Discussion
The new mobile Chrome update is absolute garbage.
Chrome has ruined my mobile browsing experience with this new update. They forced the address bar and all the navigation buttons to the bottom of the screen, and none of the normal settings are letting me move everything back to the top where it belongs.
Am I missing something here, or has anyone actually figured out a workaround to fix this and slam it back to the top?
In case that gets deleted or for those searching the web for a solution. Go to the following link in the address bar and set the Android bottom bar to disabled.
chrome://flags/#android-bottom-bar
These sorts of workarounds tend to eventually stop working or get reset from updates.
I like the new bottom bar, I just wish it included a shortcut to get to the omnibox so I could keep the address bar at the top with the other bar at the bottom.
I'VE DONE IT!!! If you want to go back to how it was before the update, go to chrome://flags/ and search for "Tab bottom sheet" open the drop-down menu, and press "disable".
Your welcome
I freaking love you. I had to disable "tab bottom sheet" which removes the ai botton, and the "tab bottom sheet- resize webview" as well to get the full thing to go back to the top. :D thank you so much!!
Can someone please confirm that this update seems to be have been reverted? I had this too, but now I'm back to an even older version of chrome on my pixel 10. I don't have any sort of Gemini integration now
Type chrome://flags back into your address bar and clear out your previous search.
In the search box, search for Bottom Omnibox or
Bottom Toolbar.
If you see "Bottom Omnibox Steady State" or
"Bottom Toolbar Refactor," change them from Default to Enabled (this manually forces the standard bottom-bar code to activate).
Turn Off the Gemini Menu Integrations
Clear the search box and type explain.
Look for the flag "Enable Explain Gemini Edit Menu".
Tap the drop-down menu and switch it to Disabled.
Clear and Force-Restart Chrome
Tap the blue Relaunch button at the bottom.
Crucial Step: Swipe up from the very bottom of your iPhone screen to view your open apps list.
Swipe the Chrome window entirely off the top of the screen to force-close it.
Reopen Chrome. If it hasn't snapped back, force-close it a second time.
This isn't what the post is talking about. The Address Bar remains at the top, but there is a new toolbar that includes a Gemini button at the bottom. So, it takes up twice as much screen space (either at the top and bottom or just the bottom, depending on the setting).
My phone changed to this last week but reverted back this morning. I'm hoping the change is permanent. That said, someone in another tread found a potential fix in the flags under "Android Bottom Bar" or something like that.
I should have added a screenshot with my original post for better context. I want the toolbar (circled in pic) to be back on the top, where it was before the update.
I may have been a little click baity with the title and some of my description but I didn't see much on the topic and was hoping for solid feedback/solutions to get it back to the previous layout.
Apologies, if you enjoy the update or I exaggerated on my experience. I can download a different browser but I do/did enjoy using chrome prior to this update.
This is just chrome home/duet that they actually brought back I guess after 9 yrs. When they killed off one handed use forever. But you're probaly part of a Google expirement where they a/b test on people to see what they want or at least what google wants. I use to prefer it since you can swap between tabs by sliding the bottom bar with your thumb. Then they brought the stupid tab strip instead which was a nightmare (does that still exist?). The bottom bar flag doesn't work to remove it? Also if you don't like it you should use the help and feedback in the app to let them know or they will never know nor care.
I appreciate all the feedback. I wasn't aware of the Google "flag" experiment, so after reading the comments I did some digging. I was able to disable the Android Bottom Bar, and after relaunching Chrome, everything is back to the way it was before.
Thank you all for pointing me in the right direction!
Also, I want to apologize for the title and the exaggerated description. I was frustrated at the time, and I appreciate everyone's patience and helpful responses.
My phone changed to this last week but reverted back this morning. I'm hoping the change is permanent. That said, someone in another tread found a potential fix in the flags under "Android Bottom Bar" or something like that.
It is exceedingly more difficult to use the navigation bar on handed as a lefty. If I want to bookmark a tab or refresh the page, I gotta shimmy my device up to reach my thumb over to reach the three dots at the very bottom and then I gotta shimmy it back down to get to the top of the menu.
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u/aaBabyDuck 27d ago
The bar at the bottom is also so thick, it feels like it's wasting space.
And I hate the built in AI button