Google has revealed its future look for Chrome, introducing rounder tabs, a new open tab button, and a round-edged address bar. Elements of Google’s Chrome UI redesign first showed up in Chrome Canary version 68 for Windows, leaving out Linux and macOS.
The new look Chrome, spotted by 9to5Google, has been built around a redesign known as Material Design 2, that debuted across Google products back in February. Chrome developers call the project the Material Design Refresh, where it lists a range of visible and not-so-visible changes taking place with adjustments to icon colors, bookmarks, tabs, the toolbar, avatar buttons, tab-loading animations and more.
The URL bar or Omnibox for Chrome on Windows now features rounded edges with the Secure and padlock symbol sitting inside a pill-like shape. The same Omnibox design can also be seen in Chrome 66 on Android, but it’s still an experimental feature.
The most obvious change to Chrome are the new tabs, which lose their sharp corners and leaning edges in favor of rounded corners with straight edges.
Also, the New Tab button is moving to the far left on Windows, Linux and Chrome OS, while macOS will have one on the right.
The account profile or avatar icon is now located in the toolbar just to the right of the address bar.
Enable Google Chrome’s Material 2 Look For Yourself
If you have the latest Google Chrome Dev Channel release for Linux or Windows, you should have the new look by default. If you don’t (or you’re running an older/beta build) you can manually opt-in to new look through the Chrome Flags page.
Head to the following address in a new tab and, when the page loads, select the “Refresh” option from the dropdown menu that appears.
chrome://flags/#top-chrome-md
Restart Chrome as prompted and, when it pops back up, you’ll be greeted by the version showcased above.
