Chrome for Android gets application shortcuts and faster search

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.

Some Beta users on Android will also begin to see variations on their New Tab page, like the one below:

We’ve tested this New Tab page with a search bar on desktop and now want to bring the benefits, including a faster load time, to mobile as well. While you can search straight from the Omnibox in Chrome, we realized many users continue to visit their search engine’s homepage before searching, so we wanted to make it faster for those users to search. We’re always thinking about how to save milliseconds from every search you perform, and we hope this new feature will save you time on-the-go.

You can start trying out these Chrome Beta features later today.

Posted by Newton Allen & Ted Choc, Software Engineers & New Tab Architects