For the first time in eight years, Google has changed its Chrome browser’s logo with a simpler look designed to better match Google’s current branding, but you might not have noticed. Its overall scheme is the same as the circular, four-color basic design of the first Chrome browser in 2009, which Google flattened out in 2011 revamp, a company designer said Friday.
But more subtle changes are now making their way to your computer desktop. The new logo has a brighter color, a larger blue circle in the middle, and no more shadows. Icon revisions can often be controversial, like in 2016, when Uber dropped its U logo and Instagram went with a stylized 2D icon and dropped its iconic skeletal camera. In addition to irritating customers, a major logo change will make the app hard to find on the phone /PC home screen until it adapts to the new look.
The modest changes to the Chrome browser may not be confusing, though. The company started making this change in its Canary beta version of Chrome, and it will expand to developer, beta and mainstream versions in the coming weeks. According to analytics firm StatCounter, Chrome holds 63 percent of the web browser market.
Google is also tweaking it further, with the design team arranging a series of different subtle changes to make it look more recognizable on Windows, macOS, and iOS. For example, on Windows 10 and Windows 11, the color of the icon is a gradient, darkening from the bottom.
On ChromeOS, the colors are brighter. On macOS, the icon has a 3D appearance, like a thin disk. Less noticeable is the slight change in green from the left to the bottom. This is to avoid the harsh visual “vibration” that can occur when the brighter green is opposed to the red on top.
Chrome designer Elvin Hu said in a tweet that he hoped the icons would make Chrome feel like it exists, while also being crafted for each operating system.