Chrome 102 it is the new version of Google’s browser and that of a good part of the civilized world, despite how the mega-corporation uses it to tie staff to its products and services, while squeezing privacy to get the most performance out of the task. But it is also the most powerful and advanced browser of the moment, whose base, Chromium, is understood as the same for its derivatives.
This being the case, Chrome 102 may not be a particularly attractive release due to the novelties it brings, although there is a bit of everything, but it is important enough to focus on it, given the place it occupies on the board and that these novelties come directly from Chromium, so one of its derivatives could adopt one or more of them.
Going into the cool of Chrome 102 facing the ordinary user of the web browser on PC we find…
For the keyboard lovers, tab management made easy in Chrome 102 with new shortcuts with which to quickly reorder the open tabs in the foreground, although it differs a bit from whether it is done on Windows, Mac or Linux:
- On Windows it is done with “Ctrl + Shift + page up or down” (the arrow keys)
- On Linux and Mac, with “Ctrl + Shift + Fn + page up or down”.
In this way, you can move the foreground tab left or right. It’s nothing to write home about, but…
Chrome 102 introduces another novelty regarding tab and window management, a feature that makes it easy to “grab” a tab and control it from a separate window. Said like that sounds weird, but it would be a way to improve the management of presentations through the browser. The feature is still half done, but a demo page has been implemented from which to test this feature.
The next novelty of interest that Chrome 102 brings us is the improved integration of installed web applicationsYou know, Progressive Web Apps or PWAs, which while evolving more slowly than expected, are already well on their way to becoming first-class citizens of every desktop environment worth its salt.
In this regard, Google has always had in mind to improve its capabilities and for a year now, it has been emphasizing, specifically, integration with the PC desktop, so that these web applications act and are treated as if of native applications in question. Well, it seems that Chrome 102 has taken a new step in that direction.
Thus, the installed web applications will act as compatible file type options, that is, just like when you open a text document, it runs with the application that is assigned as default, but the system also includes a list of alternatives with which to open that document… in the list of alternatives the compatible web application will appear, being able to use the web application as default. At least the theory.
The experience with web applications is also better with a new navigation API that will make transitions between web applications smoother. It’s not practical at all, but it all adds up. Add to that the performance optimizations and security patches that Chrome 102 receives, an otherwise mandatory update that you’ve most likely already received, without even realizing it.
