Android 12 brings a useful feature from Chrome to your PC

Only a few days separate us from the introduction of a stable version of the Android 12. In addition to new features, it should also bring new possibilities for Android applications. An example is a browser Google Chrome for Android, which according to the portal GizmoChina gets the same ability to display multiple windows as its desktop version.

The new window will appear in the second half of the Chrome screen

The community found mention of the new possibility XDA in the open source code of Chromium Gerrit software under the name “multi-instance”. Chrome Internet Browser currently allows you to organize open window tabs in different ways, depending on your platform. On the desktop, you can group tabs within one or more windows, which you can then rearrange using the operating system window manager.

On Android, you can also put cards in groups, but you can’t open them more than the desktop version. This is set to change with the advent of Android 12. The revealed code indicates that the second window will be displayed in split screen mode. Clicking on “New window” will open a new web page in the second half of the screen.

When you open a second instance of Chrome, the context menu is updated with the Manage windows button, which lists all the active windows. In total, up to 5 windows should be open, although the number of tabs that can be opened in each window is not limited. The status of each instance is stored in SharedPreferences in Google Chrome, which allows windows to be restored after a restart.

When will the feature be available?

The new feature should be available to regular users after the release of the stable version of Android 12. However, it can be tested today by beta testers of Android 12 in Chrome (93 or higher) Beta, Dev or Canary. All they have to do is turn on the “multi-instance” function in the experimental functions.