First Look At Material Design on Google Chrome For Mac OS X

Google has been updating all their products to their new Material Design look for awhile now, and recently, the Material Design has been worked on for the Google Chrome web browser for Chrome OS, Windows, Linux and now Mac!  

To get a live look at the new Material Design makeover in progress, you'll need to install Google's test build version of Chrome, designed for developers and early adopters - Chrome Canary. Note: This program is NOT recommend for your everyday use - it is an experimental build and can completely break down. 

To switch on the new Material Design look, type into the address bar:  chrome://flags

Then find the title "Material design in the browser's top chrome". Then from the drop down menu, select "Material".   

At the moment on Mac, the main differences implemented are to the Navigation Bar with lighter and flatter colors and a new sharper edged shape on the tabs. There is also a new darker theme added to Incognito mode.  

Hating the new Material Look to Google Chrome? Don't worry, remember, this is a work-in-progress and far from the final look and version that will ship out at a later date in the stable Chrome release.

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UPDATE (March 10th 2016): A progress report - here is what Material Design on Chrome Canary for Mac currently looks like:

Material Design Implementation Has Begun on Google Chrome Desktop Browser

Material Design was announced back in June of 2014, and is Google's latest visual design language. It aims to provide good design with innovation that gives users a unified experience across platforms.

Google has slowly been implementing Material Design to all their products. We seen changes most notably on Android Lollipop, Google Now, recently to the YouTube app (iOS update coming soon), Google's Inbox mail app, Google Drive and Google Docs, and the Chrome web browser on iOS and Android.

Now work has also begun to implement the Material Design look and feel to the Google Chrome web browser. While at the moment the changes are still very minimal, users and developers who want to check out and follow the changes can do so on the Developer Google Chrome Canary channel.

Note, Google Chrome Canary, is a developer build and is not recommended for use by the general public, and definitely not for everyday use. Only install, if you are familiar with very beta software and understand the risks.

Chrome Canary on Windows 7

To check out the changes in-progress to add Material Design on Google Chrome, type: Chrome://flags into your address/search bar. Then search for Material Design and look for "Material design in the browser's top Chrome". There will be a drop down with a few options; Non-material (standard), Material, and Material Hybrid (a mix of the two).

The biggest changes so far are on the Chrome OS version, with some new flatter buttons, but even on Windows 7 you can see small changes like extra spacing around the navigation buttons.

Remember, this is a work in progress, so expect a lot more to change in the future. Nothing here is anywhere near final.

At the moment, it seems the Material Design changes for Google Chrome are being worked on for Windows, Chrome OS, and Linux. But, I'd expect changes to Mac OS X as well, sometime in the future.

Google Chrome for iOS Gets Swipe To Go Back/Forward Gestures

Google Chrome for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad has received an update recently that adds a much welcome feature to the web browser; the ability to swipe to navigate back and forward through pages. 

iOS users would know of the handy gestures in Safari of simply swiping from the right side of the screen to the middle to go back to the previous page (or the opposite way to go forward). Google Chrome on iOS was missing this gesture previously, as swiping the screen instead used to switch to different open tabs.  But now with the latest update, you can navigate with gestures - just like in Apple's Safari.  

-> Google Chrome for iOS is available as a free download from the iTunes App Store. 

How To Disable Adobe Flash Player In Apple's Safari & Google Chrome Web Browsers

Are you tired about hearing about all of these Adobe Flash exploits? Do we really even need Flash Player in our web browsers these days? Flash used to be used in a lot of websites, but these days Flash has been used a lot less, thanks to the iPhone and iPad not supporting Flash, and because of other tools becoming popular, like HTML5. Not even YouTube needs Flash player anymore.

If you think you don't need Flash on your web browser anymore, maybe it's time to remove or disable Flash altogether.

To make this transition, lets start with just disabling Adobe Flash from your web browser(s). As this is mainly a Mac / iOS website, I'll mention how to, for the two most popular browsers; Google Chrome and Apple's Safari.

To disable Adobe Flash Player in Google Chrome: 

1. Type into the address bar: chrome://plugins 

2. Find on the list "Adobe Flash Player".

3. Click "Disable".

Or the other option is to set all plugins to disabled by default and to ask you to enable them when detected. To access this setting;

1. Type into the address bar: chrome://settings/content

2. Scroll down to, "Plugins".

3. Select option, "Let me choose when to run plugin content".


To Disable Adobe Flash in Apple's Safari:

1. Launch Safari, then click "Safari" in the in the Apple Menu Bar.

2. Click "Preferences".

3. Click on the "Security" tab.

4. Under heading "Internet plug-ins", click "Website Settings".

5. Click "Adobe Flash Player" on the sidebar.

6. Configure sites (if any) listed in the box, then below on title "When visiting other websites", change option to, "Block", or "Ask", if you still want the option to enable Flash on some websites.

Play Google Chrome's 'Easter Egg' Dinosaur Game

There's a mini game built into your Google Chrome web browser that you may not of known existed. The hidden 'Easter Egg' built into the Chrome browser is a endless Dinosaur runner game.

The game appears on the 'Unable to connect to the Internet' page - so to play the game, you'll need to disable your internet connection - or switch off your Wi-Fi - and then try loading a webpage.

To play the game, on the 'Unable to connect to the Internet' page, press the "Space Bar" key on your computer's keyboard. The little Dinosaur image will begin to run.

You can control the Dinosaur character by pressing the "Up" arrow key to jump, and the "Down" arrow key to duck. The game ends when you hit an obstacle.