Google Chrome 59 Released With Native macOS Notifications And Material Design Tweaks

by Brandon Hill — Tuesday, June 06, 2017, 10:57 AM EDT

If you are a Google Chrome user — and according to the latest stats, that includes a majority of internet users — there is a new release that just hit the Stable Channel. Chrome 59 comes out of the gate with a pretty big update for those currently running the macOS operating system: native notifications.

This latest release allows notifications that are sent via the Notifications API or Chrome’s own chrome.notifications extensions API to use the native notification system incorporated into macOS. Chrome had previously used its own system for web and app notifications, which sometimes clashed with macOS system-wide settings and was not visually in keeping with other notifications that adhered to Apple design guidelines.

Old notifications in (left) versus new native notifications in macOS (right)

“This change makes Chrome on macOS feel much better integrated into the platform and fixes a number of long standing bugs, such as Chrome not respecting the system Do Not Disturb setting,” writes the Chrome team on Google’s developer site.

Another change is full support for animated PNG files, or APNG. The APNG format has been supported by Firefox for nearly a decade, but now Chrome will also have support the standard. It is similar in concept to animated GIFs, but supports 24-bit imagery and 8-bit transparency.

Material Design in Chrome Settings

Google’s Material Design language has also been extended to the Settings menu in Chrome, while Headless Chromium allows developers to run automated testing tools (from a command line) without the usual browser UI. There are also 30 security fixes rolled into Chrome 59 and a number of feature updates (and deprecations) that pertain mainly to developers.

Google Chrome 59 is available to download now, although most can simply use the browser’s auto-update feature to install the current release.

Tags: google chrome, macos, chrome 59, material design

Brandon Hill

Brandon received his first PC, an IBM Aptiva 310, in 1994 and hasn’t looked back since. He cut his teeth on computer building/repair working at a mom and pop computer shop as a plucky teen in the mid 90s and went on to join AnandTech as the Senior News Editor in 1999. Brandon would later help to form DailyTech where he served as Editor-in-Chief from 2008 until 2014. Brandon is a tech geek at heart, and family members always know where to turn when they need free tech support. When he isn’t writing about the tech hardware or studying up on the latest in mobile gadgets, you’ll find him browsing forums that cater to his long-running passion: automobiles.

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