Chrome and Edge will Get a Refresh UI Design in 2023, Here is How to Enable and Test It

This year, two popular web browsers Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge will get a redesigned UI to provide their users a refreshing experience. This article will provide you a preview of the upcoming design overhaul and instructions to enable and test the upcoming UI right now in both web browsers.

The redesigned UI can be considered as a theme which will change the look-n-feel of both web browsers using new colors and design elements. These new UI redesigns are being developed to take full advantage of various UI effects (such as Acrylic or Mica effect, translucent blur and glass transparency) present in Windows 11 operating system.

At the moment, the new UI designs for both web browsers are under development and testing phase and interested users will need to modify some hidden secret preferences/flags to enable them.

Preview of the Upcoming Refresh UI Design of Google Chrome

Google Chrome team is working on a brand new UI for the popular Chrome browser. This upcoming UI has been named as “Chrome Refresh 2023” internally. Chrome team has already started delivering parts of the upcoming UI design to Chrome users for testing purposes.

Thanks to Leopeva64 @ Twitter for sharing it.

Following is a preview of the upcoming super secret design refresh of Google Chrome web browser:

As you can see the titlebar or tab bar is now Blue like good ol’ Chrome versions and the buttons and other elements are now rounded.

Remember it’s a work in progress at the moment and more UI changes and enhancements will be enabled in coming days.

UPDATE:

Google has started rolling out the new visual refresh design UI to Chrome 117 and later versions. Check out following article for details:

[Tip] How to Enable or Disable New UI in Google Chrome

Preview of the Upcoming Refresh UI Design of Microsoft Edge

Microsoft is also working on a complete redesigned UI for Edge browser. The new Edge UI has been codenamed as Phoenix internally. The new design refresh will be released to Edge users later this year.

Thanks to WalkingCat @ Twitter for sharing it.

Following is a preview of the upcoming redesigned UI of Microsoft Edge web browser:

This new UI is also referred as “Visual Rejuv” internally. As you can see in the above screenshot, the tabs are now rounded similar to Mozilla Firefox web browser. The menus now features Acrylic effect which is a part of the Fluent design UI present in Windows 11. This new UI features acrylic material UI elements along with translucent blur and glass transparency effects.

Again let’s remind you it’s a work in progress at the moment and more UI changes and enhancements will be enabled in coming days.

How to Enable and Test Refresh UI Design in Google Chrome

A preview of the upcoming UI design is available in Chrome’s testing version i.e. Chrome Canary. To enable and test the new UI, you’ll need to download and install Chrome Canary version in your device. You can learn more about Chrome Canary in this article.

You can download Chrome Canary version from following official page:

Download Google Chrome Canary Build

Don’t worry! If you are already using Chrome stable version, the new Canary version will not change it. Both Stable and Canary versions of Chrome will run side-by-side.

After installing Chrome Canary, you can activate and enable upcoming 2023 design refresh using following steps:

1. Open Google Chrome Canary and type chrome://flags/ in address bar and press Enter. It’ll open the advanced configuration page.

2. Now type 2023 in the “Search flags” box.

Look for following option in the results:

3. To activate and enable the upcoming Chrome redesigned UI, select Enabled from the drop-down box for the above mentioned option.

4. Google Chrome will ask you to restart the browser. Click on “Relaunch now” button to restart Google Chrome.

That’s it. You can now test drive the upcoming Chrome UI.

PS: If you decide to restore default UI in Chrome, select “Default” option from the drop-down box for above mentioned option and restart the browser.

How to Enable and Test Refresh UI Design in Microsoft Edge

Edge’s upcoming UI can be enabled and tested in all versions of Edge browser. So if you are using the stable or testing version of Edge, you can activate and enable the new redesigned UI using following steps:

If you remember, we already shared information about the upcoming Edge UI and steps to enable it in following article last year:

[Tip] Enable Rounded Tabs in Microsoft Edge Along With Windows 11 Visual Effects

Here are the required steps again for your convenience:

1. Open Microsoft Edge web browser and type edge://flags/ in address bar and press Enter. It’ll open the advanced configuration page.

2. Now type rejuv in the “Search flags” box.

It’ll directly go to following options:

3. To activate and enable the new UI in Edge, select Enabled from the drop-down box for all above mentioned options.

4. Microsoft Edge will ask you to restart the browser. Click on “Restart” button to restart Microsoft Edge.

5. After restarting Edge, click on the 3-dots menu button present at the right-side of the toolbar and select Settings option from the main menu. Alternatively, you can press ALT+F keys together to show Edge Menu and then press S key to open Settings page. You can also directly open Edge Settings page using edge://settings/ URL in address bar.

6. Now go to Appearance tab and in right-side pane, you’ll see following 2 new options:

Enable both options using the toggle button and Edge will ask to restart.

After restarting, you’ll be able to test drive the upcoming redesigned UI in Edge.

PS: If you decide to restore default UI in Edge, select “Default” option from the drop-down box for above mentioned options and restart the browser.

You can also enable Windows 11 style overlay scrollbars in Edge using following article:

[Tip] Enable Windows 11 Style Overlay Scrollbars in Microsoft Edge

Also Check:

Disable or Remove Unsupported OS Warning in Chrome and Edge on Windows 7 and 8.1