Our accessories are increasingly powered by Bluetooth, especially our smartphones, and even devices like the Google Pixel Slate are not offering a headphone jack. Catching up with the likes of Android and iOS, Chrome OS can now show you how much battery life your Bluetooth accessories have left, but there’s a major caveat.
Google Chrome 78 arrived on desktops last month, and Chrome OS 78 is rolling out today, each bringing a variety of new features. However, Google also included change to hovering over tabs that some are finding annoying. Here’s how to disable the new tab hover cards in Google Chrome and Chrome OS 78.
After rolling out to Android, Mac, Windows, and Linux, version 78 of Chrome OS is now available. Notable features in Chrome OS 78 include separate browser and device settings, click-to-call, and the full launch of Virtual Desks.
Google is rolling out the latest version of Chrome for Mac, Windows, and Linux. Chrome 78 readies customization options for the New Tab page, a nifty click-to-call feature, and new tab overlays.
Following version 77’s release on Android, Mac, Windows, and Linux, the next beta release of Google’s browser is rolling out. The Chrome 78 beta will feature a “click-to-call” feature from desktop to Android, theming, and dedicated Chrome OS settings.
Sometimes when trying to put in a password, it’s handy to be able to check what you typed before hitting submit. Some websites have created their own ways of temporarily revealing the password, but many haven’t yet. Microsoft wants to make revealing your typed password a consistent experience, available on every site you browse, in Google Chrome and their own Chromium-based Edge, by adding a new button to password fields.
It’s almost impossible to browse the web these days without being inundated by sites asking if they can send you notifications. Infuriatingly, these notification requests even appear as dialogs that take over your screen on Chrome for Android. Google is working on a new way for Chrome and Chrome OS to deal with requests for notification access, including blocking them automatically.
When browsing the web, sometimes you’ll come across an image that you want to know a bit more about, and one of the best ways to do that is through Google Lens. As it stands, you need to save the image to your phone, switch to Google Lens, and scan the image that way. Soon, you’ll be able to share an image directly to Google Lens from Chrome for Android.
Earlier this year, Google created “Password Checkup,” a tool that checks if any of your passwords have been revealed in an online data breach, as an extension for desktop Chrome. In the near future, the leak detection part of Password Checkup will become a default feature of Google Chrome instead of an optional extension.
Late last year, we uncovered a list of devices that would never be able to support Chrome OS’s Linux apps (Crostini). At the time, we noted that the second-generation Chromebook Pixel from 2015 was not on this list, and that it in fact stood a chance of getting the necessary upgrades to support Linux apps. It seems that eight more devices are following suit to allow their owners to run Linux apps.
Early this year, we found evidence that Google was integrating Digital Wellbeing with Chrome for Android, starting with Android Q. Now, as of the latest Chrome Canary for Android update, the Digital Wellbeing features are live, offering per-site usage data and site timers.