Google is testing an improved version of the search (which looks similar to Android’s) within the Settings app of Chrome OS. A new flag named “New OS Settings Search” is available in the Canary channel of Chrome OS.

New OS Settings Search

The description of the flag states:

“Enables New OS Settings search with fuzzy matching, and disables the old OS settings search using exact string matching. – Chrome OS”

Fuzzy matching, according to Wikipedia is “works with matches that may be less than 100% perfect when finding correspondences between segments of a text and entries in a database of previous translations.” In other words, this makes it easier to find the option that you are searching for, even if you type it incorrectly or even use a different word.

Here is how the search looks like now:

Now, here is how this looks like with the new flag enabled:

The new feature is clearly still a work in progress. However, this reminds me of the search within Android’s Settings app. You will also notice the rounded corners on the search box.

Type the word “WiFi” and you get multiple variations of this search. This, however, does not work with most of the other keywords for now. We will see this improving as the team makes progress on this new feature.

Do you think this is going to be a useful feature? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section and stay tuned to Chrome Story for regular Chrome OS updates and more Chromebook guides.