Google Chrome is the most used browser in the world, far behind its second rival, Apple’s Safari and followed by Edge. Today, Edge is the browser that best performance offers on Windows, since it is a native Windows tool. In addition, it is also the one that offers the best integration in terms of design, something that Chrome lacks, at least until soon.
One of the reasons why Edge integrates perfectly with Windows, aesthetically speaking, is because it uses the Mica design designed to offer the best user experience in Windows 11 and, in addition, it is also available in other applications available in the Microsoft Store as well as in the file explorer among others.
It seems that in the end, Google has realized that the time has come to implement this same design in Chrome, as we can read in Chromium Gerrit, although for now, it will only affect the browser bar, not the entire window. It is not the best integration of Mica in Chrome, however, it is the first step towards this design being fully implemented in the Google browser.
What is mica?
It mimics the design that Microsoft currently uses in Microsoft Edge, the Windows settings window, Outlook, Office and other applications created by the company. It is also available in applications available in the Microsoft Store and whose function is to merge desktop background theme with the application as transparency. This design can be applied both to the application title bar (as is the case in Chrome) and to the window.
The purpose of this layout is to provide a visual hierarchy that allows users to focus on the window they have. open close-up, window that implements this layout. The rest of the applications that we have open in the background do not show this layout (if it is supported) until they are shown in the foreground.
The Mica design has a variant called Mica Alt. While the first shape sample slightly attenuates the colors of the desktop background that we use, Mica Alt emphasizes them so that they have a greater visual presence. The layout is available in both light and dark mode. At the moment this implementation is in the testing phase and does not know an approximate date for its launch in Chrome.
As it is a design change, it may not eventually be implemented or it may take longer than usual. What is clear is that Google continues to work on improving the performance and operation of Chrome and a good proof of this is the different improvements that it has implemented in recent months to optimize operation, especially in terms of RAM memory consumption.
