Wrench icon 🔧: What is the three dots or the Spring icon “⋮”

Hello and welcome back to Gossipfunda. Our topic for today is the wrench icon in Chrome. When it comes to browsers, Chrome is the choice of millions. Google Chrome was primarily built for Microsoft Windows, but now it’s ported to many other OS. Not to forget that Chrome is the built-in default browser for the Android OS. Chrome is a fast, effective, and lightweight browser that also has the “Lite” mode. Turning on the lite mode saves your data, and hence is very effective and handy.

What is the Wrench icon?

The older versions of Chrome had a Wrench icon(🔧 ), probably at the top right corner. On clicking on it, it opened the settings menu, history menu, and other stuffs. The Wrench icon is now replaced by the Spring icon “⋮”, or the three vertical bars that you get to see at the top right corner of the screen.

The Wrench icon in Chrome
The Wrench icon in Chrome

Chrome has greatly evolved since its first version. Its earlier versions contained the Wrench icon, the page icon, the hamburger icon. However, Google replaced the wrench icon with the 3 dots icon that does the task of all these.

How to restore the Wrench icon?

Well, there is no way you can do this. Using older Chrome versions is not recommended. This is because, in all aspects, the updated and new versions are better than the older ones. Be it in terms of speed, data saving, security, or whatever. The three dots icon does all the work that you can do with the Wrench icon in chrome. So, there is pretty much no requirement of getting back the Wrench icon.

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The purpose of the Wrench icon (now, the three dots or the Spring icon)

Well most of you are Chrome users, so this is nothing new. In fact, you may be even viewing this article in your Chrome browser. Still, let’s look at the function of the Spring icon.

So when you click on the Spring icon, this is the popup menu that appears.

The purpose of the Wrench icon (now, the three dots or the Spring icon)

Things that can be done with Spring button(Wrench icon) in Chrome

New Tab

When you click New Tab, or press Ctrl + T in Windows, a new tab is opened. A new tab refers to a fresh new page, where you can type an URL in the search bar and search for anything. You can have multiple tabs open in one window of Chrome.

New Window

When you click New Window, a brand new window of Chrome opens. This is different from new tab. A new tab opens in the same window. You can have same or different tabs running in each window.

New Incognito Window

On clicking New Incognito Window, a new window opens in Incognito mode. When you browse in Incognito mode, your search history, and cookie data are not saved. So, you can browse anonymously if you are browsing from a device that you don’t own. However, going incognito won’t make you visible. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) can still see the websites you visit. If required, the government can also get to know the list of the websites you visit and your other web activities.

New Incognito Window
New Incognito Window

History

When you press history, or Ctrl + H on your keyboard, your history page opens. This page contains a list of all the sites that you have visited. From here, you can selectively clear or clear all your history at once. Just click on “Clear history”, then select a time range. All your history data will be deleted.

Downloads & Bookmarks

The Downloads page contains all the files that you have downloaded from the internet. Irrespective of what file the downloads get stored in your computer or mobile (the Downloads folder in general), Chrome’s Downloads page also contains all of that you have downloaded.

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The Bookmarks section contains the list of bookmarked sites. You bookmark the sites that you would like to visit some time later, after exiting Chrome.

Zoom

The Zoom button lets you do what it says. It allows you to zoom the current or all web pages open in Chrome. You can use Ctrl + Scroll mouse wheel up to zoom in and Ctrl + Scroll mouse wheel down to zoom out as well.

Settings

The Settings page lets you configure Chrome’s settings. These include managing the Google accounts you are logged in with, switching Google accounts, your payment card details (if you have any saved), default Search engine, and so on.

Conclusion

That was all about the Spring button, which was formerly the Wrench icon in Chrome. In this article, we have discussed about all the functions and tasks that you can do from the menu of the Spring button. These can be done on your Android device as well as Windows PC, or any device running the Chrome browser. Cheers!

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