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Android Chrome Users Can Now Move Address Bar To Bottom of Screen (9to5google.com) 31

Posted by msmash from the iOS-had-it-first dept.
Google has begun rolling out a feature that allows Chrome users on Android to move the browser's address bar to the bottom of the screen. This capability has been available to iOS Chrome users since 2023 and aims to improve accessibility for users with larger devices.

Users can relocate the address bar by pressing and holding on it and selecting the move option, or by adjusting the setting through Chrome's settings menu. The feature addresses usability concerns for users of phones with bigger screens, where reaching the top of the display can prove difficult during one-handed operation.

Android Chrome Users Can Now Move Address Bar To Bottom of Screen More | Reply

Android Chrome Users Can Now Move Address Bar To Bottom of Screen

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  • Why use chrome when you can use an actually good browser with a proper ad blocker

    • Because it's pre-installed on every Android device.

      When you're in a hurry, you'll just use it this time rather than download and install some app.

      After you "just use it" a few dozen times, you just use it all the time.

      The current market share of Firefox on Android is 0.5% Even on Windows the Firefox market share is only ~2.5%

      Chrome is the antithesis of a dead browser.

      • Firefox on Android has a pathetic JavaScript-related memory leak that causes it to slow down my device multiple times per day, I have to force it out of memory. My phone has 4GB, which is not a lot any more (sigh) but it's still adequate for every purpose other than running Firefox for long periods. It's surprising its market share isn't lower.

      • Also it's fast on android. Much faster than other browsers. If you have a lower end phone it is pretty noticeable.

        I picked up a OnePlus+ 13r not too long ago because I wanted the better Qualcomm modem (and it absolutely makes a huge difference) so I don't really notice the difference now between Firefox and Chrome.

        But on my ancient LG phone you better believe that Firefox choked on it. The Motorola I replaced it with was better but Firefox was still noticeably slower.

        I suspect that like Microsof

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by schwit1 ( 797399 )

      Yes, Brave. Installing Brave and disabling Chrome is one of the first things every Android user should do.

    • I know, right. They added an option to change the (x,y) location of a text box on the screen. They must have used AI vibe coding for such an innovative change.

      • I think there was a time when the term "Innovation" had a sort of esoteric meaning.
        But now, you can just mesmerize all manner of chumps, politicians, business men, and the hoi polloi, by waving the term around and claiming that ... well, anything, that I say is innovation, IS innovation.

        I like to pick on Apple for their use of the term, but everyone learned from them. I've heard various talking heads, government, business, and media people talking innovation... once the term enters the discussion, it's a sa
      • I think you're giving them too much credit. If I read this correctly, they're only allowing you to change the y.

  • The user has a choice. They can relocate the address bar, if they want. I don't know why they would want to, but they can.

    This is dramatically better than just moving it because reasons and making the user base go bat shit.

  • Wow... (Score:3)

    by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2025 @04:53PM (#65473387)

    Welcome Chrome users to Firefox of several years ago.
    Also Firefox has uBlock Origin on Android.
    And Mozilla can't read the bookmarks/passwords in your Firefox account (unlike Google syncing).

    • Call me crazy but I got Fulguris browser via droidify app. Open source... like... 10 megs ? Very small. Does everything I want to did do.

      Way more configurability than I need. I have server side ad blocking but I think it has rulesets to block things ...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Google can't read the bookmarks/passwords in your Google account either, if you bothered to set a password.

      The main problem is lack of uBlock, or any add-ons for Chrome on Android. Firefox isn't ideal, it's slower and breaks with quite a few websites, but the hell of an unfiltered ad-infested web is more than enough to offset those relatively minor annoyances.

      I just wish they would copy Chrome's tab management. It's dire in Firefox.

      • Google can't read the bookmarks/passwords in your Google account either, if you bothered to set a password.

        True, though note that Google does have all the data needed to brute force that password, so make sure it has plenty of entropy. I recommend "correct horse battery staple".

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          The same is true for Mozilla, although I suppose they have far fewer resources than Google.

          The bigger worry for me is hacking. If someone steals those databases, they get a lot of people's browser history, cookies, logins, all sorts of data. Google is about the only major service that hasn't been seriously hacked at one point or another. Mozilla has done fairly well, but they are getting smaller and smaller.

          As such I use a very strong password.

  • I personally don't like it to be at the bottom, but Firefox, and perhaps other browsers as well, has had this option on Android for as long as I can remember.

    • Yeah, Brave has for a few years and it's a Chromium downstream.

      I don't like it at all, but maybe in right-to-left bottom-to-top writing cultures it feels natural.

  • OMG! (Score:2)

    by vistic ( 556838 )

    No way! HOLY SHIT!! Wow!

    • I know. My dream come true. I can sleep better tonight. It's worried me and driven me to drugs and quite dubious but unmentionable activities.

      I've been begging for this for decades. I say prayers in church. I have eleven stickers on the back of my pickup truck hoping for this very thing. My life is complete.

      And... hey, nothing else is interesting, amirite? No wars, nukes, and the grid is full of solar juice, right? Feeding us our daily bread of AI?

      VCs will cash in on this. Wow. I can't wait for the IPO.

    • Google sure is killing it in 2025!

    • I will always remember, to my last dying day, where I was and what I was up to when I learned about such momentous technological tour-de-force which is all but destined to mark a before and after milestone in the hi-tech world.

  • Browser technology apparently has reached the point where even the most trivial change -- a new color scheme for icons, a movement of an object from one side of a window to the other -- is worthy of a big press release. Does anyone really care about this? There are no press releases when the handle color on a toaster is changed, and that's about as exciting as this notice is.

  • What is the advantage?

    • The feature addresses usability concerns for users of phones with bigger screens, where reaching the top of the display can prove difficult during one-handed operation.

      one-handed operation

      ....we're all thinking it, right?

  • Maybe it'll help some iPhone users migrate, but that's a hard no for me. Every time somebody hands me an iPhone I'm confused for a second on why the URL bar is at the bottom.

  • But what about zero-handed operation? Foot operation? Geeze, UI sucks if I can't do it with my foot.

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