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| Chrome Beta 148.0.7778.4 is rolling out on Android through Google Play with new browser and web-platform features. |
If you've been waiting for a Chrome update that actually brings something new to the table for Android, today's your day. Google has just released Chrome Beta 148 (version 148.0.7778.4) for Android, and while the official release note is brief, digging into the details reveals a few genuinely significant changes for the mobile web.
The update went live on April 8, 2026, and is now rolling out through the Google Play Store. If you're on the beta track, you can grab the latest build right now via the usual channels.
Chrome 148 Beta Reaches Android
The official Android beta release note is characteristically short and sweet, without a detailed feature-by-feature changelog of its own. Instead, Google points users to the broader Chrome 148 beta documentation, where the company confirms that the milestone's new beta-channel changes apply across the board to Android, ChromeOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows.
That means most of the platform updates Google has been testing for the desktop version are now making their way to mobile, with a couple of notable Android-specific exceptions.
Android-Specific Additions Include Web Serial API and SharedWorker
Here's where things get interesting for Android users. Among the changes explicitly tied to the mobile platform, Google says support for the Web Serial API is now available on Android.
In plain English, this API allows web apps to connect directly to serial devices — including hardware exposed through USB and Bluetooth connections that emulate a serial port. Google highlights use cases in education, hobbyist projects, and industrial workflows such as robotics, mills, laser cutters, and 3D printers. For developers and makers who have been waiting to control physical hardware directly from a web app on their Android device, this is a big deal.
Just as notable, Google is re-enabling SharedWorker support on Android in Chrome 148 beta. For those unfamiliar, SharedWorker is a web API that allows multiple browsing contexts (like tabs or iframes) to share a single background script. It had been disabled on Android for a long time due to concerns about unpredictable process lifecycle behavior. But after further investigation, Google now says those concerns may be less severe than previously thought, so Chrome 148 brings the feature back while the team continues investigating lifecycle behavior.
And there's a nice bonus: the same milestone also adds an extendedLifetime: true option for SharedWorker, designed to keep a shared worker active after current clients unload in some use cases.
If you're not already on the beta track, you can join the fun by downloading the app from Google Play. Click here to download Chrome Beta for Android from the Google Play Store.
Broader Chrome 148 Web-Platform Changes Are Part of the Release
Beyond the Android-specific highlights, Chrome 148 beta brings a wider set of web-platform updates that Google says apply to the current beta release unless noted otherwise.
These include:
- Lazy loading for
<video>and<audio>elements through theloading="lazy"attribute. This has been available for images and iframes for a while, but extending it to media elements means web developers can defer the loading of videos and audio files until they're actually needed, which should help with page performance and data usage. - Localized manifest members for web apps, allowing names, icons, descriptions, and shortcuts to adapt automatically to a user's language and region settings.
- The new Prompt API, which Google describes as direct access to a browser-provided on-device model with support for text, image, and audio inputs.
For Android users on the beta track, the immediate takeaway is that Chrome 148 is not just another test build. It carries several notable platform-facing additions, with Web Serial API support on Android and SharedWorker's long-awaited return to Android standing out as the headliners.
If you encounter any issues, Google encourages users to file a bug report through the official Android Issue Tracker.
Happy browsing!
Source : Chrome Developer Portal