Google finally bakes Cast directly into Chrome’s flaky crust

By Jayce Wagner August 30, 2016

Google Cast Integrated Into Chrome — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Casting from Chrome just got a big improvement. Google Cast is stepping out of the shadowy realm of browser extensions and getting fully integrated into Chrome. No more digging through menus to stream straight from your browser to your TV.

Announced on the Chrome Blog this morning, the integration of Google Cast into the Chrome browser might not sound like a big deal – after all, Cast functionality has been available for around two years if you grabbed the extension from the Chrome Store. By integrating Cast into Chrome without any additional downloads or tweaking though, Google has taken a step toward making your web browser the hub for your entire entertainment system.

Any website that can stream to your TV, speakers, or other Cast ready peripherals will display a little icon on the right hand side of your address bar. Just click it, tell Chrome where to stream the content, and it’ll get started all on its own.

Supported pages include some of the most popular streaming services like Netflix, YouTube, and of course the full spectrum of Google Play services. Visiting a page that doesn’t support direct Google Cast streaming? No problem. Just click the menu button, go down and click “Cast” and Chrome will stream a live version of whichever website you’re currently viewing.

According to the Chrome Blog, the Google Cast integration also includes some much-needed upgrades to overall quality when streaming from Chrome, with the majority of streams coming through in HD.

Google Cast came out two years ago, and according to the Chrome Blog it’s become wildly popular. Users have reportedly streamed over 50 million hours of video and audio content since release – that’s an awful lot of cat videos.

Naturally, you’ll need to make sure your TV or sound setup is compatible with Google Cast. If you’ve got a Chromecast, no worries there. But if you’re still not sure, you can either just fire up Chrome and see if your smart TV shows up or check out the official compatibility list here.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

A staff writer for the Computing section, Jayce covers a little bit of everything -- hardware, gaming, and occasionally VR.

Computing

Chrome is still a RAM killer, but this new feature would be a huge help

Google Chrome icon in mac dock.

Google’s Chrome browser is infamous for consuming a lot of RAM. While recent updates have attempted to solve this problem from a technical side, a new feature may put more of the management in the hands of the user.
With the latest beta version of Chrome Canary, users can now simply hover their mouse cursor over a tab to gain access to real-time memory usage of that specific tab.
Up until now, you had to dig into the Chrome Task Manager to see how much memory each tab is consuming. But as reported by Windows Central, the new feature would give you quick and direct access to this important information. The prototype feature was first posted on X (formerly Twitter) by user Leopeva64 and showed the tab RAM usage.

Of course, it only gives a small overview and doesn’t offer the same detailed information (such as running processes, tabs, and extensions0 as the built-in task manager.
Practically speaking, having a small indicator on the top is going to make the process of clearing unwanted tabs a lot easier. The new feature is also said to inform users about whether Chrome's Memory saver feature has actively frozen a tab to save memory similar to Microsoft Edge's Sleeping tabs feature. Of course, this feature only works when a certain tab is inactive for a long period of time.
Google is said to be testing this feature, but if you are using version 117 on the Stable Channel, you may get access to it. To enable the memory usage feature, head to Chrome://flags and search for Show memory usage in hovercards. Select the dropdown and enable it. A quick restart may also be required.
Recently, we saw Google testing on a feature that helps organize tabs in a more efficient way. Using the Organize Tabs features, the browser attempts to reorder your tabs into groups of similar pages. It even lets you rename these groups, and create tab groups automatically once it has categorized your tabs.

Computing

Google has a great idea to fix your tab chaos in Chrome

Google Drive in Chrome on a MacBook.

If you use Google Chrome and are sick of managing an unruly mass of tabs in your web browser, help may soon be at hand. That’s because Google is testing a new feature that could bring order to your tab chaos.

As spotted by Leopeva64 on X (formerly Twitter), a new edition of Google Chrome Canary (a version of Chrome that lets users test out experimental features) contains a new tool called Organize Tabs nestled in the top-left corner of the browser.

Computing

I finally upgraded my Google One storage. Here’s why I might never do it again

Google Drive in Chrome on a MacBook.

As a technology journalist and food photography enthusiast, I can collect thousands of images at a rapid pace.

And if you’ve also spent a considerable amount of time online, there’s a good chance you’re connected to some sort of paid cloud storage. For me, that system is Google One. I got sucked in back when Google storage was free, but around 2019, the paid Google One subscription service was established. At $20 per year for 100GB of storage, it was a no-brainer for someone like myself, who stores a ton of data online. But a few years on, I'm in the exact same situation I was before. I need more storage space.