Try These Hidden Features in Chrome 79 Before They Disappear
Chrome 79 is ready for general use, and while it adds new features and tweaks, this is also the last chance most users will have to use a few hidden features in Chrome.
As reported by Android Police , Chrome 80 beta testers have noticed that some features that are still present in Chrome 79 are missing, including several highly anticipated features that will be removed when Chrome 80 goes public.
Below is a list of features that will soon be removed that are still present in Chrome 79 but will be deprecated in version 80. Most of these can be enabled in Chrome by going to chrome: // flags / and using the search bar to find flags. listed below, and then set the drop-down list to Enabled.
Reading mode
Although the feature has been in testing for months , Google will ditch the planned reading mode before it even goes live.
You can still enable it in Chrome 79 by setting the # reader-mode-heuristics and # enable-reader-mode-in-cct flags to “enabled”, but Chrome 80 will not.
Hide suggested articles
If you prefer not to clutter up new tab windows with browse suggestions, I have bad news: hiding suggested articles from Chrome new tab windows is no longer possible if you turn off the # enable-ntp-remote-questions flag. However, you can still hide them permanently by clicking the three-dot “more” icon next to “Articles for you” on a blank new tab page and clicking “hide”.
Toggle scrolling and horizontal tab
The two navigation options were removed from Chrome Mobile in the Chrome 80 Beta and will presumably be missing after the launch of the public release. The first is scrolling, a gesture-based control that lets you move back and forth within a tab by swiping left or right with your finger. The other is the horizontal tab switcher, which changes the layout of the tabs in the open tab bar from the default vertical orientation to horizontal orientation.
If you’ve never tried them, you can enable any feature in the Chrome flags settings in Chrome 79. Find and enable the # overscroll-history-navigation flag to scroll or # enable-horizontal-tab-Switcher to use the horizontal tab switcher while it’s still exists.
FTP support
While many file transfer protocol (FTP) tools still exist, Google says that FTP service usage for Chrome users has dropped to the point that it is no longer worth supporting the feature. FTP support in Chrome will be phased out over the next few releases starting with Chrome 80. You can still technically re-enable it in Chrome 80 by enabling the # enable-ftp flag, but it will be removed completely with the deployment of Chrome 82, so do last broadcasts while you can.
If you want to see what Chrome will be like without these features, and with some new features coming soon, you can download the Chrome 80 beta here .