email organization in Gmail, document summary in Drive, and much more. Gemini is also core to Google's flagship search experience, with AI Mode and AI Overviews becoming increasingly hard to avoid. The 1 billion-user metric has nothing to do with any of that, though.

These 1 billion users may also be encountering Gemini in all those places, but that's not the MAU metric. Pichai is talking only about people who are opening the Gemini app or visiting the Gemini web interface to enter a prompt or access Gemini Live. If you used Gemini only once in the past month, you are part of this cohort.

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In 2018, 20,000 Google employees worldwide made headlines when they staged a walkout to protest how the company had handled sexual misconduct allegations against key corporate executives, among other grievances. One of the organizers was Claire Stapleton, a communications specialist whose distinctive voice and ability to channel the corporate ethos had once earned her the internal moniker "Bard of Google."

Six months later, a disillusioned Stapleton resigned, claiming she had been demoted during the most recent restructuring as retaliation for helping to spearhead the walkout. The story of how she went from enthusiastic cheerleader to proactive dissident, and the many lessons she learned along the way, are featured in her new book, Don't Be Evil: Bad Bosses, Fake Promises, and My Escape from Big Tech—A Biting Memoir of Twelve Years Inside Google.

Stapleton didn't set out to be a rabble-rouser. When she joined Google out of college in 2007, it was like "getting the golden ticket in Willy Wonka," she told Ars. Awareness of her good fortune offset any initial uneasiness or skepticism, although Stapleton was sufficiently independent-minded not to move into what was then Google's new corporate housing development in Mountain View, California. Stapleton was very good at her job, and she quickly moved up the ranks, playing a key role in shaping the company's public image.

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