Skip to main content

Google Chrome for Android gets better at saving offline content for later viewing

google job widget update chrome android app os
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Google wants to make it a little easier to access content, even when you don’t have an internet connection. The company is launching a few tweaks and changes to its Downloads feature in the latest version of Chrome for Android.

Downloads launched in Chrome for Android in December and it basically allowed users to save things like web pages, music, and even videos for viewing at a later date. At launch, to download a web page you would have had to open up the Chrome menu in the top-right of the browser, then hit the “Save” button. Then, hit the “Downloads” button to see all of your saved content. Now, however, you can simply long press a link, and you’ll see the option to “Download Link.”

On top of that, the Chrome offline page has been given a new button to “Download Page Later” and if you press that, Chrome will download the page when you get connected to the internet.

“Now you’ll always have a ready-to-go list of pages or articles to read even if you are out of data for the month or lose the network in a dead zone. Update to the latest version of Chrome and tap the download icon on any page to get started,” Google said in a blog post.

The New Tab page has also been tweaked a little — now it’ll include articles that you previously downloaded, and you’ll be able to tell that they’re downloaded thanks to a special offline badge.

The new feature does help put the browser on-par with other apps and services like Pocket, which allow users to save online content for offline viewing. Because the feature is built into Chrome, however, it could see much wider adoption and it could signal the beginning of the end for third-party services.

Editors' Recommendations

Christian de Looper
Christian’s interest in technology began as a child in Australia, when he stumbled upon a computer at a garage sale that he…
The Google Pixel 8 is better than it should be in 2024
The Google Pixel 8 lying face-down.

The Google Pixel 8 was one of 2023's best smartphone releases. The compact size, excellent camera, and top-notch software made it an extremely tempting purchase — especially with a retail price of just $699.

But we're now five months removed from the Pixel 8's release, and a lot has changed. Samsung released its Galaxy S24 series, OnePlus has been on a tear, and we're quickly getting a good idea of what the Google Pixel 9 will look like. Given all that, I decided to pop my SIM card back into the Pixel 8 to see how the phone holds up in 2024.
What I still love about the Google Pixel 8

Read more
These are the best Android 15 features you need to know about
Android 15 logo on a Google Pixel 8.

Android 15 has entered its latter leg of testing among developers, and in the coming months, a beta build will finally be released for the masses. So far, across the two Developer Preview builds that Google has released, we’ve encountered a handful of new features that will make life easier for smartphone users in meaningful ways.

Among them is a notification cooldown system that shields you from a barrage of audio alerts from your apps. Google has already detailed the changelog to a healthy extent, but not all new tricks have been implemented yet. But there’s still enough to unpack in Android 15, and some of those notable additions are detailed below:
Partial screen sharing

Read more
Your Google Pixel 8 is getting this cool missing feature after all
The Google Pixel 8 on a table.

A feature you thought wasn’t coming to your Google Pixel 8 is coming to your Pixel 8, after all. It’s Gemini Nano, the on-device AI that recently launched on the Pixel 8 Pro, but Google claimed it wouldn’t work on the cheaper Pixel 8. Backtracking on previous statements is rarely a good thing, but this time, it has a happy ending.

Gemini Nano — the name given to the most efficient version of Google’s Gemini AI, joining Gemini Pro and Ultra — arrived on the Pixel 8 Pro in an update in December 2023. It was good news, but Pixel 8 owners were oddly left out. In an episode of the Android Developers podcast in March 2024, it was then claimed Gemini Nano wouldn’t operate on the non-Pro Pixel 8 at all due to unspecified hardware limitations, which was a blow to owners of the cheaper phone as it even uses the same processor as the Pro model.

Read more