The Google Chrome team has posted on Google blog some improvements that are available in the browser today with other new features that are in the pipeline. Starting now, with a behind-the-scenes change, the browsers Data Saver feature works on videos. Previously, Data Saver worked on text and images and when you had the feature enabled, Google would compress everything before sending it to your phone. Essentially it acted like a proxy and the data savings were huge. Initially the company rolled this out in India given the bandwidth constraints and costs in that country but the feature has now rolled out globally. Back to this update, if you enabled Data Saver and view a site with a MP4 video, that video is now compressed before it hits your phone, saving you that extra bandwidth.
If you haven’t tried Data Saver, you can enable it on Chrome by going to Settings>Data Saver and enabling it. I have been using it for months and I’ve had no ill effects on sites plus I’m saving on average 55% of the bandwidth the sites I visit would have required. It’s pretty impressive.
There are other features and changes that are coming to Chrome for Android in the coming weeks. There will be a new Download experience where you will have the ability to download a webpage,
Chrome for Android Personalized Content
image or video from within the browser and that is stored in a new downloads section in the app. This feature is actually already in the Chrome for Android beta which you can download (but keep in mind it is beta).
Finally, another feature that is already available but you may not know about is the personalized content on a new tab in Chrome. If you open up a new tab in the browser, you will see the familiar search bar as well as your recent sites. Now scroll down and you will see recent bookmarks that you have accessed as well as a section, “Articles for you”. This section is based on your search habits as well as sites you visit to attempt to give you curated information that is interesting to you. This section constantly changes as you use the browser more and search or consume different information.
The Data Saver and Personalized Content are in the main release of Chrome today so if you haven’t checked those out, you can do so just by enabling it and checking it out.
