Google added a slew of shopping features to its browser last year, making it easy to continue browsing stores right where you left off and connect loyalty programs to your Google account. Now, the company is looking to expand this functionality by providing clearer details about unknown stores’ trustworthiness, leveraging Google user ratings right inside the browser.

One of our tipsters spotted an unfamiliar popup below the address bar when he visited a new online shop on Chrome Dev 102, asking them if they wanted to see store reviews. Upon tapping it, a bottom card with user reviews from Google slides up, giving out potentially valuable information before you trust a store you’ve never visited before. The average Google user rating is also visible when tapping the lock icon in the right corner of the address bar, showing up as a new entry below details regarding security, cookies, and browsing history.

We suspect that the feature can be controlled with the chrome://flags/#page-info-store-info flag, though we haven’t been able to reproduce it ourselves just yet. There might be further dependencies on other flags or regional restrictions involved. For what it’s worth, the flag is also already available in stable Chrome 100, though it’s unclear if it’s functional there already.

If you want to try this store info for yourself, be sure to download Chrome Canary or Dev and give the mentioned flag a shot. Keep in mind that those two are the most unstable versions of Chrome, so we would recommend using stable Chrome for everyday surfing.

Thanks: Moshe