Back in August, the Chrome browser moved its download notifications from a bar at the bottom of the window to an icon at top. However, if you didn’t like that change, you could still use a flag to change it back. People are now reporting that, with the latest update of Chrome, that flag is gone, and you’re going to be stuck with the new notification icon. Oh, well.
YouTube’s been cracking down on ad blocker usage this year. I’m fine coughing up $14 a month for YouTube Premium, but I can’t help but be amused at the user agent workaround Enderman posted yesterday (spotted by Windows Central).
Using a Google-made Chrome extension, you can put a digital name tag on your browser that basically says, “Hello! My Name is Windows Phone,” and YouTube won’t show you ads.
YouTube hasn’t specifically said that turning your browser into three Windows Phones in a trenchcoat is against its terms of service, but all the same: Proceed at your own risk.
Google says that it’s also making privacy options easier to access:
You’ll soon be able to quickly delete your browsing history, site data, and now also including recent tabs. There will also be a new 15 minute option when selecting the duration. Just click the three dots in the top-right corner of your Chrome browser and select ‘Clear browsing data’.
It’s already live in Chrome beta if you just can’t wait.
This tool allowed Chrome users to, by right-clicking a phone number in their browser, initiate a phone call on a linked Android phone. The feature was killed in Chrome 116 with little fanfare.
There’s been some outcry about this decision, as 9to5Google reports, and it appears that Google has taken notice. A member of the Chromium team has reportedly told upset commenters that they will “have a conversation with our product team about whether we can continue to support the feature”.
9to5Google reports that the side panel will let you see Google Search results while you’re browsing the web on a main panel. Right now, the side panel lets you access things like your reading list, and it looks like you’ll still be able to get to that, too.
The publication says it’s seeing the side panel on Chrome 116, but a couple of us at The Verge haven’t gotten it yet despite being up to date.
Some code sleuthing by Kevin C. Tofel suggests that the Chrome browser could soon be decoupled from ChromeOS V116 in favor of the Linux browser Lacros.
Robby Payne over at Chrome Unboxed explains:
Lacros will be the Chrome browser you get on every Chromebook and because it won’t be attached to the core of the OS any longer, it will facilitate quicker browser patches without requiring a full OS update.
[About Chromebooks]
OBS Studio 29 just went live today with support for real-time AV1 — letting the latest Nvidia and possibly AMD and Intel graphics cards stream way higher quality video to YouTube using the same amount of data.
The OBS changelog does note that AV1 streaming is currently only a “beta feature” for YouTube, as it has been since March. Discord has supported AV1 since January. Chrome recently improved video calls with AV1 as well.
Instead of spending an hour on the phone trying to help a tech-phobic person get on a Zoom call, take a screenshot, or deal with some other problem, sometimes it’s easier to just take over their screen and show them what to do. There are several apps out there that let you do that, but if you and that special someone both use the Chrome browser, then Google’s Chrome Remote Desktop is the way to go. Here’s how to get it up and running.
