Google is preparing a “super secret” Chrome UI refresh for next year

Sometimes, Chrome’s development team has a little bit of fun with the way it words things on the code commits. I honestly think they do this because they know publications like Chrome Unboxed are watching what they post and hoping to find new features earlier than they’re announced.

This week, as per Leopeva64 on Twitter – another avid code hunter – the dev team is preparing a “super secret, totally not public” Chrome user interface refresh for release sometime this next year. Though it sounds epic and really enticing though, it seems as though it may just be some additional tweaks to the browser’s Material You theming.

[views] Chrome2023Refresh Buttons initial infrastructure
Adding some properties for initial Button changes. These values are temporary and will be finalized in a future CL.
Properties are defined but not yet used until finalized.

Chromium Gerrit

We think this has to do with more rounded corners on buttons, and fieldsets for text input, as well as some updated and thicker fonts. Overall, whatever this ends up being, it ought to put the overall user experience more in line with the recent new tab page Material You refresh that was discovered, and that’s a plus.

After taking absolutely forever to support a dark theme for Chrome websites and ChromeOS as well as its own services, Google pretty much made it clear that its rollout of Material You was the reason why. Toggling light and dark modes across the board is nice, but it also wanted to add a splash of color and more polish. I’m glad to say that it’s a beautiful update for both Chromebooks and now the Chrome browser, and I can’t wait to see if there’s more to this “super secret” refresh over the next few months.