Google’s latest app update brought a bug that causes Chrome’s custom tab to hang and all pages open in default browser on Android. In the first release of the beta channel in 2022, the software started to bring this headache for those who tried to migrate to the test version of the program.
Before the crash, when the user opened an article from the discovery area, they were directed to the specific Chrome tab within the Google program. The same happened with the search results: everything was centralized in the app itself, which optimized access to features such as the custom toolbar.
It is worth remembering that there was always an option to turn off this internal navigation and point to the external browser, but it had to be done manually by the user. With the bug, disabling has become the default and this can make the experience a lot slower because it consumes phone resources when loading a new app.
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The curious thing is that if the person tries to return to the old default in the settings, the option to “Open web pages in the application” appears gray. Unable to enable the toggle button, and everything will continue to open in the default Android browser.
Tests with custom browser
Released last Friday (7), version 13 of the Google app persists even after yesterday’s update to 13.1 (11). This flaw may be related to some tests conducted by developers to embed a custom browser in Google search for Android.
The experiment with an extra browser has been put on hold for the past few months. The idea was to deliver a personalized approach from cookies, but this created problems in retrieving history and even desynchronizing accounts. As there was no official position of the company, this is mere supposition.
A temporary workaround is to uninstall the beta version and switch back to the stable option until Google fixes the issue — as of yet. As it is unique to Android, iOS users can rest assured about the bug.
