Google Chrome comes with customizable toolbar button

Google Chrome gets a small adjustment that is quite visible. Where we are used to that changes in Chrome almost never happen: not if they result in an adjustment of how Chrome looks. Now there’s a customizable toolbar button, which could well change that.

Chrome on Android

It’s about the Chrome interface on Android, where you have a toolbar with a home button, address bar, tab switcher and an extra menu that allows you to do many more actions. That’s simply what Chrome looks like and we’ve been used to it for years. Now that will change, because there will be a toolbar button. It sits between the tabs button and the address bar, 9to5Google discovered.

With that new button is a shortcut of which you can choose which function it should have. You can choose from three options: New tab, share or search by voice. The handy thing is that in principle you don’t have to make that choice. There is only one button visible at a time, but it is already based on what you do most yourself. So Google actually makes a choice for you, without you having to do anything.

Speech, tabs and sharing

These are three options that are already present in Chrome, but you have to know where to find them. Speech in particular is a challenge: you can already tap it on the address bar. The other two can be found in Chrome’s pull-down menu. Soon they will be in a slightly more prominent place in Chrome on Android, recognizable by a plus for a new tab, the share button of a V on its side with two dots or the microphone that we know from speech.

If you are not waiting for that at all, no man overboard, you can also turn off the option in the settings menu. If you would like to set what you use the most, you can also use a flag for this:

chrome://flags/#adaptive-button-in-top-toolbar-customization

Google has been working on this option for a very long time. In July 2021 Chrome 92, it was already there, but it was part of an A/B test, alternating between two options to see how people react to it. Apparently there was only now space or technical possibility to roll this out on a larger scale. Google hasn’t announced the new capability yet, so it may roll back the capability.

Is this something you would leave on or turn off right away? Leave it in the comments below this article.