Google Chrome is 10 today. To celebrate, Google is releasing an update which will feature a fresh design and a few productivity features.
Chrome’s appearance will now follow Google Material 2 design. Google’s Material design was launched in 2014 and is a collection of design principles along with their implementation. They are often refined to improve the overall user experience (UX) which includes not only the visuals but the UX logic and principles.
Users will find a visually updated user interface, new colors and some changes in where things are. Overall, we don’t expect this to be a shock to existing users, and the changes seem to make sense so far.
The Chrome password manager update leads the productivity aspect of this release. It should be better at recognizing when your password is needed in a page, and when you sign-up to new services the desktop version of Chrome can generate (and save) the password for you, leading to stronger passwords.
We strongly recommend using some form of password management, whether it is for several platforms such as LastPass or 1password, or in the browser like Google Chrome or Firefox.
Google says that it has also made the autofill better for things like credit cards and addresses which are required when shopping online.
A significant change has been made to Omnibox, the URL+Search bar of Google Chrome. Starting from this next update, it will answer specific questions without even opening a new Browser Tab. Google says that select information about the weather, public figures, translations and other straightforward information can be answered that way.
It is also possible to search for a website, and if an existing Tab is open, Chrome will suggest that you switch to it, rather than opening a new Tab. Even Google Drive will be searchable “soon.”
The shortcuts manager has been improved, and that’s great news because the productivity on the current one wasn’t that great.