Chrome turns 15 and is getting a big redesign

It's Chrome's 15th birthday, and the browser is getting a big redesign to celebrate, or at least, it's as big of a redesign as you can do on a big, empty window to the Internet. Google's "Material You" design language is finally coming to Chrome stable (after some experiments in the past), and that means lots of rounded corners and pastel colors.

There has long been a "customize Chrome" button on the new tab page, but now when you open it you'll get a selection of Material You color swatches that look like they were ripped right out of Android. There is still a white theme if you want to ignore all that, though the default color now seems to be back to blue instead of gray, just like the early versions of Chrome. As previously promised, the SSL lock icon in the address bar has been replaced by a settings switch. The "Down arrow" tab menu has been moved to the left side of the browser (on Windows, at least). All of the text and icon line work has been tweaked to be thicker, and some things, like the bookmark folders, have totally new icons.

Everything has been rounded over. The top left and right corners of the toolbar are now rounded corners. The menu is rounded. The tab corners are even more rounded than they were before. And the Chrome window in the screenshots isn't even using the native OS UI—it's a totally custom window so that even the corners of the browser window can be rounded over. There isn't a single sharp edge on this thing.

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments



It's Chrome's 15th birthday, and the browser is getting a big redesign to celebrate, or at least, it's as big of a redesign as you can do on a big, empty window to the Internet. Google's "Material You" design language is finally coming to Chrome stable (after some experiments in the past), and that means lots of rounded corners and pastel colors.

There has long been a "customize Chrome" button on the new tab page, but now when you open it you'll get a selection of Material You color swatches that look like they were ripped right out of Android. There is still a white theme if you want to ignore all that, though the default color now seems to be back to blue instead of gray, just like the early versions of Chrome. As previously promised, the SSL lock icon in the address bar has been replaced by a settings switch. The "Down arrow" tab menu has been moved to the left side of the browser (on Windows, at least). All of the text and icon line work has been tweaked to be thicker, and some things, like the bookmark folders, have totally new icons.

Everything has been rounded over. The top left and right corners of the toolbar are now rounded corners. The menu is rounded. The tab corners are even more rounded than they were before. And the Chrome window in the screenshots isn't even using the native OS UI—it's a totally custom window so that even the corners of the browser window can be rounded over. There isn't a single sharp edge on this thing.

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments


September 07, 2023 at 11:21PM

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