The download icon has a new overlay in Chrome Canary for desktop
For months now, Google has been working on a new UI for downloads in the desktop version of Chrome, and though the feature still isn’t enabled by default, it’s finally getting some love in the latest Chrome Canary build. The download bubble, which replaces the old download shelf at the bottom of your browser window when enabled, uses a button in Chrome’s menu bar to show a list of recent downloads in a popup. That button itself is now getting a new feature to help you keep track of concurrent downloads.
Spotted by Android Police reader and frequent tipster Leopeva64 on Reddit, the new download menu icon now has an overlay that displays the total number of active downloads. This number only appears when more than one download is still ongoing, and it disappears once the downloads are complete or the number in progress drops below two.
The new feature is present on the desktop version of Chrome 111, which is currently only available in the Canary and Developer pre-release channels. Stable Chrome is sitting on version 109 at the moment, while Chrome Beta has moved to version 110 with several other changes in store.
To check this out for yourself, you’ll first need to enable the new download bubble UI in Chrome’s hidden feature flags menu at chrome://flags#download-bubble. Then enable a second flag at chrome://flags#download-bubble-v2 to activate this and other improvements to the bubble interface, and finally restart your browser to ensure that the changes take effect.
This new counter is just one of the tweaks coming to the download experience on Google Chrome in the near future. Google has also set its sights on shady HTTP-only webpages, and is expected to make it harder to download files from less-secure sources in Chrome 111 when the new version hits production this March.
Thanks: Leonardo
