Google makes it easier to test experimental features in Chrome

It turns out increasing the cadence of Chrome updates isn’t the only change Google has planned for its web browser. In a tweet spotted by 9to5Google (via XDA Developers), Chrome design head Alex Ainslie detailed a new feature that makes it easier to try out any experimental functionality that Google is working on. As of this week, the browser’s Canary version includes a beaker icon where you can enable experimental features, as well as send feedback to the Chrome team.

👩‍🔬 We hope to gather more feedback about @googlechrome updates as they're in development. If you're using Canary today (and soon Dev and Beta) you'll notice a little beaker on the toolbar that makes it easier to try out new stuff and share suggestions about how it should evolve. pic.twitter.com/doPLzJbnRW

— Alex Ainslie (@alexainslie) March 5, 2021

In the past, trying out experiments in Chrome meant enabling flags. That made them tricky to access if you didn’t know what you were doing. It also wasn’t easy to see at a glance which ones you had enabled. Ainslie said Google is adding the menu to collect more feedback on updates as they’re in development. To that end, the beaker icon will make its way to the developer and beta versions of Chrome as well. That means you won't have to use Chrome's least stable release to see what Google has in store for users.