Chrome 148 Beta for Android adds Web Serial, SharedWorker support

Google has released Chrome Beta 148 (148.0.7778.4) for Android on April 8, 2026, with the build now available through Google Play. In the short release note, Google confirmed the rollout and pointed users to Chromium logs and broader feature documentation for what is new in the milestone.

Chrome 148 beta reaches Android

The Android beta release note is brief and does not include a detailed feature-by-feature changelog of its own. Instead, Google links out to the broader Chrome 148 beta documentation, where the company says that the milestone’s new beta-channel changes apply to Android, ChromeOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Android-specific additions include Web Serial API and SharedWorker

Among the changes explicitly tied to Android, Google says Web Serial API support is now available on Android. The company describes the API as a way for web apps to connect to serial devices, including hardware exposed through USB and Bluetooth connections that emulate a serial port. Google highlights use cases in education, hobbyist projects, and industrial workflows such as robotics, mills, laser cutters, and 3D printers.

Google is also re-enabling SharedWorker support on Android in Chrome 148 beta. According to the company, SharedWorker had long been disabled on Android because of concerns around unpredictable process lifecycle behavior. Google now says those concerns may be less severe than previously thought, and Chrome 148 restores the feature while the team continues investigating lifecycle behavior. The same milestone also adds an extendedLifetime: true option for SharedWorker, intended to keep a shared worker active after current clients unload in some use cases.

Broader Chrome 148 web-platform changes are part of the release

Chrome 148 beta also brings a wider set of web-platform updates that Google says apply to the current beta release unless noted otherwise. These include lazy loading for and elements through the loading attribute, localized manifest members for web apps so names, icons, descriptions, and shortcuts can adapt to a user’s language and region, and the new Prompt API, which Google describes as direct access to a browser-provided on-device model with support for text, image, and audio inputs.

For Android users on the beta track, the immediate takeaway is that Chrome 148 is not just another test build. It also carries several notable platform-facing additions, with Web Serial API support on Android and SharedWorker’s return to Android standing out.