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Have you ever wished your phone or tablet’s browser could immediately open a website you visit often? With the Beta release of Chrome for Android rolling out today, it’s now easier to create shortcuts on your homescreen to do exactly that. When visiting a website you’d like to save, simply select “Add to homescreen” from the toolbar menu.

Anytime you’d like to open the saved website, you can just tap its icon on your homescreen. For certain websites, the shortcut will now open in a full-screen experience and appear as a separate app in the app switcher.

Hulu has added Chromecast support to their Hulu Plus app—just in time for the fall television season. Now you can easily enjoy your favorite shows, such as “Modern Family,” “New Girl” and “Parks and Recreation,” on your big-screen TV by casting from Hulu Plus on your mobile phone or tablet. It’s the same intuitive, remote-free experience you’ve come to enjoy with the other Chromecast-supported apps, and is as simple as pressing the Cast button which will now appear in the app.

Chromecast, which we launched in July, is designed to be small, affordable ($35) and the simplest way to watch online video on your TV. It’s been exciting to receive such positive feedback from many of you (thank you!)—and to see Chromecast currently listed as the #1 best seller on Amazon in Electronics.

To start casting your favorite Hulu Plus content from your Android phone, tablet or iPad (support for iPhone coming very soon), just check that you have the latest version of the Hulu Plus app for Android or iOS that’s rolling out today. And if you don’t already own a Chromecast device, they’re in stock and available on Google Play, Amazon, BestBuy.com or at your local Best Buy store.

Posted by Shanna Prevé, Head of Content Partnerships for Chromecast and TV junkie

If you use Chrome, you might notice we’re always making small adjustments to simplify and streamline your browsing experience. Starting this week, all Chrome users will be able to search by image and Chrome for Android users get some new gestures to quickly navigate open tabs and access the menu.

In Chrome for Android, you’ll be able to:

• Swipe horizontally across the top toolbar to quickly switch tabs.
• Drag vertically down from the toolbar to enter into the tab switcher view. 
• Drag down from the menu to open the menu and select the item you want without having to lift your finger.

These updates to Chrome for desktop and Android will be rolling out to all users over the next few days, so if you don’t see them yet, you will soon. Happy browsing!

Posted by Kibeom Kim, Software Engineer and Swift Swiper

Just in time for iOS7, comes a new Chrome for iOS. Starting today you can download the latest update to Chrome for iOS for both your iPhone and iPad. You’ll notice a new design for iOS7, including improvements to the fullscreen experience on your iPad.

Better Together: Chrome integrates with your favorite Google Apps

It’s now easier to switch between Chrome and your favorite Google Apps on your mobile device. Sign in to Chrome on your iPhone or iPad, and the next time you open another Google app, you can login with one simple click. Easily add or remove accounts in Settings.

Links from Chrome can now directly open in the YouTube, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Drive and Google+ apps. For example, if you’re searching for a nearby Thai restaurant, Chrome will open the address in the Google Maps app. Just visit “Google Apps” under Settings to select which apps you’d like to open from Chrome.

Fluid Searching: Intelligent pronoun understanding & snap back to search results 

With today’s update, voice search on Chrome for mobile gets better. You can now string together multiple voice searches with pronouns to get to results faster. For example, a voice search for “Who is the president of the United States?” followed by “Where did he go to school?”, lists all the schools President Barack Obama attended (all the way back to elementary school!).

Try it out by asking:

• “Who is the prime minister of Canada?” and then, “How old is he?”
• “How many people live in Pennsylvania?” and then, “When did it become a state?”
• “Who directed Star Trek Into Darkness?” and then, “Who is his wife?”

Finally, it’s even quicker to return to your search results. Search result link you clicked not what you were looking for? We’ve sped things up so that as soon as you hit the back button, all your results reappear instantly.


Try out the latest version of Chrome for iPhone and iPad today.

Posted by Miranda R. Callahan, Software Engineer and Dedicated Speeder-Upper

Posted by Caesar Sengupta, Product Management Director, Chromebooks

Editor’s note: Today marks the 5th birthday of Chrome, a project we started to push the web platform forward. From a humble beginning of static text, images and links, the web has grown into a rich platform teeming with interactive content and powerful applications. We’ve been astounded by how far the web has come and are very excited to see what developers around the world will be able to do with the new generation of Chrome Apps. 

Today we’re unveiling a new kind of Chrome App, which brings together the speed, security and flexibility of the modern web with the powerful functionality previously only available with software installed on your devices. (Think apps designed for your desktop or laptop, just like the ones for your phone and tablet.) These apps are more powerful than before, and can help you get work done, play games in full-screen and create cool content all from the web. If you’re using Windows or a Chromebook, you can check them out in the “For your desktop” collection in the Chrome Web Store (Mac & Linux coming soon). 

Here’s what you can expect with new Chrome Apps:

• Work offline: Keep working or playing, even when you don’t have an internet connection.
• More app, less Chrome: No tabs, buttons or text boxes mean you can get into the app without being distracted by the rest of the web.
• Connect to the cloud: Access and save the documents, photos and videos on your hard drive as well as on Google Drive and other web services.
• Stay up-to-speed: With desktop notifications, you can get reminders, updates and even take action, right from the notification center.
• Play nice with your connected devices: Interact with your USB, Bluetooth and other devices connected to your desktop, including digital cameras.
• Keep updated automatically: Apps update silently, so you always get all the latest features and security fixes (unless permissions change).
• Pick up where you left off: Chrome syncs your apps to any desktop device you sign in to, so you can keep working.
• Sleep easier: Chrome apps take advantage of Chrome’s built-in security features such as Sandboxing. They also auto-update to make sure you have all the latest security fixes. No extra software (or worrying) required.
• Launch apps directly from your desktop: To make it quicker and easier to get to your favorite apps, we’re also introducing the Chrome App Launcher for Windows, which will appear when you install your first new Chrome App. It lives in your taskbar and launches your apps into their own windows, outside of Chrome, just like your desktop apps. Have lots of apps? Navigate to your favorite apps using the search box.

