Here’s Google Chrome Canary With A Refreshed Material Design UI
Google is experimenting with a refreshed look to its Chrome Canary browser that is representative of its Material Design 2 UI, and if you are rocking a Windows PC, you can catch a glimpse of it right now. All you have to do is download and install the latest Chrome Canary build, and enable a flag that lets you choose between different UI layouts for the top section, which mainly alters the way tabs look.
We tried it ourselves and took a screenshot, as shown above. Notice how the tabs have rounded corners, versus more blocky looking isosceles trapezoids. This is reflective of Google more broadly working to implement its material design language into its services, primarily Android. However, it's also spilling over into Chrome with a revamp of the Chrome interface to be more touch friendly.
At the moment, the refreshed design elements seem to only appear in Chrome Canary on Windows PCs, even though the option to enable suggests it also works with Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS. The assumption is that Google is rolling out the option in waves, and it will be available on Chrome Canary for other operating systems soon.
If you want to check it out, go here to download Chrome Canary. Once installed, fire up the browser and type chrome://flags/#top-chrome-md into the address bar (or Omnibar, to use Google's jargon). Under the UI Layout for the brower's top chrome section (the very first option), select Refresh from the accompanying pull-down menu, and then hit the Restart Now button at the bottom.
The new look is most visible in the tabs, though there are other elements that take on the Material Design 2 language as well. For example, if you hover over the padlock icon that appears on secure websites, you will notice that it is now oval shaped like a pill, versus more rectangular. The address bar itself is also rounded.
Another thing to glance is a new location for your account avatar. Google relocated it to sit next to the address bar instead of the toolbar above. Like the rest of the visual changes, it's a minor tweak, though collectively they add up to a different looking Chrome browser.
Bear in mind that installing Chrome Canary does not affect your regular installation of Chrome. They install and exist separately from one another, so any changes you make to one has no effect on the other.
We tried it ourselves and took a screenshot, as shown above. Notice how the tabs have rounded corners, versus more blocky looking isosceles trapezoids. This is reflective of Google more broadly working to implement its material design language into its services, primarily Android. However, it's also spilling over into Chrome with a revamp of the Chrome interface to be more touch friendly.
At the moment, the refreshed design elements seem to only appear in Chrome Canary on Windows PCs, even though the option to enable suggests it also works with Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS. The assumption is that Google is rolling out the option in waves, and it will be available on Chrome Canary for other operating systems soon.
If you want to check it out, go here to download Chrome Canary. Once installed, fire up the browser and type chrome://flags/#top-chrome-md into the address bar (or Omnibar, to use Google's jargon). Under the UI Layout for the brower's top chrome section (the very first option), select Refresh from the accompanying pull-down menu, and then hit the Restart Now button at the bottom.
The new look is most visible in the tabs, though there are other elements that take on the Material Design 2 language as well. For example, if you hover over the padlock icon that appears on secure websites, you will notice that it is now oval shaped like a pill, versus more rectangular. The address bar itself is also rounded.
Another thing to glance is a new location for your account avatar. Google relocated it to sit next to the address bar instead of the toolbar above. Like the rest of the visual changes, it's a minor tweak, though collectively they add up to a different looking Chrome browser.
Bear in mind that installing Chrome Canary does not affect your regular installation of Chrome. They install and exist separately from one another, so any changes you make to one has no effect on the other.
