How to Bring Back the Old Chrome | Lifehacker


Change is not everybody’s cup of tea. Some of us like issues the best way they’re, dammit: If it ain’t broke, do not repair it. Unfortunately, staying nonetheless does not get you very far in most features of life, not less than not with know-how. Companies are at all times on the lookout for new methods to maneuver their merchandise ahead—or, on the very least, maintain them up-to-date with the newest developments.

So it’s with Chrome: Google rolled out a brand new design language for its wildly in style net browser, adopting the Material You UI seen on Google’s different software program merchandise like Android. Material You adopts the UI’s colour scheme to pictures within the background to create a extra cohesive look. In addition, buttons and menus are extra rounded, since every thing must be spherical lately.

The new Chrome is not for everybody

I truly just like the adjustments (though I’m a Safari man once I can assist it). However, for those who hate the brand new Chrome, you are not alone. Tom’s Hardware’s Avram Piltch despises it. Piltch detests the best way menus float above the UI, how folder icons and the extensions menu seem, and, worst of all, how the tabs menu is now on the left facet of the show moderately than the fitting. (Those of us on macOS appeared to have been spared this final change, as Google did not appear eager to squish the tabs menu in with the left-justified window administration buttons.)

Anyone who shares in Piltch’s sentiments is in luck, nonetheless: Unlike many tech corporations that power design adjustments on customers with out an choice to return, there’s truly a straightforward strategy to flip the change and convey again the outdated Chrome—not less than, for now.

How to deliver again the outdated Chrome

To begin, copy and paste the next into the URL subject in Chrome, then observe the hyperlink: chrome://flags/#chrome-refresh-2023. This characteristic flag—an experimental characteristic tucked away in Chrome—controls whether or not or not Chrome hundreds with the brand new redesign. If you have not tinkered with it earlier than, it is doubtless set to Default, which, clearly, allows the redesign.

Click Default, then change the choice to Disabled. Finally, hit the Relaunched button that seems within the backside proper to refresh Chrome together with your adjustments.