Google is introducing a new feature to the desktop version of Chrome that allows users to quickly save frames from online videos without showing elements from the video player UI.
This feature, initially called “Copy Video Frame,” was later changed to “Save Video Frame,” eliminating the need to paste the frame into a separate file. In the initial rollout phase about a couple of months ago, this feature had to be manually enabled in Chrome Canary. Now, still in Canary, it’s enabled by default.
Chrome Canary, remember, is a version of Google Chrome dedicated especially to developers although it can still be downloaded and installed by anyone. Since it is mainly used for debugging new functions, elements and lines of code are added and changed daily, this browser is quite unstable and is not recommended to be used on a daily basis.
Since last September, on the stable version of Chrome for desktop, the ability to “copy” a frame of a video and then “paste” it into an image through any editing app has been introduced. This feature, translated “copy video frame,” is also available in stable version 116 of Microsoft’s Edge browser, which is also based on Chromium code.
Although this option has been available for some time now, and has now also been made a default setting, it will probably take some time before Google decides to implement it also in the stable version of Chrome (currently version 120 which has also brought with it a restyling of the interface) which, as officially announced in recent days, from next January 4 will begin to limit third-party cookies. Google plans to eliminate the use of third-party cookies altogether for all users during the second half of 2024.
With Chrome 121 beta, however, Google is testing several features based on generative AI. At the moment, however, we still don’t know when this beta will be released to the public in a stable version.