Google Chrome might soon get a built-in QR code generator to share URLs. This will initially be a desktop-only feature.

QR Code Generator

Google Chrome already has extensions that let you create QR code for website addresses. However, according to a code change request that I spotted today, this might soon become an official feature.

[QR Generator] Basic functionality for desktop. QR Code generation is being investigated to run OOP. Launch with a feature flag:
chrome –enable-features=SharingQRCodeGenerator

The bug associated with this code change also leaves no room for guesswork:

Issue 993908: [QR Generator] Basic functionality – right-click entry point should trigger a views dialog that has a QR code displayed and the URL which it corresponds to.

Further review of the code commit reveals that this feature will initially be available for the desktop version of Chrome. However, because it document says “currently desktop-only” makes me think that we will eventually see this feature coming to mobile versions of Chrome as well.

Usually, such changes come with chrome://flags entry to enable the feature. However, I don’t see a flag mentioned in today’s code. I shall update this post when this flag becomes available.

Is This Useful?

I can’t think of any instance where I needed to create a QR code from my browser. However, the top three QR code generator extensions have more than one million users.

Do you think this feature has something to do with sharing URLs and shared clipboards that we will see soon on Chrome?