Google is currently testing a new download feature in Chrome Canary, the developer channel for its Chrome internet browser, that should give users a less intrusive experience when downloading content.
As noted by Reddit user Leoparda64-dos, a new download icon will appear in the toolbar next to each and every one of the extensions you have installed today in the Chrome browser, similar to the download screen you see. in the Microsoft Edge internet browser. The planned relocation was spotted late last year by the exact same Reddit user, though we now have ancillary information about the download bubble itself.
The bubble will expand when clicked to show the most recently downloaded files, which leaves exactly the same quick access as the current toolbar, plus it shows the progress of each and every active download.
In accordance with a recent fix, the download button will change color and size to reflect the stage of download progress, and the icon will shrink and change from gray to blue when active. An animated progress "ring" is also in the works, though this is all still in development, so it's not very likely that we'll see it land in the stable version of Google Chrome any time soon.
This same patch also seems to confirm Google's plans to completely remove the download bar from the bottom of the web browser and replace it with this more cautious bubble model that doesn't hog a section of the screen and says, "Now, we're It still shows the download shelf for reference only, but the ultimate purpose is to replace the shelf with the bubble in the toolbar."
Analysis: Chrome trying to imitate Microsoft Edge is not surprising
Poor Microsoft Edge. While it has some pretty cool features and doesn't require an abnormally high percentage of your device's memory to run, Google Chrome still dominates as the most popular internet browser with a market share of XNUMX%.
It's funny that Chrome has been inspired by a contender like Edge, but Microsoft's own browser is starting to gain ground very slowly, with an overall market share of XNUMX%, compared to XNUMX% year-on-year. These are still small numbers in the grand scheme of things, but it looks like Google is going to take this development seriously, no matter how good it is.
We can't be particularly mad about that either. The current download bar in Google Chrome is unnecessarily taking up screen real estate, with the full bar appearing and condensing your browser window, even if you're only downloading a single image. It's going to be nice not to have to deal with so much horror if you just want to send a silly meme to your colleague.
As mentioned, the download bubble is still a work in progress, so while it looks promising, we'll have to wait for it to be complete and also included in the consumer-ready stable version of Chrome before we can say with confidence. which is an improvement. , but things do indeed look promising so far.
Via Neowin