Google is working on improving and increasing the number of touchscreen friendly features on the Chrome Web browser for desktops and laptops. The new features were spotted in Chrome’s latest Canary Nightly Build, a version of the browser that’s still being tested and not released for mass distribution. The new touch-friendly features for Chrome include swiping left and right to access different tabs and a pinch to zoom feature too. Apart from those, Google has also added support for a touchscreen keyboard when tapping on text fields in the browser.
With the addition of these new features Google will be hoping to attract users of Windows 8 desktops and laptops with touchscreens and also Google’s own Chromebook Pixel laptop. So far, only Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 supports swiping to change tabs and Google will hope to pull away Windows 8 users from IE 10 to the Chrome browser.
Chrome is currently present as a Windows 8 Metro app but the browser is basically the same as the regular desktop version with no touch-friendly features. With Microsoft’s continuing focus on touch input on desktops and laptops, the addition of touch specific features to Chrome will come as good news to Windows 8 users.
Source: The Verge via Slash Gear