Downloads launched in Chrome for Android in December and it basically allowed users to save things like web pages, music, and even videos for viewing at a later date. At launch, to download a web page you would have had to open up the Chrome menu in the top-right of the browser, then hit the “Save” button. Then, hit the “Downloads” button to see all of your saved content. Now, however, you can simply long press a link, and you’ll see the option to “Download Link.”
On top of that, the Chrome offline page has been given a new button to “Download Page Later” and if you press that, Chrome will download the page when you get connected to the internet.
“Now you’ll always have a ready-to-go list of pages or articles to read even if you are out of data for the month or lose the network in a dead zone. Update to the latest version of Chrome and tap the download icon on any page to get started,” Google said in a blog post.
The New Tab page has also been tweaked a little — now it’ll include articles that you previously downloaded, and you’ll be able to tell that they’re downloaded thanks to a special offline badge.
The new feature does help put the browser on-par with other apps and services like Pocket, which allow users to save online content for offline viewing. Because the feature is built into Chrome, however, it could see much wider adoption and it could signal the beginning of the end for third-party services.
