If you're running the 64-bit version of the Google Chrome beta browser on the latest Windows 10 Insider build, you'll be happy to know that Google has fixed an issue that would cause the browser to crash.
The issue first surfaced in the Chrome Beta for those on Windows 10 build 10525 roughly a week ago. Google first pushed the fix to Chrome Canary, its nightly build channel for the Chrome browser, last week, but it has now made its way to the browser's beta in version 45.0.2454.78.
For some background, the issue causing the crash was due to the use of unauthorized "hooking" to work around Microsoft's APIs. When Microsoft changed how memory is handled, Google's workaround was effectively broken. In Chrome's issue tracker, a member of the team explained Google's decision to stick with its current method after the bug was fixed, but didn't rule out revisiting the decision if there are further impacts to usability:
"I'm going to closing this out for comments, since the specific issue here is fixed and there will be no future work on this bug. For the small number of people asking why Chrome checks signatures on the 64-bit sys call stubs, it's because doing so significantly mitigates issues from third-party software hooking inside Chrome's sandboxed processes. Whereas on 32-bit Windows we're forced to use much more permissive hooking, and as a result we see far more issues due to malfunctioning third-party software such as AV or other utilities that: break ASLR, leak privileged objects, or just introduce general instability that leads to very high crash rates inside our sandboxed processes.""We will continue to track the impact of our 64-bit sys call stub validation, and if we see significant conflicts in the future we can revisit our decision. But for now, our crash report data supports the position that the strict validation is providing a real end-user benefit in terms of stability and security."
And there you have it. If you were experiencing crashes when running the 64-bit version of Chrome on Windows 10 build 10525, the issues should now be resolved.
Thanks to Hughes H. for the tip!
Source: Chrome Issue Tracker
