The new Chrome Beta 57 was released for all Android devices and it comes with an important change: custom tabs have now full controls. This means that users will be able to favorite the webpage, request a desktop version of it or add it to their home screen, share the link wherever they want and do many other things.
Previously, users could only share a link with their friends or copy it, and this update will definitely be appreciated by those who use applications with Chrome Custom Tab support, such as Facebook, twitter or Google+. Google has introduced Google Tabs into its browser two years ago, and since then, they’ve been implemented by developers into their apps. This way, users were able to open pages in Chrome quickly and retaining the color of the host app, and the page could be open in the full Chrome browser.
The only problem or inconvenience was the limited controls, as in the previous Chrome 56, Custom Tabs supported only the basic navigation and users were able only to share the link and open the page in Chrome. Thanks to the latest beta of Chrome 57, Custom Tabs will act like a normal tab in the browser. This means that the developers will no longer have to build their own browser within their applications, but they will insert some code to add Custom Tabs support.
Since this is a beta version, users should expect to encounter bugs, but they will be fixed until the stable version of Chrome 57 will be released. It’s worth knowing that the new beta has also added WebAssembly support (designed as a compile target for C/C++ code), Media Session API (developers will be allowed to add additional controls to media notifications), Full Media Orientation, PWA improvements and CSS Grid.
The current Chrome beta can be downloaded from the Google Play Store.
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