Chrome’s two new features addresses common browsing frustrations

If you’ve ever lost a tab in your browser’s top bar buried under dozens of open pages and constant switching reduced to a tiny favicon with no title in sight, then Chrome has some finally good news. Google is rolling out two new productivity-focused features – vertical tabs and a reading mode at solving tab-heavy chaos.

Chrome’s tab bar gets a makeover

Google is introducing a new vertical tab bar, a layout that moves your open tabs from the top of the browser window to a sidebar. This makes it easier to read full page titles compared to horizontal tabs that show less information when more tabs are opened and having to depend on tiny icons to find the right one. Google says that you can manage tabs groups with ease, even when your count hits double digits.

Users can still keep the horizontal top bar as its not mandatory to switch the vertical layout. The letter can be enabled by right-clicking on any Chrome window and selecting ‘Show Tabs Vertically’. 

Coming to the second feature, Google is adding a Reading Mode to Chrome. It offers a full-page interface experience by removing any visual distractions like photos, ads, and more from the webpage while reading a lengthy article. You can turn on reading mode by right-clicking anywhere in the tab and then clicking ‘Open in Reading mode’. 

Google is rolling out both features to the stable version of Chrome desktop starting today. It should take some days before everybody gets the new features as this is a phased rollout. 

ALSO READ: I ditched Google Chrome for the Arc Search browser; why you should too

Stay tuned to Unboxed by Croma for more tech updates.