Google Chrome has displayed active and completed downloads at the bottom of the screen for years, even as other browsers hide them behind a button or other menu. That’s now changing, as Google is replacing the downloads bar with a new button and menu that is easier to use and more customizable.
Google said in its announcement, ” Over the years, we have listened to your feedback about the legacy Chrome downloads experience. We learned that while there was a lot about it that worked well for you, like strong support for core download journeys and built-in protection from harmful files, it had its problems too.” Specifically, the bar takes up a lot of space at the bottom of the screen (shrinking how much of the page is visible), doesn’t go away automatically, and isn’t as interactive as other elements of the browser.
Google is now rolling out a new downloads experience for the desktop Chrome browser, which moves everything to a new downloads button in the toolbar — similar to Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Microsoft Edge. When you start a download, an animated ring appears around the button that fills up as the download continues. When the download is complete, the download tray appears below the button to let you know, then goes away automatically. Again, that’s almost exactly like Firefox and Safari, so if you have also used those browsers the change shouldn’t be much of an adjustment.
The download tray contains a list of all downloads from the past 24 hours, and can be opened in any browser window, not just the one where the file was originally downloaded. The previous design required clicking the main overflow button and selecting “Downloads,” which opens the full list in a new tab. You can still see the full list by clicking “Show all downloads” in the popup tray, or by navigating to the chrome://downloads page. The button also goes away when it’s not needed anymore, and if the new behavior is too distracting, there’s a browser setting to hide the popup when a download is completed.
Google also announced changes to the search behavior on Chrome for iPhone, iPad, and Android, adding more suggested and relevant results as you type.
Source: Google
