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

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.