Google working on a small yet important privacy-focussed feature for Chrome

In a bid to make privacy on its browser more robust, Google is making a small yet important change to how Chrome displays your email address on web pages. The search giant is currently working on a feature that will hide your email IDs on various UI surfaces on web pages.

By hiding your email IDs on various UI elements, you will be able to prevent people around you from seeing them. It comes in handy in multiple scenarios, including ones where you are sharing your screen with someone but does not want them to see your email address. You may also want to take advantage of this privacy feature when surfing the web in a public place.

Instead of showing your email IDs, Google Chrome will show your first name in UI elements. It will replace the email IDs with your first name wherever they appear on a web page.

Google is currently testing this privacy-focused capability under a flag, though it was spotted on the Canary channel. However, we have not found the flag in Canary, which suggests that Google may be internally testing it. Needless to say, if you are running stable Chrome, you will not see the flag.

However, if you are running Chrome Canary, you can enable the flag when it becomes available by following the below steps:

1. Type “Chrome://flags” in the Chrome browser address bar.
2. On the Search for flags box, type “Hide non-displayable account email.”
3. Click the drop-down menu next to the flag.
4. Click Enabled.
5. Click Restart to activate the flag.

If you have not tried Chrome Canary yet, you can download and install it from the official Google website. But if you are already running it, do you see the flag? Let us know in the comments section.

Via Chrome Story