In the hustle and bustle of everyday life, many of us turn to our mobile phones as a constant source of navigation, and for this we use the mobile versions of our already familiar desktop browsers. With over 10 billion downloads on the Play Store, Google Chrome is currently the most used browser on Android-operated smartphones. Although it’s a fast browser, there are many additional features hidden in apps that improve browsing in Google Chrome.
Enabling Chrome’s secret features for Android is easy and quick, and best of all, you can choose which features you need based on your usage and enable only the necessary features. There are features that improve the visual part of the browser, enable shortcuts, and even speed up browsing. To learn more about how these features work and how to enable them, we’ve prepared a tutorial with 10 essential secret features to improve browsing in Google Chrome.
Customize shortcut buttons
Add custom shortcut buttons to the Google Chrome Android navigation bar and quickly access other productivity-enhancing features. This button can have an automatic function based on Chrome’s own algorithm, depending on usage, or you can choose your preferred function among the three available options: open a new tab, share a page, or search by voice.
- Open Google Chrome on your Android smartphone and look for Chrome:flags in the navigation bar.
- In the search bar, type “Adaptive” and press Enter to perform the search.
- Under the custom “adaptive” button on the top toolbar,
- click Default position.
- In the pop-up that opens, select Enable.
- Under the custom “adaptive” button on the top toolbar, click Default position
- In the pop-up that opens, select Enable.
- Finally, restart Google Chrome for Android by clicking Restart at the bottom of the screen.
In order to select the desired function for the shortcut key, several steps must also be performed.
- Click the three dots in the upper right corner of the screen to open the general browser options.
- Select the Settings option.
- Scroll until you find the Toolbar Shortcuts option. Choose the option you want based on your usage, or choose the first option if you want Chrome to automate this process.
- Select the desired option, in the example the automatic function is selected
Your shortcut buttons are now configured and accessible at the top of the browser. In the example, when the automatic function of Google Chrome is selected, the button has the function of opening a new tab.
Best Google Chrome Gadgets
The range of Chrome widgets available for Android may not be for everyone, as they are simple and they offer few settings options. But a secret browser feature unlocks additional widget options with more functionality, and improves Google Chrome browsing, making it possible to access settings in less time with just a few taps on the home screen can be accessed below.
- Open Google Chrome on your Android smartphone and look for Chrome:flags in the navigation bar.
- In the search bar, type “Widget” and press Enter to perform the search
- In the quick action search widget, click Show default location
- In the pop-up that opens, select Enable
- Finally, restart Google Chrome for Android by clicking Restart at the bottom of the screen.
Now you can use the new widgets that have been added to your device by taking more steps.
- On the Home screen, press your finger on an empty area for a few seconds until you see the Widgets option.
- There, you can enjoy a more complete set of widgets than what Android offers natively. In this example, in addition to a traditional search, you can do a voice search, open a new incognito tab, and even access a traditional Chrome Dinosaur game to pass the time.
- Click Widgets.
- Scroll through the available widget options until you find Chrome options and select the option you want.
There you can enjoy a more complete set of widgets than what Android offers natively. In this example, in addition to a traditional search, you can do a voice search, open a new incognito tab, and even access a traditional Chrome Dinosaur game to pass the time.
Modern bookmark interface
The change in appearance can really improve browsing efficiency in Chrome, especially on screens that are frequently accessed by users, such as the Internet. B. Bookmarks tab. Since its interface hasn’t changed in a long time, its appearance might even be annoying, but with this added Google feature, quick improvements are possible.
- Open Google Chrome on your Android smartphone and look for Chrome:flags in the navigation bar.
- In the search bar, type “bookmarks” and press Enter to search.
- Under Update Bookmarks, click Show default location.
- In the pop-up that opens, select Enable.
- Finally, restart Google Chrome for Android by clicking Restart at the bottom of the screen.
- Click the three dots in the upper right corner of the screen to open the general browser options. Then click Settings.
- Under Settings, click Themes.
- Then select the Apply dark theme for website checkbox under System default.
Screenshot of incognito mode
If you’ve ever used Chrome’s incognito mode to view something offline, see a search without adding a term to your browsing history, or for other reasons, you’ve noticed that there’s a built-in browser policy that prohibits screenshots, while You are in this browse mode. However, if you want to use the screen recording feature in incognito mode, you can surf anonymously more efficiently and get rid of this ban by enabling this additional feature.
- Open Google Chrome on your Android smartphone and look for Chrome:flags in the navigation bar
- In the search bar, type incognito and press Enter to perform a search.
- In the incognito screenshot, click Show default location.
- In the pop-up that opens, select Enable.
- Finally, restart Google Chrome for Android by clicking Restart at the bottom of the screen.
In Google Chrome for Android, it is now possible to take screenshots even in incognito mode.
