Google Chrome Updates: Multitasking Support For iPad; Mute tab

Here’s some good news for Google Chrome users. A recently released update of the web browser allows user to mute individual tabs, while the update for iPad now supports iOS 9’s multitasking features.

Mute Tab

While browsing the web, we all have encountered the problem of autoplay ad or video at some point or another. Google Chrome has addressed the issue with its latest update that enables you to “mute” a tab completely.

Mashable reports that the latest version of Google Chrome, version 46, lets users mute individual tabs by right-clicking on the tab and selecting “mute tab” from the dropdown menu.

Initially Google wasn’t much in favour of creating the option to mute tabs as it didn't want the browser to control content.

“After much debate, we decided not to proceed with a tab mute control, as this crosses a very important line: If we provide Chrome controls for content, we're implying that Chrome should take on a responsibility to police content”, Chromium evangelist François Beaufort explained on Google+ last year. “For "behaving" content, we think it's reasonable for a user to click on a tab and use the content's media controls to stop playback.”

Google has been testing the feature in Chrome since the summer, and now it's available to all users, The Verge reported.

Chrome for iPad

Google has also updated its Chrome web browser for iPad on iOS 9 and is now compatible with each of the new operating system’s new multitasking features, 9 to 5 Mac reported. The upgraded version now supports:

• Split View for running the browser next to other updated apps – supported on iPad mini 4, iPad Air 2, and the upcoming iPad Pro due out next month.
• Slide Over for referencing it over any app. Previous versions of iPads that don’t support Split View can still benefit from this feature, which lets users view a “slimmed down” version of Chrome over other apps.
• Picture in Picture for minimizing videos playing within Chrome to view from other apps including Split View mode – compatible with iPad Pro, iPad Air or later, and iPad mini 2 or later supported.