Google on Friday started rolling out the beta version 60 build of Chrome, debuting a number of new features for its popular mobile Internet browser, including a new File Picker and a revised application programming interface (API) that’s meant to combat vibrating advertisements. The latter has been a staple of numerous suspicious websites for years now, with many pop-up ads triggering a vibration motor of a user’s device in order to get their attention. Due to the fact that such ads are generally associated with malicious websites and the fact that they simply annoy users, the Mountain View-based tech giant decided to combat them by modifying its Vibration API and prevent developers from unconditionally employing such cheap tactics to draw attention to their ads. The Alphabet-owned company didn’t outright eliminate the API from Chrome and websites will still be able to trigger the vibration motor of your device, but only if you tap on them first. The firm will likely expand on this functionality in the future and allow users to manually whitelist pages that are allowed to vibrate their devices, though the latest beta build of Chrome doesn’t support that functionality.
Google also revamped the Chrome File Picker and Context Menu that can currently only be activated manually by enabling their dedicated flags and are somewhat cleaner than their predecessors, consequently enabling a smoother end user experience of the app. The browser’s search widget was also redesigned and is seemingly the same one that initially debuted in Russia, allowing users to integrate it with different Internet search engines and not just Google. All of the other changes introduced in the Chrome Beta 60 build are associated with the app’s backend and upcoming features, including expanded Android Pay support.
Being an experimental version of the app, there’s no guarantee that all of the aforementioned functionalities will make their way to some stable build of Chrome in the future, though the company is unlikely to scrap any of them in this case. Chrome is expected to receive more major features in the coming months, with Google currently being in the process of updating its app portfolio for the upcoming stable release of Android O.
