After three beta builds over the past few weeks, the Chrome team has released the Chrome 66 update to Chrome for Android. The new app is build 66.0.3359.106 and it will be landing on devices over the course of the next few weeks. There are several changes in this update including most noticeably, a new modern UI look to the browser.
This new look rolled out via a flag change in one of the first betas of Chrome 66 and it is still a flag that you can enable. That flag is chrome://flags/#enable-chrome-modern-design. It gives everything a more rounded and polished look over the current, default UI. Also, like the desktop updates and Chrome for iOS, you can now export your passwords in the mobile browser to save as a .CSV file. Keep in mind though that the file is not encrypted so if anyone gets hold of it, they have your passwords. Protect it!
The other big change is the ability to stop videos and GIF files from autoplaying when you browse to a site with them from your phone. Content will not autoplay unless the content is muted, you have tapped on a video or other content during the browser session or have pinned the site to your Home screen. It is all in an effort to speed up the browsing experience but also to make it a bit less annoying when a site starts autoplaying a video you aren’t interested in seeing.
With this update, Chrome 66 is now rolling out on both Android and iOS as well as the desktop versions of the browser for Windows, MacOS and Linux.
