Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
With time ticking away before shipping deadlines put a stop to your online holiday shopping, Google is highlighting a few new Chrome features that might help you out. Still, it’s not lost on us that these features used to keep track of stuff to help you shop are also useful for the nearly $2 trillion company that makes most of its money from serving up relevant advertisements and making sure shoppers hit the “buy” button.
But you will probably use Chrome anyway, so you should know that a new feature in the mobile browser on Android will show updated pricing for items inside your open tabs grid, so you’ll know if the prices suddenly drop. Google says iOS Chrome browsers will get the feature “in the coming weeks.”
Image: Google
Google Chrome price tracker on Android
Another handy tool for Android browsers is the ability to search the internet for something you’re already looking at in real life, using Google Lens inside Chrome. The Lens icon will pop up in the toolbar, and you can use the camera to identify something on a shelf or in a window and start searching without typing. This is also coming to desktop browsers soon, where you can right-click (unless it’s an NFT and you’re trying not to be rude), then select “Search images with Google Lens” and use the mouse cursor to draw over whatever is catching your eye in the picture.
The other new element is available for Windows and Mac desktop Chrome users in the US, where it will keep an eye on shopping carts you haven’t checked out yet. If you open up a new tab page, there’s a “Your carts” card that will hold sites where you’ve added items, and Google says that at some stores, there may be a discount waiting when you come back.