Google Chrome releasescome to our devices every month at their incredibly fast 4-week cadence. Following hot on the heels ofChrome 124, the latest version in line is Chrome 125, which hasreached its beta stage just now. There are quite some quality-of-life features Google is preparing for this release, so read on to find out everything you need to know.
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Chrome 125 tests a redesigned new tab page on Android
While Google seems set on not bringing bottom-based navigation to Chrome for Android, it appears to be willing to experiment with the new tab page on a regular basis. When we launched Chrome 125 for the first time, the browser showed us a redesigned variation of the new tab page. It keeps the top bar with the address bar fully intact and moves the recently visited websites into a carousel right beneath it. This allows Google to dedicate even more screen real estate to the Discover feed, likely in the hopes of making you click on some of the articles that will give it some sweet ad revenue.
From a usability standpoint, it’s not good to push the address bar and shortcuts further away from the comfortable reach of your thumb. The one upside of this redesign is that the address bar is now in a consistent position across the new tab page and any other tab. You no longer need to guess where you have to place your thumb to tap it.
Chrome 125 tests desktop-level tab groups on Android
Chrome’s tab groups have become a must-have productivity feature for many people on desktop. While they were first introduced on Android, the tab group desktop version is a lot more customizable and flexible. With Chrome 125, it looks like Google wants to bring feature parity to Chrome on both platforms.
When creating a tab group on Android, a new experiment automaticallyopens a box that lets you rename the groupto your liking and add a custom color for it to better differentiate it from the rest. Right now, this feature is still in testing, so it may take some time to roll out to everyone.
Chrome 125 gets an animated side panel on desktop
The Chrome side panel that gives you quick access to search, bookmarks, reading mode, and more, still seems a little tacked on and doesn’t always feel like a native part of the browser. That’s likely why Google is working on some design improvements for the panel.
In Chrome 125, the company isexperimenting with a new slide out and slide in animationwhen you open or close the panel. It makes the transition feel a lot less janky, and we can only hope that the company will add more of those little touches further down the line.
Chrome 125 adds better protection from hijacking your mouse and keyboard
Google is testing new privacy controls in Chrome 125 for desktop. The new version has received additional controls in the site permissions panel, allowing you to decide if websites can lock the keyboard or pointer and scroll and zoom. This is meant to make it harder for threat actors to take over.
The feature is mostly used in gaming contexts (remember Stadia?), where the mouse and keyboard input needs to be captured, ensuring you don’t accidentally exit the window you’re playing something in. Adding dedicated per-site settings make the whole deal easier to manage.
Chrome 125 makes scrolling more accessible
Not everyone can comfortably use a mouse, and some people also just prefer to use their keyboard in every possible scenario. That’s where Google’s new accessibility-focused tweak comes in. The company makes scroll containers focusable by default, meaning that most views within websites that can be scrolled can be scrolled when navigating to them with the tab key. There is only one caveat, as Google describes: “This behavior is enabled only if the scroller does not contain any keyboard focusable children. This logic is necessary so we don’t cause regressions for existing focusable elements that might exist within a scroller like a.”
Chrome 125 will get even more secure on Windows
Given that everyone uses a browser to get anything done these days, Chrome and its alternatives are a valuable target for attackers. The new version of Chrome makes browsing even more secure by putting the Network Service on Windows into a sandbox. The Network Service was already its own process before, but with sandboxing, it will be harder for third-party code to be injected.
Chrome 125 lays groundwork for cleaning up your messy tabs on Android
Let’s face it: you probably have way too many unused tabs in Chrome on your phone right now. Competitors like Firefox have long realized that this is a problem on mobile devices in particular and introduced measures that automatically clean up after you. Chrome seems set to finally follow suitwith a new Android Tab Declutter featurethat will automatically close tabs after a specific amount of time has passed.
Chrome for iOS already automatically closes tabs for you by default
The feature is still in very early stages, though, and the respectivechrome://flags/#android-tab-declutterflag doesn’t seem to do anything just yet. Once and if it rolls out, it should behave similar to the existing Chrome feature on iOS that automatically cleans up your tabs after you haven’t touched them for 21 days.
Get Chrome 125 right now
Chrome 125 is now rolling out as a beta version. When you install it, it’s completely separate from your stable Chrome installation. you may get it from the Google Play Store ordownload it from the Google Chrome websitefor your desktop. Just keep in mind that there may be occasional bugs that make this version less suited for everyday usage than the stable release.
