Chrome adding ‘Side search’ panel to browse Google results
Performing a Google search has become an everyday occurrence for most of us, and now Chrome is working to make it easier to browse your results with a new “Side search” panel.
When searching with Google in Chrome today, you either need to hit the “Back” button to return to your results or open each potentially interesting page into a new tab. While certainly a time-honored way to browse the web, it seems Google is looking for ways to make its search engine a more immersive experience in Chrome.
In the latest build of Chrome Canary, there are a trio of new flags in chrome://flags, all having to do with a feature called “Side search.” All three flags expand on Chrome’s recent work to introduce a “side panel” to the right-hand side browser, which offers access to your bookmarks and reading list. Here’s the one you’ll want to enable to try out Side search for yourself.
Side search
Enables an easily accessible way to access your most recent Google search results page embedded in a browser side panel — Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS
#side-search
Once enabled, the next time you perform a Google Search and click on a result, you’ll see a newly added button with the Google “G” logo. Clicking this button opens a panel to the left of your current tab, opened to your Google Search results, albeit in a mobile-like design. Upon clicking any of the results in that side panel, the main browser tab will navigate to your newly selected page.
As an interesting side note, unlike many new Chrome features that are developed gradually out in the open — Chromium is an open source project, after all — it looks like Google developed “Side search” internally before bringing it to Chromium all at once.
In some ways, the feature is a lot like a similar initiative that Google created in Chrome for Android, which puts alternate Google Search results below the address bar. Between these two features, it’s clear that the connection between Chrome and Google Search is deepening, with Google looking to make the browser more productive.
That said, this particular integration seems like it would be best fit for power users, not the average person using Chrome. Hopefully it will stay optional, requiring one to press the Google “G” button to open it. It also remains to be seen whether Microsoft will adapt Side search to work with Bing for the sake of their Edge browser.
As the feature is only just now arriving into Chrome Canary, we likely won’t see it reach stable until Chrome 96, which is currently set to launch in mid November.
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