Newsletter
Google loves to toy with ideas in its products, updating them to apply a change as a test, then upon finding it’s unpopular or not what the company really wanted, undoes them leaving us with the old way. Such is the story of many things, but specifically the bookmarks manager in the Chrome browser. Back in November of last year, Chrome team unveiled and sent out the new version of Chrome, version 42, to the Stable channel finally. With Chrome 42 came a new interface for interacting with bookmarks. Now, it seems as though it’s gone. Sort of.
If you recall, there were leaks of this new bookmarks tool, codenamed ‘Google Stars‘, and many people found it exciting to have a new functionality for something so old-hat. And it seems that more people found it cumbersome than useful or enjoyable because the feature, according to 9 to 5 Google, is out of Chrome. Now, some of us might still have it and those who don’t might want it back. Well, lucky for us, Google left the extension that was the new bookmarks manager in the Chrome Web Store linked graciously by the Chrome team in their blog post.
And this, folks, is where the important part comes out. Chrome’s team has left the extension for the new interface on the Web Store, and made the old one the default. That gives us Chrome users the choice to use the new or the old, which is what Google’s ecosystem seems to be growing into. Android has long been about choice and options, and now the Chrome browser has the same. but also in the team’s post is the mention that they will, expectedly, be continuing to work to improve the bookmarking experience for Chrome users, so we might get to see a new interface or method by year’s end. For now, we have the trusty list of bookmarks by default, with the freedom to keep the Stars interface. The Chrome team says they’ll continue to work on it, and that gives hope to those who want both bookmark managers to work together as one for an excellent experience, because we could see just that as time goes on.