Chrome for Android could get a (very limited) bottom bar back

Abstract

• Google may introduce a bottom bar for Chrome on Android, available in custom tabs from within the Google app.
• The new bottom bar isn’t functional yet, so we don’t know what features it will contain.
• Previous experiments with the bottom interface in Chrome for Android were rejected by Google.

Long ago, Google experimented with moving some elements of the Chrome interface to the bottom on Android devices. The company has long since given up on these tests, and although Chrome for iOS offers an optional bottom-based interface these days, we don’t see anything like it on Android. That may finally change soon, but it looks like the bottom bar will only be used for some very specific activities.

New chrome://flags/#cct-google-bottom-bar flag spotted by Leopeva64 in Chrome Canary 124 will reportedly show the bottom bar in Chrome custom tabs opened from the Google app. Currently, details on what this bottom bar will look like are still sparse as the feature is not yet live. In the Chromium Gerrit Public Development Tool, Google calls the bar a “GoogleBottomBar module skeleton,” which sounds like it will contain some options and buttons specific to Google Search.

One possibility is that the usual Discover, Search, and Saved shortcuts from the bottom bar of the Google app will remain visible when the custom tab is open. We could also see some Google-specific features like a quick shortcut to Lens or a button for additional search results on that topic. These are both just educated guesses.

Based on Google’s descriptions, the bottom bar should still be much more limited than it is in Chrome or even the Google app on iOS. Two of Google’s apps offer navigation buttons and browser features like tabs and a shortcut to the home page at the bottom, which is useful because of the increasingly large screens that top phones have.

Google offers bottom navigation in Google Search and Chrome on iOS

Back in 2020, Google also briefly tested an internal browser inside the Google app, which was completely separate from Chrome and your data in it, including logins and browsing history. The browser integrated more tightly with the search app and offered some intriguing animations, but eventually Google abandoned the experiment in favor of the usual custom tabs. It’s possible that the new bottom bar is a way to bring some features to custom tabs within the Google app that would otherwise only be available with the internal browser.

Chrome has experimented with a full bottom interface in the past

There have been several tests over the years

Google last experimented with a full bottom interface in Chrome for Android between 2016 and 2019, first calling it “Chrome Home” and then “Chrome Duplex”. In the end, the experiments were completely abandoned, and Google kept the classic interface at the top with an address bar, a tab switcher and an overflow menu, all gathered in an increasingly cramped top bar.

With that in mind, the new bottom bar experiment may not go anywhere. As with all features spotted prior to their official release, Google may decide to remove it entirely before we even see it in working order.