Nearly 50 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a stirring speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with the words “I have a dream.” Today, we’re sharing a new way to take part in this historic moment through a web experience developed by our friends at Organic and Unit9, for the National Park Foundation.

Called “March on Washington,” the experience invites you to relive that moment in time by listening to an original recording of Dr. King’s words accompanied by immersive photography from the event itself.

One of the most powerful abilities of the web is that it connects people from all over the world in new ways. In “March on Washington,” you can also virtually join this historic event by recording yourself reciting Dr. King’s words. Then, you can play back other participants’ recordings as a crowd-sourced narrative of voices, hearing the timeless message repeated back from people all over the world.

We’re excited to see the modern web enable experiences like “March on Washington” that bring together people and history in new, powerful ways. Head over to wearestillmarching.com on a laptop, phone or tablet to check it out.

Posted by Max Heinritz, Associate Product Manager & Modern Marcher

In Chrome for Android, new gestures make it even easier to get where you want to go.  Swipe horizontally across the top toolbar to quickly switch tabs (this gesture replaces swiping from the edge of the screen).  Drag vertically down from the toolbar to enter into the tab switcher view.  And drag down from the menu to open the menu and select the item you want without having to lift your finger.

Starting today, all Chrome users will start seeing improvements to omnibox suggestions based on the recency of websites you visited, resulting in more timely and contextually relevant suggestions. Mac users will also receive support for rich notifications, so you can keep up with what’s happening within your apps and extensions. 

And for those nostalgic for the new car smell — maybe you, too, got overzealous with fun extensions — we’ve added a new option to the Chrome settings page to let you restore it back to its original state. And don’t worry, it won’t affect your bookmarks, saved passwords and history. Here’s how to find this option:

On Chrome on Android, we have improved scrolling and startup performance and are introducing WebRTC support that will enable video conversation directly in the browser without a plugin. Experience it over the coming days as the update rolls out to your device.

Update August 21: edits made to correct what is disabled when opting to restore your Chrome to its original state via the new Chrome settings option. 

(Cross-posted on the Google Enterprise Blog)

Have you ever needed to print a boarding pass, whitepaper, or speech, and didn’t have your computer at hand? Google Cloud Print helps you print from anywhere to anywhere using any device, and we’ve recently made several improvements on that front.

First, if you have an Android smartphone or tablet, we’ve released the Cloud Print app in Google Play to make it easier to print documents and files on the go.

Second, if you work out of different offices or other public spaces like a school, you can now easily share a printer with anyone nearby, by simply publishing a link.

In addition, we’re releasing two new tools today to make it even easier to print anywhere, anytime. The first, Google Cloud Printer, makes it possible to print to any of your cloud printers from Windows applications such as Adobe Reader.

The second, Google Cloud Print Service, runs as a Windows service so administrators can easily connect existing printers to Google Cloud Print in their businesses and schools.

We’ll continue evolving Google Cloud Print to make printing simple and easy from as many devices as possible. For now, the future looks good on paper.

Posted by Andrew Warren, Product Manager and Printing Prophet, Google

Today’s release of Chrome for iPad and iPhone makes it easier to integrate your favorite Google apps with Chrome. After you sign in to Chrome, you can sign in to other Google apps with a single click. In addition, if you prefer to follow directions in the Google Maps app instead of in the browser, you can easily set a preference to open these links in the Maps app instead. Try the same for YouTube, Google+, and Google Drive (with more apps coming soon).

Over the coming days, we are also rolling out an experimental data compression service to help you save bandwidth, load pages faster, and browse more securely on your iPhone and iPad. Finally, this update brings fullscreen browsing to your iPad and the ability to access your browsing history from the menu.

Try out the latest version of Chrome for iPhone and iPad today.

Posted by Peter Lee, Software Engineer and Ideating Integrationist

For folks using Chrome Beta on Windows, Mac, or Linux, starting today you’ll notice improvements to omnibox suggestions based on the recency of websites visited, so you’ll get more contextually relevant suggestions at the right time.

In addition, if you use Chrome Beta on your Android phone or tablet, we’re releasing a new update later today to improve the way you navigate and interact with the web. You may notice pages loading faster, and the latest implementation of WebRTC technology allows you to chat face-to-face through your browser without installing any plugins. Try it out by starting a conversation with a friend.

We look forward to hearing your feedback on today’s Beta updates.

Posted by Mark Pearson, Software Engineer and Suggestion Savant

Today’s Chrome for Android stable update continues to break down the language barrier as you browse the mobile web. In addition to the built-in translation bar, we’ve added improved layout support for right-to-left languages including Arabic, Farsi and Hebrew. This update also brings fullscreen browsing to your tablet.

Furthermore, we’re rolling out an experimental data compression service over the coming days which helps you save bandwidth, load pages faster, and browse more securely on your phone and tablet. Too good to be true, you say? Au contraire. By optimizing the pages you visit, this feature can help you save on data usage and bring you a faster, more dynamic web.

We look forward to your feedback on the latest version of Chrome for Android as it rolls out in the coming days.

Posted by Dan Alcantara, Software Engineer and Professional Polyglot

Starting today Chrome users on Windows will see their browser updated to include richer notifications (Mac is coming soon). We’re excited to see what developers create and the convenience it brings to your day-to-day lives.

 If you haven’t tried Chrome yet, there’s no better time than now!

Posted by Justin DeWitt, Software Engineer and Master of Messages and Meetings