Latest Beta Version of Chrome for Android comes with Chromecast Compatibility

by Popa Loredana · March 5, 2014

There is no mystery that Google has been improving the capabilities of the Chromecast by opening up app access with the SDK, but the story is about to continue and more surprises are waiting for us. Why shouldn’t first-party apps having their own role to play in this story? That’s exactly what the latest Beta version of Chrome for Android is supposed to offer: Chromecast capability for YouTube videos. Moreover, this function is expected to work standard HTML5 video as well, without needing a laptop to cast web videos to your television anymore. The idea sounds more than interesting, but we must tell you that this feature isn’t immediately available for use, but actually hidden away within in the beta.

Enable the new functionality

This isn’t a reason for you to be worried about; not at all. We can assure you that it is extremely easy to enable the new functionality and here’s what you have to do:

Chromecast Compatibility for YouTube Videos

You must start by opening Chrome Beta and by typing ‘chrome://flags/#enable-cast’ in the URL bar in order to manually turn on the experimental feature on the displayed notification;
Relaunch Chrome Beta and and Chromecast support should be now activated;
It’s time to go to YouTube and check out a video, making sure not to launch the stand-alone YouTube app’ now you’ll see the square Chromecast icon overlaid onto the video, just as it usually happens on any other compatible video app.

Just a Beta Release

We want to be honest from the start and warn you about the fact that this is a beta release, which means that the casting function isn’t completely reliable on all HTML5 videos. And yes, casting from Chrome Beta can be considered buggy at the moment, but some small issues are common in such a situation. Just see the bigger picture here: if this latest Beta version of Chrome for Android can come with Chromecast compatibility for YouTube Videos, who knows what will happen next? This Beta version and its ability is just a sign of new things to come.