Years after ignoring it, Google is finally caring about Chrome’s Share Hub – to let users decide on what type of share menu they want.
A new feature seen in Chrome Canary v112 revealed that Google’s browser has the option to let users force the Android share menu for Chrome. This includes all the important apps shown for quick sharing of links while losing a few important options.
Since Google is ignoring several third-party apps for years, overriding Android share sheets to put their app-specific share menus. Just not them, but Google’s own apps like Maps and Photos too – which are having their own share menus. And the nastiest of all is probably the Chrome browser – which still follows an old Share Hub sheet!
Considering how frequently the links and files are shared from a web browser, Chrome shouldn’t be doing this in the first place. But since Google didn’t care all this time, we can’t yell. May the OEM has remembered it now – as a new code spotted by team Techdows revealed a new setting in Chrome.
Chrome for Android could ditch its custom share sheet soon. A new feature flag disables the Chrome share hub in favor of launching the Android OS share sheet. pic.twitter.com/wtz3Xl7DhK
— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) February 10, 2023
As per them, users can finally ditch Chrome’s default share sheet by enabling a new option in the Flags section, accessible at chrome://flags/#share-sheet-migration-android. This setting is available in Chrome Canary v112 (after upgrading the Chrome Beta from v111)
Toggling this will force Chrome to use Android’s system share menu instead of its old Share Hub. The new screen – Android’s share menu consists of Copy and Nearby Share as two options while letting you share the links directly to various apps.
Well, the new share screen comes with its own downsides. Some Chrome Share Hub-specific options like Long Screenshot, QR code conversion of a page, etc., seemed to have gone into the new Android share menu – which may be important for some.
Well, since this feature is still in the development phase, we hope that Google will bring all the important features to Android Share Menu before making it default for all the Android apps.
