Chrome Dev for Desktop Update

The Dev channel has been updated to 118.0.5993.3 for Windows, Mac and Linux.

A partial list of changes is available in the Git log. Interested in switching release channels? Find out how. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug. The community help forum is also a great place to reach out for help or learn about common issues.

Daniel Yip
Google Chrome

Grow user acquisition and store conversions with the updated Play Store Listing Certificate course

Posted by Rob Simpson, Product Manager - Google Play & Joe Davis, Manager - Google Play Academy

Since we launched the Google Play Store Listing Certificate in 2021, our no-cost, self-paced training courses have helped thousands of developers in over 80 countries increase their app installs. Over the course of the training, developers learn essential mobile marketing best practices, including how to leverage Play Console growth tools like store listing experiments (SLEs) and custom store listings (CSLs).

Today, we’re excited to release a major update to our self-paced training, covering all the latest CSL and SLE features, as well as real-world examples showing how you might use them to drive user growth. We’re also releasing video study guide series to help you lock in your new knowledge ahead of the exam.

Built for app growth marketers, take Google Play Academy's online growth marketing training and get certified in Google Play Store Listing best practices!
Videos: Google Play Store Listing Certificate Study Guide

What’s new: New features in custom store listings and store listing experiments

The new course content focuses on custom store listings and store listing experiments. For the unfamiliar, custom store listings allow you to show different versions of your title’s Play Store content to different people. For example, you might create versions tailored to users in different countries where feature availability varies, or an experience just for users who have lapsed or churned.

Custom store listings can help you convey the most effective messaging for different users. Based on an internal comparative analysis, CSLs can help increase an app or game’s monthly active users (MAUs) by an average of over 3.5%1.

Store listing experiments, on the other hand, offer a way to explore what icons, descriptions, screenshots (and more) convert the best for your title on the Play Store.

These are features you can use today! Google Play Academy’s training now includes four new courses on custom store listings, four updated existing courses, and nine new study guide videos.

Finding app and career growth

Here’s what some developers, entrepreneurs and marketers have said about their experience after getting trained up and certified:




Learning best practices for store listing experiments allowed me to know more about our audience. Something that simple as using the proper icon increased acquisitions of one of our games by approximately 60%

Adrian Mojica 
Marketing Creative, GameHouse (Spain) 





The knowledge I gained empowered me to make more informed decisions and learn effective strategies. The credibility I got from the certificate has opened new doors in my career. 

Roshni Kumari 
Student & Campus Ambassador (India)


Play Academy increased efficiency in mentoring relationships by 50%, and we've seen a 30% increase in our game launch speed overall. 

Kimmie Vu
Chief Marketing Officer, Rocket Game Studio (Vietnam)


Top tips to prepare for your certificate exam

  1. Take the training and watch the study guide videos
    2. Take the online training on Google Play Academy to learn best practices to help create a winning store listing, then lock in your knowledge with the new video study guides. You’ll learn key skills to help you drive growth with high-quality and policy-compliant store listings.

  2. Pass the exam and get certified
    3. After the training, take the exam to get an industry-recognized certificate. You will also be invited to join Google Developer Certification Directory, where you can network with other Google-certified developers.

  3. Get started with custom store listings and experiments
    4. Time to put your new skills into action. Start with 2-3 custom store listings for markets important to your app or game, such as users in certain countries or lapsed or churned users. Or test a new icon or short description.

Start your learning journey on Google Play Academy today!


1 Source: Internal Google data [Nov 2022] comparing titles that use CSL to those that do not.

Showing Our Work: A Study In Understanding Open Source Contributors

In 2022, the research team within Google’s Open Source Programs Office launched an in-depth study to better understand open source developers, contributors, and maintainers. Since Alphabet is a large consumer of and contributor to open source, our primary goals were to investigate the evolving needs and motivations of open source contributors, and to learn how we can best support the communities we depend on. We also wanted to share our findings with the community in order to further research efforts and our collective understanding of open source work.

Key findings from this work suggest that community leaders should:

  • Value your time together and apart: Lack of time was cited as the leading reason ‘not to contribute’ as well as motivation to ‘leave a community’. This should encourage community leaders to adopt practices that ensure that they are making the most of the time they have together. One example: some projects have planned breaks, no-meeting weeks, or official slowdowns during holidays or popular conference weeks.
  • Invest in documentation: Contributors and maintainers expressed that task variety, delegation, and onboarding new maintainers could help to reduce burnout in open source. Documentation is one way to make individual knowledge accessible to the community. In addition to technical and procedural overviews, documentation can also be used to clarify roles, tasks, expectations, and a path to leadership.
  • Always communicate with care: Contributors prefer projects that have welcoming communities, clear onboarding paths, and a code of conduct. Communication is the primary way for community leaders to promote welcoming and inclusive communities and set norms around language and behavior (as documented in a Code of Conduct). Communication is also how we build relationships, trust, and respect for each other.

  • Create spaces for anonymous feedback: Variable answers between demographic subsets in our research suggest that while systematic approaches can be taken to reduce burnout, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Feedback is a valuable tool for any project to adjust to the evolving needs of their contributor and user communities. When designed appropriately, surveys can serve as safe, anonymous, retaliation-free spaces for individuals to provide honest feedback.

How do contributors select projects?

We asked respondents to share their most important criteria when selecting an open source project to contribute to in their personal time. The top responses were: welcoming community, clear onboarding path, and code of conduct.
Base: 517 international OSS developers, contributors, maintainers and students who worked on open source in their personal time

Within Google’s Open Source Programs office, we are constantly looking for ways to improve support for contributors inside and outside of Google. Studies such as this one provide guidance to our programs and investments in the community. This work helps us to see we should continue to:

  • Invest in documentation competency: Google Season of Docs provides support for open source projects to improve their documentation and gives professional technical writers an opportunity to gain experience in open source.
  • Document roles and promote tactics that recognize work within communities: The ACROSS project continues to work with projects and communities to establish consistent language to define roles, responsibilities, and work done within open source projects.
  • Exercise and discuss ‘better’ practices within the community: While we continually seek to improve our engagement practices within communities, we will also continue to share these experiences with the broader community in hopes that we can all learn from our successes and challenges. For example, we’ve published documentation around our release process, including resources for the creation and management of a code of conduct.

This research, along with other articles authored by the OSPO research team is now available on our site.

By Sophia Vargas – Researcher, Google Open Source Programs Office

Early Stable Update for Android

  Hi, everyone! We've just released Chrome 117 (117.0.5938.44) for Android to a small percentage of users. It'll become available on Google Play over the next few days. You can find more details about early Stable releases here.

This release includes stability and performance improvements. You can see a full list of the changes in the Git log. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug.

Krishna Govind
Google Chrome

Site names on Google Search now available for all languages

Last October, site names were introduced on mobile results for select languages, which expanded to desktop in March. Today, we're happy to announce that site names are now available in all languages where Google Search is available, on both mobile and desktop. Site names are supported for domains (for example, example.com) and subdomains (for example, subdomain.example.com) but not for subdirectories (for example, example.com/subdirectory).

Chrome Beta for Android Update

Hi everyone! We've just released Chrome Beta 117 (117.0.5938.44) for Android. It's now available on Google Play.

You can see a partial list of the changes in the Git log. For details on new features, check out the Chromium blog, and for details on web platform updates, check here.

If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug.

Harry Souders
Google Chrome