Google Chrome

Chrome for Android test puts alternate Google Search results in top bar

Kyle Bradshaw | Jul 6 2021 - 11:28 am PT

A new feature being tested in Chrome for Android lets you quickly swap between Google Search results with a single tap.

There’s more than one way to do a Google Search on Android. Besides the obvious options like the Google Assistant or a search bar on your home screen, you can also simply use Chrome, just like on your laptop.

Google has begun testing a way to more deeply integrate Google Search into Chrome for Android with a new feature called “Continuous Search Navigation.” As explained by its description in chrome://flags, the feature — which has slowly begun rolling out without needing to enable the flag manually — caches your Google Search results “to permit a more seamless search experience.”

Once enabled, tapping on a result in Google Search will add an extra bar below the navigation bar. In it, you’ll find a scrollable list of websites plucked from your search results page. By tapping any of these, you’re quickly brought to that alternate search result, or by tapping the Google “G” on the left side, you can jump back to the proper Google Search results page. Once you’ve found a page you’re happy with, there’s an “X” available to close the search bar.

In practice, Chrome for Android’s new alternate Google Search results can be handy when doing research on something, such as reading multiple reviews for a game or checking prices at multiple retailers. That said, it will definitely take some mental rewiring, at least for me, to actually use the new bar rather than simply using the back button.