It is no secret that Google Chrome is themost popular web browser around, even on Android. Its design language, ease of use, and compatibility with multiple operating systems contribute to its popularity. However, there is room for improvement in the Android app, such as support for desktop-style extensions and efficient operation. Google is taking baby steps towards the latter, at least, with a new flag suggesting we could have an easier time cycling through tabs in the browser.
Google Chrome for Android is a mature platform in that it doesn’t have the teething troubles a newer browser usually runs into. Chrome features such as tab switching are easy to get habituated to. On the current stable version of Chrome you can swipe left or right on the address bar, also known as the omnibox, to jump to the next or previous tab.
If you have way too many of them open (as we all do), a single tap on the square icon beside the address bar pulls up all the tab switcher UI where active tabs and tab groups are arranged as a vertically scrolling list of thumbnails. In this view, you can drag to reorder tabs, select one you were browsing earlier, or just open a new tab using the button in the upper left corner.
TheNew tabshortcut is also the first item on the three-dot overflow menu. Now, Google app tinkerer@AssembleDebug on X(formerly Twitter) has found the company working on a replacement for the switcher UI, called a “hub.” Chrome expert@Leopeva64 on Xalso concurs changes are afoot. The new UI changes are guarded by a flag:
chrome://flags/#android-hub
Since this is a new interface replacing the tab switcher, there will be a bunch of changes, as is evident from the states of the above flag — Besides the usualEnabled,Disabled, andDefaultstates, Google has added six other options split across four phases.
AssembleDebug got the first phase working where theNew taboption will become a floating action button in the lower right corner of the screen, while Leopeva has uncovered severalChromium Gerrit patchesassociated with the other changes planned for this hub. The first phase is being tested with and without the FAB, while the second phase comes with either icons or text, presumably in the tab titles.
Google plans to test the new Android Hub in phases
Unfortunately, excerpts from the descriptions of said Gerrits suggest we may encounter critical errors which freeze the UI if the current implementations are deployed. This means the feature is still a work-in-progress. However, the flag isn’t just limited to Canary — we are also seeing it in thelatest versions of ChromeDev and Beta, which is a good sign. Perhaps more developments will come to light when Chrome version 123 goes into active Canary-stage development and the current version 122 advances to the Beta testing phase.
