Google wants to put the power of the Internet at the fingertips of as many users as possible, and to this end, the company recently announced a handful of new additions to Chrome for Android in a quest to liberate users of the worries surrounding excessive data usage. According to the company “2G-like connections often prevent our users from getting the most out of the web”, and with these new additions, Google wants to give customers a friendlier user experience even on slower network connections, and even when they are offline.
Among the changes revealed by Google, the company has announced a new addition to the existing Data Saver feature in Chrome for Android, which will now allow users to save up to 67% data when viewing MP4 format videos in Google Chrome. Up until now, Data Saver was able to compress images and text on a web page by up to 60%, but Google claims that the addition of MP4 video compression is “already saving 138 TB (terabytes) of data on video” every week in India alone. Furthermore, Google says that Data Saver has become smarter and while using slow connections, the feature will automatically optimize HTTP websites in order to load 2 times faster and save up to 90% data. Another great addition to Google Chrome for Android is a new download feature that allows users to access web pages when they are offline. Using this new option, users can download entire web pages, even those including pictures, videos, and music files, and can access this content in a new tab designed for downloaded content. And since the feature is primarily designed for smartphone users in areas with relatively poor network connectivity, in the event of a connection drop these downloads will resume automatically once Chrome goes back online. Furthermore, following the new update Chrome will offer smart suggestions to help users find new, interesting content, and these suggestions will improve gradually as users continue to utilize Chrome.
According to Google, offline downloads are now available on Chrome Beta and “will be available soon” for every user. The Verge reports that some of the aforementioned features will be included in Chrome update 54 set to release in mid-October, while other features will be reserved for version 55 expected to be launched before the end of the year.
