I like how Chrome for Android looks and works. When browsing, the primary interface is a pill-shaped address bar flanked by 2-4 buttons. While the design has been modernized and seen additions/removals over the years, it’s a layout that has been consistent since the app’s 2012 Android launch.
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For me, it’s enough, with the Omnibox, tab switcher and three-dot button being the only thing I really need when navigating with a mobile browser. The overflow menu has gotten unwieldy by spanning the full length of your screen, but I prefer it to a bottom sheet that would cover an even greater portion of the screen. (However, it would benefit from a spring cleaning that takes a hard look at whether something needs to appear there.)
The one button that’s very nice to have and my favorite addition to Chrome for Android is the Toolbar shortcut that appears to the right of the address bar. Introduced in 2022, options include New tab, Share this page, Voice search, Translate, Add to bookmarks, and Listen to this page. I have it set to New tab to bypass the grid of tabs and remain predominantly in the browser UI, while Google offers a rotating “Based on your usage” option.
Meanwhile, you can turn off the Homepage button at the left. I don’t find myself wanting other controls, with pull-to-refresh and navigating back by swiping on the left/right edge of the screen enough for me. Navigating forward by first opening the overflow is not a hassle.
The other piece of UI you might encounter is the tab group bar and its row of favicons. It’s best used when you need to frequently switch between related pages.
What I want Chrome to try is putting the exact same bar we have today at the bottom of the screen as an option to improve one-handed usage and reachability. To be clear, I don’t want Google to redesign the entire browser UI as part of this.
However, if this was attempted today, I fear it would be accompanied by just that. It’s what happened from 2016–2018 with the “Chrome Home” redesign. While it started as just moving the top bar to the bottom, it quite literally expanded so that users could pull up on the Omnibox to access Discover and recent sites, Download, Bookmarks, and History. This was in part to tackle the overflowing overflow menu.
Google abandoned it because “mainstream users” said the redesign “felt disorienting,” and moved to Chrome Duplex/Duet wherein the address bar remained at the top but navigation controls were placed in a bottom toolbar. It never launched, and that is basically what Chrome for iOS is today, though you have the option to move it to the bottom.
Personally, I think the split UI is too crowded, and looks too much like other mobile browsers. It strays from Chrome’s original design goal of having a minimal UI, or no browser chrome, to let users focus on the web.
I’d much prefer the current bar in Chrome today moved to the bottom, with users given a choice on what layout they want.
I like how the main part of Chrome has remained constant over the years, especially as most other apps have changed. It’s a rare consistency in technology, with even other parts of Chrome — like the list of tabs becoming a grid in 2019 and the New Tab Page — for Android changing drastically. To Google’s credit, the Chrome team got it right from the start.
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