Let’s get our terminology straight before diving into what this update means for the Chrome browser and user convenience, yes? The omnibox, for users unfamiliar, is essentially just Google Chrome’s address bar; the place where you enter websites and their domain names. What makes the omnibox special is that it no longer just functions as a port for domain entries, it also serves as an extension of the Google Search bar as a whole. Users are definitely aware of the fact that entering any slew of words into Chrome’s address bar will lead to the relevant Search engine webpage being displayed. This step, though very, very old news at this point, was still a big one back in its day. It helped cement Chrome as a browser that wasn’t simply faster than its peers (looking at you, Internet Explorer), but also more polished and convenient for users to interact with.
As a part of maintaining that stellar user experience, Google’s latest update to Chrome’s interface revolves yet again around the omnibox. Even if the update this time around is simpler to understand and dissect. Simply put, the omnibox will now display websites that a user frequents very often, allowing them to directly click on them without any entered keywords. Even in the hyper-extensive landscape today’s internet provides, users typically have a handful of websites that they regularly frequent, with tangents being uncommon. Then why not help users a bit more, and simply present the options to them, no questions asked?
As of yet, this feature has only been rolled out across a select number of Android devices. Testing the feature on Chrome’s mobile version does seem like a prudent choice, considering just how much individuals surf across the net on said devices. It’s an easy way of mass beta testing, and offers convenience to an ever expanding audience of Google Chrome users first. The change is rolling out across all other versions of the browser as well, such as Developer, Canary, Beta, and of course, Stable.
The suggested website prompts can be enabled and disabled at will by tweaking the setting on this flag chrome://flags/#omnibox-most-visited-tiles. This is something that users can do if their Chrome browser already displays their favorite websites in the form of icons on the homescreen.
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