Google is planning to kill Chrome’s Duet bottom bar

Chrome 84 entered the beta channel earlier this week. The update brought a bunch of new features to Google’s web browser such as screen wake lock API, security changes and web OTP among others. It also removed a feature that has been in the making for quite some time now.

According to a report by Android Police, Google has dropped the Duet bottom bar of Chrome that has been in the works for almost four years now.

Google has removed two feature flags for Duet. These flags are “#enable-duet-tabstrip-integration” and “#enable-chrome-duet”. The report notes that while the feature can still be seen in Chrome 84’s flags list if “#temporary-unexpire-flags-m82” and “#temporary-unexpire-flags-m83” flags are enabled. However, enabling the flag doesn’t seem to do anything. Additionally, the unexpire flags have a description that reads, “These flags will be removed soon.” This indicates that the company is planning to kill the feature in its upcoming Chrome 84 update.

While the Duet bottom bar is on its way out, the company has also added a couple of features to the bottom toolbar of the Chrome app in Android. This includes shortcut buttons for home, share and search buttons.

Notably, the search bar at the bottom bar can also be used for opening the address bar, which sits on the top, simply by tapping the search icon at the bottom.

Google will start rolling out Chrome 84 starting July this year.