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Google Chrome is the most
popular internet client in the world.
That means it has more
active monthly users than the likes of Safari, Microsoft Edge and Firefox.
Part of Google Chrome's
popularity stems from its high-degree of customisability that is offered from
its range of extensions.
Moreover, the browser is
regularly updated by Google, meaning new features and tools are always being
introduced.
It is no secret that the
American tech giant is working on an upgrade for Chrome that will introduce a
dark mode to fans as one of its next substantial overhauls.
Dark modes have become
increasingly prominent and popular with both Microsoft and Apple implementing
system-wide themes on their respective computer operating systems.
Moreover, Google has
actively encouraged the implementation of dark modes on its Android apps to
give users more choice and to save battery life.
The firm has explained
the darker colours result in less power being drained by device screens
overall, resulting in longer performance time.
Last year an associated
bug report for a dark theme was spotted on the Mountain View firm's Chromium
blog.
At the time it seemed as
though Google was attempting to figure out a method in which its Incognito mode
on the browser would be differentiated from another darker aesthetic.
Since then, Google
engineer Peter Kasting has insisted the tech giant is still working on a dark
mode for Chrome.
In a Reddit post, spotted
by TechDows, he said: "For desktop, native dark mode support is in
progress; in the meantime, we generally suggest people use a dark theme.
"I can't speak to
mobile; the mobile platforms are different teams and I don't have visibility
there."
Although Kasting said he
was unable to clarify whether a dark mode was in development for Google Chrome,
a new commit has emerged in Chromium's Gerrit source code that says such a
theme is in the works for the client's Android version.
First spotted by
9to5Google, it read: "[Dark] Add build flag and experiment flag.
"This patch adds a
build flag and an experiment flag for the dark mode experiment. It will exclude
the night - resources in the build for now."
Bringing a dark mode to
Google Chrome appears to line up with the suggestion the Mountain View firm is
planning a system-wide dark mode for the next version of Android, Q.
Android Police recently
noted a post on Google's Chromium bug tracker blog discussed such an addition.
Googler Lukasz Zbylut
said: "The Q team wants to ensure that all preloaded apps support dark
mode natively.
"In order to ship
dark mode successfully, we need all UI elements to be ideally themed dark by
May 2019."
A system-wide dark mode
is different to that currently offered on Android 9 Pie.
At the moment, applying a
dark theme only changes the colours for the system's application drawer and notification
shade.
However, a system-wide
theme would automatically alter the gradients of Google first-party
applications, such as Messages, Maps and Chrome, rather than forcing the user
to make changes manually.
The dark mode for Chrome
is currently not available in Canary, an early version of the software that is
used to test features before their official release.
This suggests such a
function may still be in early stages of development.
For that reason it is
currently unclear when such a theme could arrive for all fans.
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