Google adds the share button to Chrome Custom Tabs

Custom Chrome Tabs are a common staple – with one notable exception – on Android that allow third-party apps to use the standard Google browser when opening links. With Chrome 88 released earlier this week, Custom Tabs gets an experimental share button.

Third-party developers can customize custom tabs to match the style of their app. With one customization, they can add a button to the application bar, just to the left of the overflow menu. Twitter, for example, has a “TWEET” button to quickly open the writing window and insert that URL.

However, the social media app is a rare exception, while Google notes that ‘Custom Tabs’ does not provide a standard sharing experience and that many apps do not provide a way to share content at all. ‘

This results in a bad user experience where users have to find the share action from the overflow menu in the browser. This action takes the user outside the app and opens the link in the browser, resulting in reduced engagement with the app.

Google corrects this by “running an experiment” with Custom Tabs in Chrome 88, which adds a simple share button to open the system tray. It appears if an app has not specified its own action button, and otherwise stays in the overflow as ‘Share via’. This is because ‘users regularly want to share content delivered in the Custom Tabs.’

The default action button is automatically added to the application, as long as the application is not its own. Since this change will take place in the browser, it will be automatically applied to all applications using custom tabs.

The experiment is being rolled out widely following the launch of Chrome 88 for Android on Tuesday. Google gives app developers instructions on how to sign out.

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