Google Chrome gives its page zoom feature that promises to make the mobile web more accessible to users. The updated feature will allow users to increase the size of text, images, videos, and interactive controls on mobile web pages by up to 300 percent while preserving the original formatting.
The update is particularly useful for people who have difficulty reading the smaller screen on a phone. The feature is not yet available to all Chrome users, but those who want to try it can download the Chrome beta on their phone or tablet.
To enable the feature, users simply need to tap the three dots icon in the top right corner of the browser, select Settings > Accessibility, and then adjust the zoom level to their liking. Google will save the preference for all the sites the user browses, so they won’t have to keep tweaking it. Google will even bypass sites that try to block zoom features.
Previously, Google only allowed users to adjust text scaling options up to 200 percent. With this improvement, users can now zoom in on a page by up to 300 percent, making it easier to read and interact with content on the mobile web.
Google is also rolling out a few other updates, including a new freehand annotation feature for Google Drive on Android. This lets users use their finger or stylus to write on top of PDFs or highlight important text. Users can also hide, undo, delete, or save a copy of the PDF with the annotations, making it a handy note-taking feature.
Google is also bringing Meet’s noise cancellation feature to more Android devices, although it didn’t specify which ones. Additionally, it’s bringing some new spring- and basketball-themed emoji combinations to Gboard’s Emoji Kitchen.
It’s heartening to see Google prioritizing accessibility in its updates to Chrome. Hopefully, other Chromium-based browsers, like Microsoft Edge and Firefox, will follow Chrome’s lead and adopt similar page zoom improvements to make the mobile web more accessible to all users.
