Top Improvements and Features Provided by Google Chrome 89 Update

The world’s most popular web browser, Google Chrome, receives continuous major updates focusing on enhancing user experience and increasing data security while browsing. In the recent release of Google Chrome 89, after a long period since Chrome 88 was released, there are many exciting new features and improvements. It seems to be a significant update, even though many of its changes are hidden from most users at the moment. Chrome 89 offers integration between Android phones and Chrome OS, better support for gaming controllers in the browser, providing NFC support for web applications, and support for the operating system’s share menu. Here is a detailed look at the most prominent modifications that have come with the new update that have been announced so far!

Chrome 89 starts with an updated interface for managing profiles in the browser. If you use Chrome with multiple profiles, to differentiate between work and other activities, for example, the new Chrome 89 update offers a comprehensive redesign of the profile selection window. When creating a new profile, there is a set of ready-made profile pictures that can be assigned to the profile, and a choice of theme color from the available options.

The browsing experience customization has also been updated, requiring users to first enable Chrome Sync to sync bookmarks, passwords, history, and more across all devices. This includes signing into your Google account, with the next step being to personalize your profile with a name and theme color for easy window distinction. Please note that this feature will be rolled out to computers in the coming weeks.

Chrome 89 also introduces the Reading List feature on desktop, which has been available in the iOS version for a long time. It allows you to save web pages to be loaded and viewed offline. All you need to do is click on the star icon in the address bar. In addition to “Add Bookmark,” there is a new option “Add to Reading List.” The “Reading List” folder appears in the Bookmarks bar, divided into “Unread” and “Read pages” categories, with the ability to mark as read or delete the page directly from a button next to it when hovering over the pages.

After being launched on the Chrome OS, the Tab Search feature comes to Windows and Mac with the Chrome 89 update. This feature allows you to search through open tabs to quickly access a specific window if there are dozens of windows or tabs open in the browser. To use the feature, click on the dropdown menu icon in the top corner to get a list of open pages across all windows. The browser displays five at a time, and you can also close tabs quickly from this interface.

The Chrome 89 update includes some changes in the Discover page that appears when opening a new tab in the browser. In previous versions, articles were displayed in cards as shown in the image, but in Chrome 89, articles are separated by only separators, which gives a smoother flow to the page. Additionally, the headline font appears slightly larger, and perhaps most importantly, the article description preview has been removed; now you only see the main image of the article with the title without any description within the Discover page.

It is interesting to see Google’s approach to removing teaser text descriptions for articles. In most cases, the description is very short and does not provide any useful context or important additional information, so removing it may allow more articles to appear on the screen at once without scrolling extensively on the page.

In the latest Chrome browser update, Google is also testing a new interface for the popup window for site information on Android, which appears when clicking on the lock icon in the address bar. The popup window typically displays the full address and information about the page’s security and a list of allowed permissions. But in the Chrome 89 update, there is a new addition that updates the design of the popup window. The new popup window is more aligned with Google’s updated design language and allows you to revoke permissions without opening the regular settings panel in Chrome.

You are likely used to using the small share icon on your smartphone. Just click on it, and a menu will appear with a selected range of apps and contacts to share the web page or any other content with. Unfortunately, computer users always had to rely on more manual methods to accomplish the same task. In contrast, Google is working on unifying this process for web users for some time now. The Chrome 89 update gives the same experience to computer users on Windows and Chrome OS. By simply clicking on the share icon now, the operating system’s own share menu will open, including multiple options for easily sharing content.