Google recently made its Reading list feature available to the masses, and though many of us have been enjoying it thus far, there are those who simply do not like it. More specifically, they don’t enjoy where Google chose to place it. Instead of putting it somewhere accessible, yet inconspicuous, they instead chose to place it in the spot where the user would normally access the ‘Other bookmarks’ button. Luckily, the company has heard the cries for change and is now allowing you to hide the Reading list feature entirely. Not only that, but they’ve even found a middle ground and changed its placement and appearance in the latest update on Chrome OS Canary!
First discovered by a Reddit user named Leopeva64, who is operating on Chrome Canary, right-clicking the empty space between your bookmarks and the other icons will present you with a context menu that now includes the option to disable the Reading list feature entirely. Labeled ‘Show Reading list’, toggling it will magically disappear the icon and text from your toolbar, and some users probably couldn’t be happier about this. I happen to really love the new tool, and instead of disabling it, I was pleased to find that Google has officially found a middle ground.
Upon updating my Chromebook, which is in Canary, I was presented with a Reading list icon that’s truncated and features no text whatsoever. It’s also positioned on the extensions toolbar to the right of the Omnibox, so the ‘Other bookmarks’ button is back where it belongs. I’m not sure why Google didn’t opt for this positioning before, but in rolling the feature out without thinking it through, it made a whole lot of people upset. Perhaps going forward they will do more user testing ahead of launches.
What do you think of the new Reading list feature? What do you think of the option to hide it entirely? Are you like me and prefer to use it, and are happy that it’s been moved to a less eye-catching location? Being that I’m a big proponent of killing the antiquated notion of a bookmark, I could care less for the ‘Other bookmarks’ section as it’s just more clutter, but I can understand entirely where those who had a problem with it being taken out of the spotlight are coming from.
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