Google Improves the Chrome Address Bar

Google today announced several new improvements f0r the Chrome address bar that should make the browser easier to use.

“Five improvements are coming to Chrome’s address bar to help you browse even faster,” Chrome product manager Jesse Lee writes in the announcement post. “Chrome can help you quickly find the website you’re looking for, even if you made typos, can’t remember the URL or need suggestions.”

Here’s what’s new:

Smarter autocomplete. Chrome autocomplete has thus far worked only if you typed the beginning of a URL correctly. But now it will work with any part of a URL, based on your search history. So, for example, if I type thurrott in the address bar as shown above, Chrome will return results for both thurrott.com and our site’s YouTube channel, where that terms appears at the end, not the start, of the URL (among other results).

Automatic typo correction. Chrome will now detect URL typos and display a list of suggestions based on your browsing history.

Bookmarks search. Now, you can search for items in your bookmarks right from the Chrome address bar. You can also search using the name of a bookmarks folder and it will show results from within that folder.

Site suggestions. For those sites you have not yet visited, Google will show suggestions for popular sites as you type in the address bar.

Improved results. Tied to the Material You visual refresh that was recently extended to Chrome OS, address bar results are now easier-to-read. They also appear more quickly as you type thanks to some responsiveness improvements.

These improvements don’t appear to be tied to a specific Chrome version update, but I am seeing them now.