Google Chrome celebrating its 15th birthday with a fresh look

Google is getting giving a bit of a makeover to celebrate Chrome's 15th birthday. The company announced in a blog post that the desktop version of the popular browser is getting a new look based on the ‘Material You design’ language.  

The new look, coming in the next few weeks, will bring refreshed icons, a "focus on legibility" and "new color palettes that better complement your tabs and toolbar." Those new themes, Google says, should make it easy to distinguish between profiles - say for work and personal account. 

Several improvements, the company wrote, should make Chrome easier to use, like a more comprehensive menu for quicker access to Google Password Manager, Chrome extensions, Google Translate, and more. The side panel on the browser will be now home to all bookmarks and a "Search this page with Google" feature. 

There is also going to be improved integration with operation systems so Chrome preferences can adapt to light or dark modes on the computer. Though not too much is changing with the actual layout, but one will notice some more rounded edges and taller tabs. 

The last update to Chrome was 2018's Material Design refresh. The Material You redesign is already available on the Chrome Web Store. In addition to the visual refresh, the Web Store also features new AI-powered extensions and an editor's spotlight along with more personal recommendations. 

Google also announced upgrades to browser security. Previously, the "Safe Browsing" feature kept users safe by checking a site against a locally-stored list of dangerous sites. That list was updated every 30 minutes to an hour before, but now it's updated in real-time.  

Given that 60% of phishing sites exist for less than 10 minutes, Google says, this is a critical update.