QUIC protocol
If you’re looking to improve the overall performance of Chrome for Android, QUIC logging is one of the most valuable features on the list. The protocol speeds up website browsing and can even help improve download speeds. Although released in 2012, the protocol is still experimental and has not been natively implemented by Google Chrome, so it is a secret feature that needs to be added manually.
What QUIC does in practice is to make data transfers between web servers faster. So if you frequently visit different pages in your browser, the process is accelerated due to protocol communication between different servers. However, it should be noted that some websites are not optimized for the QUIC protocol, which means that the data transfer speed cannot be accelerated.
- Open Google Chrome on your Android smartphone and look for Chrome:flags in the navigation bar.
- In the search bar, type “Quic” and press Enter to perform a search.
- Under Experimental QUIC Protocol, click Default.
- In the pop-up that opens, select Enable.
- Finally, restart Google Chrome for Android by clicking Restart at the bottom of the screen.
Speed up download
Another very valuable extra is the option to speed up file downloads, which is useful if you download large files frequently. Downloading large files can take a long time. To speed up the process, you can enable this feature and force Google Chrome to use multiple download channels at the same time. This way the browser downloads different parts of the same file at the same time and merges the parts together after the parallel download is complete.
- Open Google Chrome on your Android smartphone and look for Chrome:flags in the navigation bar.
- Type “download” in the search bar and press Enter to perform the search.
- Under Parallel Downloads, click Default Location.
- In the pop-up that opens, select Enable.
- Finally, restart Google Chrome by clicking Restart at the bottom of the screen.
Glide smoothly
Although this additional feature has little effect on the performance of slow browsers, it increases the feeling of smoother navigation when browsing, that is, this feature brings more convenience to Chrome browsing. The goal is to make web page scrolling smoother and prevent the browser from appearing to freeze while scrolling, giving the impression of faster browsing.
- Open Google Chrome on your Android smartphone and look for Chrome:flags in the navigation bar.
- In the search bar, type “Smooth” and press Enter to perform the search.
- In smooth scrolling, click to display the default position.
- In the pop-up that opens, select Enable.
- Finally, restart Google Chrome for Android by clicking Restart at the bottom of the screen.
Fill in forms automatically
Filling out forms is always boring and tiring, and automating this process as much as possible can improve browsing in Google Chrome and make your daily life easier. This process is already automated by Chrome, which saves your name, zip code, address, and other information and fills it in the form as soon as you start typing. However, this additional feature can make the process easier because if you activate it, it will auto-fill the form as soon as it is displayed, without requiring you to enter anything.
- Open Google Chrome on your Android smartphone and look for Chrome:flags in the navigation bar.
- In the search bar, type “show autocomplete” and press Enter to perform the search.
- Under Show Autofill Predictions, click Show Default Locations.
- In the pop-up that opens, select Enable.
- Finally, restart Google Chrome for Android by clicking restart at the bottom of the screen
Hardware Acceleration
Sometimes when we use slower browsers we spend a lot of time waiting for the video to load, but you can use this add-on to improve Google Chrome on your device. Its purpose is to improve the loading time of videos in Chrome by speeding up the decoding speed of the device hardware.
- Open Google Chrome on your Android smartphone and look for Chrome:flags in the navigation bar.
- Type “hardware” in the search bar and press Enter to perform the search.
- Under Hardware Accelerated Video Decoding, click Standard.
- In the pop-up that opens, select Activate.
- Finally, restart Google Chrome for Android by clicking Restart at the bottom of the screen.
How to disable extras
If you don’t like Chrome’s performance after enabling some of the additional features provided, you can easily disable it and return to your device’s default settings. To do this, just follow the same step-by-step guide for enabling unwanted features and select the “Disabled” option instead of the “Enabled” option previously, then launch Chrome for Android New.
- Open Google Chrome on your Android smartphone and look for Chrome:flags in the navigation bar.
- In the search bar, type the name of the feature you want to disable and press Enter to search. In this example, we use Display Autofill Prediction.
- For the add-on you want to turn off, in this example, Show Autofill Predictions, click where it says Enabled.
- In the popup that opens, select Disabled.
- Finally, restart Google Chrome for Android by clicking Restart at the bottom of the screen.
Since the features available in Google Chrome Flags are not native, some features may be undesirable or cause system instability. If you’ve added a bunch of features and just don’t know which ones enabled won’t give you better navigation, no problem. Note that it is possible to reset all functions and set them back to default mode immediately.
- Open Google Chrome on your Android smartphone and look for Chrome:flags in the navigation bar.
- Click Reset All in the upper right corner of the screen.
- Finally, restart Google Chrome for Android by clicking Restart at the bottom of the screen.
Now, if you want to enable a feature or two that you’ve already adapted, just go back to the enablement tutorial listed above and repeat the process.
