Google Chrome is getting a fix for one of the internet’s biggest annoyances

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Google Chrome looks set to get a new Tab Search feature, which could fix one of the biggest annoyances people have when browsing the internet.

When browsing the internet for any decent amount of time, you may find you end up with a huge number of open tabs running in Chrome. 

Each tab contains a website you’ve visited – or intend to visit – and not only does having a large amount of them open at once have an impact on your PC’s performance (and Chrome is a notorious RAM-eater) – but having too many open tabs means it can be difficult to find certain ones when you need them.

However, it seems that Google Chrome will get a new feature to solve that. Tab Search will appear as a popup menu, and will let you search for specific tabs you have open.

Trying it out

The existence of Tab Search was originally spotted by ChromeStory in the source code for upcoming Chrome features, and suggests it’s coming as an experimental feature.

The code also suggests that Chrome OS devices – primarily Chromebooks – will get the feature first. However, Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS versions of Chrome will eventually get the feature as well.

When the feature is ready to be tested, it will come to Google Chrome Canary, a version of Chrome that allows people to try out new features before they are rolled out to the standard version of Chrome.

If you want to give it a try, you’ll need Chrome OS and Chrome Canary. In Chrome Canary, type in chrome://flags and then look for ‘Enable Tab Search’. Set this to ‘Enable immediately when a tab is hidden’, then restart Chrome Canary.

With Chrome being the most-used web browser in the world by some margin, this new feature could make the lives of millions of internet users so much easier. Hopefully it won’t be long until it arrives in Chrome for everyone.

Matt Hanson
Managing Editor, Core Tech

Matt is TechRadar's Managing Editor for Core Tech, looking after computing and mobile technology. Having written for a number of publications such as PC Plus, PC Format, T3 and Linux Format, there's no aspect of technology that Matt isn't passionate about, especially computing and PC gaming. Ever since he got an Amiga A500+ for Christmas in 1991, he's loved using (and playing on) computers, and will talk endlessly about how The Secret of Monkey Island is the best game ever made.