Google Chrome Canary version 139 for Android has begun testing Material 3 Expressive design updates, part of Google’s ongoing effort to modernize its apps and align them with Android’s latest visual language. This design approach aims for a cleaner, more personalized, and visually distinctive interface, while also encouraging adoption by external developers.
The most visible changes appear in the tab management area and the main menu overlay. In the tab view, buttons for individual tabs and tab groups are now placed within clearly defined containers (“niches”), replacing the previous floating-style layout. The new tab button has been redesigned with a framed style and added color, drawing more attention to it. Tab groups have also been visually enhanced: instead of showing the user’s chosen group color only as a small dot next to the group name, the selected color now fills the entire group folder. This change provides better visual differentiation and makes it easier for users to manage multiple groups at a glance.
Image courtesy of TuttoAndroid
In the main menu overlay, several key buttons—such as forward, favorites, downloads, page information, and refresh—are now placed inside rounded boxes for better visibility. When one of these buttons is selected, the box changes from a fully rounded shape to a square form with rounded corners, adding subtle visual feedback. For example, this is visible when highlighting the favorites icon.
Despite these updates, the rest of the main menu retains its familiar layout, order, and section divisions, ensuring that users do not need to relearn navigation patterns.
Image courtesy of TuttoAndroid
Currently, these Material 3 Expressive features are experimental and only available in the Chrome Canary version. Users must manually enable them through the experimental flags menu at `chrome://flags/`. Since Canary serves as a testing ground, it is expected that once refined, these design improvements will make their way to the stable Chrome for Android release in the near future.
This move reflects Google’s broader initiative to unify its visual identity across all its Android apps, prioritizing expressive, functional, and user-friendly design choices. By implementing deeper color integration, more structured button placement, and interactive menu elements, Chrome aims to deliver a more polished and immersive browsing experience without disrupting established usability.
Filed in . Read more about Android, Chrome and Material Design.
