Google Chrome is one of the most popular internet browsers and is used by hundreds of millions of users around the world on both their mobile devices and their desktop PC. If you are not already using Chrome, you’re missing out on a lot of great features. There are a lot of features in Chrome and Chromium-based browsers that many of us are unaware of, and one of those exciting features is something called flags.
What are Chrome Flags?
Google is always looking to improve their browser and add features to benefit its users. Chrome Flags are basically experimental features that Google is currently testing on either Chrome OS or the Chrome browser. These new features are first introduced as flags, and users need to enable them to make them work in the browser. While it is often not recommended to do so, especially in work environments, it may sometimes unlock useful features that would not be available for weeks or months otherwise. Eventually, Flags will be removed as they become part of either a stable Chrome release or get absorbed into Chrome developer tools. There is actually a large list of flags that many people genuinely believe should make their way to the stable releases but Google just has not added them yet. In this article, we will show you some of these flags that are safe to use and can be beneficial,
How To Enable Chrome Flags?
Chrome Flags works on any Chromium-based browser. All users can access experimental flags in Chrome. To get access to these experimental features, all you need to do is type the following text in the URL box.
Chrome://flags
In fact, many other browsers that are based on the Chrome browser nay also have flags. All you need t do is replace “Your Browser Name” with the name of the browser that you’re using. For Example: If you’re using brave, the URL would be
edge://flags brave://flags opera://flags
List of the Best Chrome Flags
Dark Mode for Web Contents Flag
People seem to be opting for dark mode these days over the light theme is due to reduced eye strain. The dark mode feature is great to reduce the brightness of an app but what about the content that is embedded into a website. Chrome’s “Force Dark Mode for Web Contents” is here to help.
This Chrome flag essentially inverts the colors of the contents on the webpage. It does a great job with most sites but you may find a few that it will not work with.
Tab Groups Collapse Freezing flag
Tab groups are a really handy feature in Chrome, especially if you are working with an absolute ton of tabs open. We all know that chrome can be extremely memory hungry when it comes to using multiple tabs. When tab freezing is enabled, the browser is able to detect that your PC is running low on memory, and can suspend tabs that you haven’t used or looked at in a while. The browser will stop all activity for tabs you have not used for 5 minutes. As for collapsed tab group freezing, they will become suspended if the group is suspended and not in use for a while. With this home flag, you can ensure that your device doesn’t run out of memory because of all the open tabs that you’re not currently using.
To enable this flag go to – chrome://flags/#tab-groups-collapse-freezing.
Password Import flag
Google Chrome has offered the option to export passwords for some time now, but if you are moving to google chrome and you have a list of passwords you want to import from another browser. Good news is, that the import function is available, you just need to enable the #PasswordImport flag.
Parallel Downloading flag
Have you ever noticed that Chrome is quite slow when downloading files from the internet? This is because Chrome downloads files by considering it as one big chunk of data that you may think are normal. By enabling the Parallel Downloading flag, Chrome splits the file that is being downloaded, into smaller pieces that can download at the same time, which speeds up the overall download process.
Quieter Notification Permission Prompts flag
Notifications on Chromium can be annoying especially when using Chrome. The good news is that you have the freedom of turning off notifications. The Chrome flag called “Quieter Notification Permission Prompts” can block the notifications completely so that you can have peace of mind while working on the important stuff.
Tab Hover Cards flag
If you are like me I have a tone of Chrome Tabs open at any given time and I have to go searching for a tab when needed. The Tab Hover Cards flag will be definitely a flag you will want to go and enable. As the name suggests, hovering over a tab will show a preview of the tab so that you can quickly identify your tabs and close the unimportant ones.
Enable Reader Mode flag
Chrome now has a new hidden Reader Mode which makes it easier to read stuff on the web by removing all Ads and other graphical elements of a website that divert your attention. It will be also handy if you just want the pages to load faster and allow you to get the information you are after more efficiently.
Smooth Scrolling flag
This flag makes a tiny change that can heavily improve your readability. Usually, when you scroll a webpage, it does small stutters with each scroll tick. After enabling this flag, the page will scroll smoothly, and you’ll be easily able to see the content while fast scrolling. This is perfect when you need to skim through content quickly.
Pull to Refresh Gesture flag
A handy feature you find on mobile devices is the ability to refresh a page by simply swiping down. The problem is that this feature is not available by default on a laptop through Chrome. The good news is there is a Chrome flag that lets you change this feature. All you need to do is enable the “pull-to-refresh gesture” flag, restart your browser, and swipe down with two fingers, the webpage will refresh.
Extension Toolbar Menu flag
In older versions of Chrome, you were forced to go into settings to access the chrome extensions. Now all of your Chrome extensions are displayed to the right of your address bar. If you use too many extensions, your address bar would start to look cluttered and not so pleasing to the eyes.
However, there is a flag called “Extensions Toolbar Menu” that adds every extension in a Toolbar which can be accessed by clicking what looks like a puzzle icon where your extensions previously existed.
Experimental QUIC Protocol flag
The “QUIC protocol” is an experimental feature from Google which was designed to make HTTP web traffic more secure, efficient, and faster. The QUIC protocol will not speed up the loading speed right after enabling it, you will only see a spike in speed when the server you’re trying to get the data from, also supports the QUIC protocol.
Enable LiteVideos flag
If you are looking to save internet data and don’t mind watching videos at standard quality, then enable this flag. This flag will tell media requests that your internet is slow, so videos will only load in SD quality.
We hope you have enjoyed this list of handy Chrome Flags you can start experimenting with. Before enabling any of these Chrome flags, make sure that you are running the latest version of Chrome. These experimental Google Chrome flags features could already be available to you. Once they become stable and evolve enough, they are rolled into the most recent releases by default. We suggest you be cautious while using any of the Chrome flags as they’re intended for testing purposes and not for an average day-to-day Chrome user who demands immense stability. If you are interested in taking advantage of one of these features above you should definitely go ahead and experiment and give them a try.
