Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

New Chrome OS features make your Chromebook a better Windows replacement

By
Google Pixelbook android apps
Dan Baker/Digital Trends

After having brought support for running Android apps on Chromebooks, Google just launched Chrome OS 67 with support for even more apps. With the release of Chrome OS 67, Progressive Web Apps, or PWAs, can now be installed as stand-alone apps, Google noted on its blog.

As its name suggests, Progress Web Apps are web apps, but instead of running inside a Chrome browser tab, they’ll have their own window and behave more like a native app. Microsoft announced support for PWAs on Windows 10 earlier this year, and one of Google’s first PWAs to launch this year is the Google Photos app. Like their native desktop app counterparts, PWAs can function offline and are speedy to operate and load.

Recommended Videos

On Chrome OS, Progressive Web Apps are deployed as a hybrid between a native app and a web app. Borrowing from traditional web apps, they’ll have shareable URLs and come with Google Cast support, ZDNet reported. Multitasking users can also switch between windows with an alt-tab key command. Google will bring support for Progressive Web Apps to Chrome browsers on MacOS and Windows in future releases.

If you’re an owner of a Chromebook with newer form factors, like HP’s detachable Chromebook x2, Chrome OS 67 also supports a new feature that can detect when a tablet is detached from the keyboard and attached to a new base. Support for Touchable Material Design 2.0 will make it easier for Chrome OS tablets, like Acer’s Chromebook Tab 10, to interface with Chrome OS using touchscreens. For those running Android apps on a compatible Chromebook, Google noted that Chrome’s page zoom feature is now extended to Google Play apps.

Other features aimed at making Chromebooks a better experience for users focused on productivity include support for zipping files on Google Drive using the Files app and split-screen multitasking in Tablet mode. Google is also giving users more control of how they put their Chromebooks to sleep by displaying a power menu with shortcuts when the power button is held down. A cleaner Bluetooth list, support for Android Debug Bridge over USB in developer mode, and Select-to-Speak ability for text to be read aloud round out the list of new features.

This update will automatically be rolled out to Chromebooks over the next several days. Along with these new features, Google announced that the latest version of Chrome OS also comes with security fixes and other small improvements. After having been broken since the Chrome OS 64, user Mace noted on Google’s blog that Google casting is now working again on public IP addresses with this build. If you’re looking for a new Chromebook, Google is also running a huge promotion on its Pixelbook right now.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Chuong Nguyen
Chuong Nguyen
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Silicon Valley-based technology reporter and Giants baseball fan who splits his time between Northern California and Southern…
Chrome is making a key change to protect you from phishing
Google Chrome with pinned tabs on a MacBook on a table.

Phishing campaigns -- where a fraudulent website or email is made to look like it comes from a legitimate source -- have caused a huge amount of destruction, leading to untold numbers of virus infections and money lost through scams. Google has just rolled out a powerful way to fight phishing in its Chrome browser, however, and it could help you avoid falling victim.

As part of Chrome’s 15th-anniversary update, Google will be pushing its Enhanced Safe Browsing feature to all users in the coming weeks. This checks website URLs against a list of malicious sites stored on Google’s cloud servers, all in real time. If a match is found, the website is blocked and a warning is displayed to users.

Read more
This Google Chrome feature may save you from malware
Google Chrome app on s8 screen.

There are probably hundreds of thousands of Google Chrome extensions out there, and with so many options to choose from, it can be hard to know whether the plugin you want to install is hiding malware nasties.

That could become a thing of the past, though, as Google is testing a feature that will warn you if an extension you installed has been removed from its Chrome Web Store.

Read more
This update could extend the life of your Chromebook by years
The HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook rear view showing lid and logo.

Google may be readying a change to ChromeOS that could drastically extend the life of Chromebooks, and it may be coming in just a few weeks.

The update would separate Chrome browser support from ChromeOS, which would allow it to receive its own updates faster and independently from the operating system. In other words, it would function exactly how Chrome works on a Mac or Windows laptop.

Read more