Google has begun testing a new content discovery UI in Chrome called Explore which can be accessed by enabling an experimental flag.
Explore will be shown to users when they open a new tab on Chrome on Android and shows a list of websites that may be of interest to the user. The Explore interface is currently in its early stages of testing and contains a large number of placeholder sites at the moment — most of them of specific interest to Indian users.
According to an IANS report on the test, Explore is not likely to be targeted at the Indian market, even though the websites it currently shows are largely of Indian origin. The websites have been chosen as examples in the testing UI.
In short, you can think of ‘Explore’ as a broad website suggestions rather than article suggestions which Chrome already does.
Google is directing you to websites that could potentially be of interest to you, the report said. It’s not clear if this will be based on your individual habits (knowing Google, though, that’s almost certainly a yes) or if it will be more broadly tailored to locales and regions than specific users, it added. Explore section could also track your individual browsing habits and suggest websites.
To enable the Explore UI, open the Chrome app and type “chrome://flags” where you would normally type in the URL. Now search for “explore”, and turn on both the settings that you see. Open a new tab after relaunching the browser to see the Explore section. The suggestions are currently in the test phase, as indicated by the URL, and only show Indian websites for now.
The Explore UI is Google’s take on UC Browser and Opera Mini, which present a curated list of content when users open the app. As mentioned earlier, Explore is in early stages of testing and there is no word from Google regarding its wider availability via the stable Android app.
With inputs from IANS
