Chrome 63 is rolling out to Mac, Windows, and Linux today with an assortment of developer-focused features and security fixes. The biggest additions in this desktop release are a redesigned chrome://flags page and a tweaked permissions dropdown.
The chrome://flags page lets users enable and disable in-development Chrome experiments. This page has received a Material Design facelift that adds tabs to separate Available and Unavailable experiments, as well as new buttons and dropdowns.
However, the best change is how experiment descriptions no longer span the width of the page. Meanwhile, there is a new app bar up top that houses a search feature and large “Reset all to defaults” button.
This update also introduces Material Design to the Bookmark Manager on desktop browsers, as well as Chrome OS.
Meanwhile, the dropdown accessible by clicking on the lock or info icon to the left of the address bar has been slightly revamped. It now only shows a handful of permissions, with a “Site settings” button below to see all of them for a page in Settings. There is also now a shortcut to quickly see a Site Certificate.
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- Chrome 63
There is a new Device Memory JavaScript API that helps developers determine the total RAM on a user’s device. As such, sites could instead serve a lite version to improve the user experience.
The bulk of changes in this version are for Android with a new, more explicit Permissions pop-up. This modal dialog replaces the simple bottom banner that was easily ignored by users and thus abused by developers. Other changes include a new prompt for the upcoming Chrome Home bottom bar redesign and support for Oreo’s Smart Text Selection feature.
Chrome 63 for desktop and Android is now available, with Chrome OS following shortly.
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