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For the past few months, Google has been experimenting with several new layouts, but these have all lived behind special settings flags. The above design just rolled out, by default, to the Chrome "Dev" channel on Android. We expect it to be headed to the Beta and Stable versions once all the bugs get worked out, and it should eventually see a release on iOS.

With the new layout, Chrome's chrome no longer comes anywhere near the top of the screen. There is now a single bottom bar that houses the address bar, a new "expand" button, a tab button, and the menu. The "expand" button will open the major new piece of UI—the webpage dims and a card pops up that fills only the bottom half of the screen. Here you'll see four bottom tabs, "Home," "Downloads," "Bookmarks," and "History." The half-screen interface makes it easy to tap on any control with one hand, but if you want a full-screen interface, just drag up on the UI. This half-page interface is also what pops up when opening a new tab.

Most of the sections are what you would expect from Chrome, but the "Home" tab is all new. First, there's an address bar in the middle of the screen, then a row of circular icons that seems to be common bookmarks. Below that are suggested news articles based on your Web history, a feature that's very similar to the suggested articles in Google Now. You can swipe away articles when you're done with Now or long press on them to download the link for later.

You can still swipe horizontally on the address bar to switch tabs, and the menu opens like you would expect, just pinned to the bottom of the screen for easier access.

You can try out the new interface yourself on Android by installing Chrome's Dev version.