Google is testing a gesture to drag and drop links in Chrome for Android

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Interesting things are always popping up in commits on Chromium Gerrit. Tracking the commits is a great way to see what features may be heading to Chrome browsers and Chrome OS. We recently saw commits for the touchscreen launcher in Chrome OS and a new tab switcher. A new commit that caught our eye is 971764 titled “Implement touch drag drop link element behind a flag” for the Android browser. Read the full text below.

Implement touch drag drop link element behind a flag

This cl implement dragging link by touch behind a flag.

This allows user to drag a link or image element by long press and move finger.

Enable using ‘–enable-features=”TouchDragDropLink”‘ flag on Android. No behavior change when the flag is disabled, or when platform is not Android.

Temporarily set the flag to true to run try bots.

The current behavior when long-pressing a link in the browser is a pop-up with some options. You can open in a new tab, incognito mode, copy the link, copy the link text, download the link, or share it. This new feature allows users to drag a link or image by long pressing and moving your finger. Basically, like how it works when you click and drag your mouse in Chrome for desktop. We’re not exactly sure why this would be a useful feature in the mobile browser. Regardless, it’s an interesting addition that may never make it to prime time.