June 20th tech news roundup: Android 17 released, Google Chrome ends bypasses to install ad blockers, Apple devices to become costlier

Google releases Android 17

Google has released Android 17, codenamed Cinnamon Bun. While it doesn’t bring major changes, it does come with some new features, and quality of life improvements. You can now open multitask with ease thanks to App Bubbles. This feature places app icons on the side of the screen, tapping an icon opens the respective app’s window over the current app window. To open an app bubble, long press on its icon on the homescreen and select bubble. Tapping a bubble will open the floating windows, and you can jump between multiple apps quickly. Tablets and foldables have a dedicated Bubble Bar on the taskbar, which can be used to organize, move between apps or dock them. On desktops, the app bubbles offer a Picture-in-picture (PiP) experience to switch between apps.

Find Hub’s ‘Mark as lost’ feature now requires biometric authentication, in addition to the device’s screen lock. When the device is marked as lost, Android will lock the Quick Settings, and prevent other users from disabling Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Android 17 introduces new privacy indicator icons on the status bar, that are more compact and colorful. The Settings app has also been redesigned with compact layouts for menus. Screen Reactions allows users to record their screen, and captures footage from the selfie camera at the same time. Quick Reply now lets you edit or add more information to your response, right from the notification panel. The quick settings toggles for Wi-Fi and Mobile Data are now separate from each other, giving more control to the user.

Android 17 brings an important improvement for foldable devices. Gaming mode on foldables has a new 50:50 layout that turns the lower half of the screen into a dynamic gamepad. Android 17 is currently rolling out to Pixel devices.

Firefox 152 update brings redesigned Settings page, JPEG XL support

Mozilla released the Firefox 152 update with a redesigned Settings page. This visual overhaul offers a streamlined experience, with neatly organized sections, clearer groupings, and improved navigation. Firefox now supports the JPEG XL image format. Mozilla says that it provides better compression than WebP, JPEG, PNG, and GIF. Users can enable it from Firefox Labs under the Settings. Firefox now lets you copy a link by right-clicking on a tab, without switching to it first. This feature is available on Windows and Linux.

Basque and Galician languages have been added to Firefox’s Translations feature. The browser’s spellchecker now supports a built-in dictionary for Croatian, English (UK), Georgian, Persian, Slovenian, Tajik, Tamil, Tibetan, Turkish, Welsh, and Xhosa. Users who wish to test the Project Nova redesign can now enable a flag. Firefox 152 had a bug that caused frequent crashes on computers with Intel Raptor Lake processors. This issue has been fixed in the Firefox 152.0.1 hotfix update.

Apple says that price increases are coming to its devices

We have seen the impact of the AI-driven shortage for RAM, and SSD, and how they have resulted in price hikes of consoles like the Microsoft Xbox series X/S, Sony PlayStation 5, Valve’s Steam Deck, Nintendo’s Switch 2 and 1. And now, Apple says that it too will increase the prices of its devices soon.

The Cupertino company’s CEO, Tim Cook, revealed the news in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. It is unclear when the prices of Apple’s products will go up. Apple had recently discontinued the 256GB Mac Mini, thus increasing the price of the desktop. Cook criticized the increased allocations of DRAM, high-bandwidth memory for AI servers. Apple will launch its next gen iPhone, the iPhone 18, alongside a rumored foldable iPhone in September 2026.

Google kills bypasses that allowed ad blockers to function in Chrome

Google is making a change to Chromium, that will spell the end for popular ad blocker extensions. A couple of years ago, Google began moving to Manifest V3 extensions, which meant that the older version, i.e. Manifest V2 was being removed. Google claimed that Manifest V3 offered superior security and performance, but it was obvious what it targeted.

As Chipp.in reports, it particularly affected content blockers such as uBlock Origin, which is without a doubt, the most popular ad blocking extension out there. It, and other ad blocker add-ons that relied on Manifest V2 were removed from the Chrome webstore. However, up until, there was some legacy code that allowed users to bypass restrictions in Chrome, and use uBlock Origin.

But now, that is coming to an end. Google has confirmed the removal of the last bits of Manifest V2 from Chromium’s code, which means users will no longer be able to use uBlock Origin and other ad blockers. This change will come into effect with the release of Chrome 150, which is expected to ship at the end of June 2026.

However, there are alternatives one might consider, such as using uBlock Origin Lite, which is a less powerful version of its big brother. Or, you could switch to Firefox, which continues to support Manifest V2 and V3 extensions. Brave, Opera and Vivaldi also support Manifest V2 extensions, and also come with their own built-in ad blockers.

Grand Theft Auto 6 pre-orders to open on June 25 for Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5

Rockstar Games has announced that Grand Theft Auto 6 pre-orders will open on June 25, for the Sony PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. The story is set in Vice City, Leonida, which is based on Florida, and will allow players to take on the roles of Lucia and Jason in their action-packed journey. GTA 6 was originally set to launch in February 2026, but it was pushed back to the end of the year leaving fans disappointed. But, the hype for the upcoming open world game never dulled.

This week, Rockstar revealed the official cover art of GTA 6, featuring the game’s protagonists, vehicles, and other characters. Fans went into a mad scramble to analyze the image for easter eggs, and to decipher clues about the game. Grand Theft Auto 6 releases on November 19, 2026 for Xbox Series X/S and the PS5. There is still no word about a launch date for the PC version of the game.