Google is putting the final touches on a handful of new features headed to its
Chrome browser, and today we get a glimpse of a few of them. For power surfers, the most interesting changes are those that apply to tab management. This is going to be more convenient on both desktop and mobile, with iOS users already having access to a tab grid layout.
That same feature will arrive on Android sometime in the "next few weeks." Here is what it looks like on an iPhone running
iOS 13 (with the new dark mode in IOS enabled)...
You can rearrange tabs, but when it rolls out on
Android, users will be able to group them as well. They can do this simply by tapping and dragging a tabbed page onto another within this layout—basically the same process as grouping icons on any Android or iOS device.
"After opening one of the grouped tabs, you can easily switch between the tabs in the group using the new tab switcher at the bottom of your screen," Google explains.
Over on the desktop, Google is beefing up its tab preview views. While you can already see what a particular tab is by hovering the mouse cursor over it, the refreshed view will have the page name and URL appear underneath the tab when doing this. It is a cleaner layout, and is already working in Chrome OS. Down the line, Google will also add a thumbnail image to the equation.
Chrome is getting smarter, too.
"Chrome’s address bar helps you get to your results faster than ever. Now on both desktop and Android, answers will show up inside the address bar where you type your query—whether you’re looking for results about sporting events or instant answers about the local weather or translations of a foreign word," Google explains.
Some visual customization options are headed to Chrome as well. Users will soon be able to change the background color of the new tab page. This will be within the Color and theme menu. This will contain nearly two dozen presets.
All of these updates will arrive later this fall, with Google promising other features not yet previewed in tow, too.