Chrome 63 for Android Comes With New Permissions Dialogue Layout, Flags and More
Google Chrome 63 is the first release in a while that went live for Android ahead of iOS, Windows, and other platforms. The new version started rolling out on Google Play on Tuesday, Dec. 5.
It's a short update from the Google Chrome team, as represented by Estelle Yomba, who posted the update announcement earlier this week on Google's own official blog. The rest of the details are on a developer repository log, but the summary of it is mostly covered the changes made to the address bar, as well as some performance and stability upgrades.
"This release improves autocompletion in the address bar, making it even easier to get to your favorite websites. We've also included stability and performance improvements," Yomba said in the blog post, as quoted by WCCF Tech.
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Hidden in the rest of the changelog entries, however, are a few other updates that Android users could find interesting. The first of them is the new layout for the permissions dialog, as 9 to 5 Google pointed out.
The new popups that ask permission now blankets the screen in translucent black, making the prompt really pop up compared to the old design where the prompts slid up from the bottom.
The new design makes users five times more likely to pay attention to the prompts, and this results in apps getting their permission request granted or denied. In the old design, users would more often than not just temporarily dismiss the prompt more than 90 percent of the time, leaving apps in an indeterminate state.
The update also revamps the special chrome://flags page, making it a full-fledged mobile interface. The old version was just the desktop browser page shrunk down to fit and was very hard to use with a touch-based interface.
