Chrome 59 Rolling Out for Desktop Users, Brings New Material Design Settings Menu

Google’s Chromium team has now rolled out the stable version of Chrome 59 for its desktop users. It brings a lot of under-the-hood changes, security fixes, and one notable addition is the Material design makeover for the Settings menu.

While Chrome browser got a Material Design overhaul in previous versions – Chrome 52 for Mac and Chrome 53 for Windows – the Settings menu has remained unchanged. Now, Chrome 59 finally brings that change with a completely new design.

The Chrome Settings menu has been in testing for quite a while, it is now visible in the stable version once you update to the latest version. The slick material design brings a whole new look with the same basic settings still in place. There’s a new blue action bar for search, and A navigation menu that lets you jump to important categories. It pops-up from the side, with Advanced Settings still at the bottom hiding more controls for users. While no additional settings have been added, it’s a big revamp from the old design, and a much needed one.

For Mac users, it brings support for native notifications, and support for animated PNG format as well. 9to5Mac reports that Chrome 59 also brings a new tool called Headless Chromium that ‘is specifically aimed at running automated testing and for server environments where a visible UI isn’t needed. Support is available on Mac and Linux, with a Windows implementation coming soon.’ This update also includes 30 security fixes, and we recommend that you update at the earliest.

Chrome 59.0.3071.86 is now rolling out for Windows, Mac, and Linux users alike, and should reach all users in the coming weeks. If you haven’t already received he update, check manually by clicking the menu icon, navigating to Help > About Chrome, and see if the latest version has arrived. If it has, it will automatically start updating to the latest version. Google says that Android and Chrome OS versions will roll out soon.