What you need to know
- Google is testing Discover Feed, a popular feature on Android phones, for desktops.
- It is currently in the experimental phase for some users in India.
- The interface is quite similar to what we are used to on Android home screens.
Google is reportedly testing its popular Discover feed for desktop users. The Discover feed, as seen on mobile devices, will likely venture to the Google.com web home page very soon when users visit the site on their desktop browsers.
The feature was first spotted by MSPowerUser, revealing the Discover feed featured under the search box on the Google home page. As we can see, the content showcased in the feed is quite similar to what we are used to with Android phones (on the leftmost pane of the Home screen).
If enabled, it is a mix of news, interests, and stocks based on the user's web and app activity, or we presume based on the user's preferences and settings, it could be a random mix of content, which could be based on their location and other such parameters.
Similar news feeds are already popular amongst desktop browsers like Bing and Brave, allowing users to view news whenever they launch their browsers. However, they also provide an option to users to disable them, per their preferences. It is still unclear whether Google allows disabling the feed, which is currently in the testing phase.
The testing phase is confirmed by Google's spokesperson Lara Levin through a statement given to The Verge. According to Levin, the new Discover feed is an experiment by the search giant currently being run in India.
This isn't the first time Google has tested something like this. Last year, Google briefly tested Discover-like cards that appeared at the bottom of the home page, which also allowed users to toggle the feature on or off. It was not widely rolled out and did not last very long, but it shows Google has been working on bringing some form of Discover to the web.
However, as The Verge points out, not many of us are used to typing in Google.com in the address bar to search for something. Many users would instead type in the search query directly into the address as many of the best browsers, including Chrome, have search integrated into the address bar.
