Do you have a screenshot of the previous color?  (I don't have a Linux box to take one.)

what theme are you using?

I don't use any. All related settings are default, as with a fresh profile.

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(That's pre-M51.)

PS. The bug happened before when Chrome switched to Aura. Perhaps a clue.

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=318485

I suspect you are using the gtk system theme then.

I tried classic, rather than GTK, but it's the same bug.

I currently use Ubuntu 14.04 and have Chrome 51 and Chromium 50 installed. See the screenshot for comparison.

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I think this regressed (intentionally or unintentionally) in https://crrev.com/9355b054f37315e5825faf9068dee0d16ba32b74

https://codereview.chromium.org/1764003002

> We use this intentionally because we're trying to avoid drawing attention to the
> status bar text.  We found early on that the status bar was super distracting
> and we want to at least minimize that effect.  It's been this was since at least
> 2009 on all non-Linux platforms, so I think it's fine; Linux just went under the
> radar.

If I read this correctly, other platforms have the same very low contrast? I can't verify right now, but I'm sure this isn't the case. Certainly not on Chrome OS (which doesn't count as Linux, or not as X11 more specifically).

looks like this on cros.

To contradict comment 7, on Linux with classic theme, it is indeed a little darker (matching this cros screenshot). In GTK theme mode your tab text is slightly lighter, hence your status bar text is slightly lighter.

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I don't have other OS at hand either, but perhaps this issue needs to be revisited.

My thoughts:

* Perhaps the status bar shouldn't be distracting, but it shouldn't hurt my eyes to try to read it either (consider accessibility! And different monitors have different contrast)
* Again, while the status bar shouldn't draw too much attention, being able to view a link's URL before clicking on it is a critical usability and security feature
* Lastly, I don't think the status bar is distracting at all on large monitors (>21") due to large screen real estate compared to an human eye's field of view.

I know in GTK, one can edit application GUI styles in CSS-like config files. Would be great if Chrome could be customized in a similar manner.

> Would be great if Chrome could be customized in a similar manner.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/themes

You're right, classic theme is slightly darker. I only checked briefly if classic theme is not not light, and didn't expect such a subtle difference. Still a tad too light IMO.

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> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/themes

I want the browser to blend with my OS, so I prefer using the GTK theme. I was wondering if I can customize the UI in the same way I can customize it for other GTK apps.

> I only checked briefly if classic theme is not not light, and didn't expect such a subtle difference. Still a tad too light IMO.


I also checked the Classic theme and indeed the status bar text is _slightly_ darker than in the GTK theme (the tab font color is significantly darker though), but the contrast is still not nearly as high as it was pre-51.

> I want the browser to blend with my OS, so I prefer using the GTK theme. I was > wondering if I can customize the UI in the same way I can customize it for 
> other GTK apps.

In GTK theme mode, we get colors from the system theme. If you're using a custom theme, you can specify whatever colors you want for various surfaces (including ones that would match your system theme). I'm not sure what extra customization you want.

> In GTK theme mode, we get colors from the system theme. If you're using a custom theme, you can specify whatever colors you want for various surfaces (including ones that would match your system theme). I'm not sure what extra customization you want.

I'm trying to understand what I need to change to get the contrast back in the status bar in the new version of Chrome

Since the current color is the default color when installing Chrome on
Ubuntu, I don't think users should be required to make custom themes
to get readable text. At the bare minimum, it should match other OSes,
which I guess it what will be implemented now.

this patch should help improve the situation: https://codereview.chromium.org/2018023002/#

Thanks so much pdknsk and estade for looking into this!

The following revision refers to this bug:
  https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/480bd209859e7848c6636638d4b4a6804bc6dc4f

commit 480bd209859e7848c6636638d4b4a6804bc6dc4f
Author: estade <estade@chromium.org>
Date: Fri May 27 18:46:26 2016

Modify status bubble text color.

Change from 50% alpha to 60% alpha as starting point (as per sgabriel's
recommendation).

Add a second step where we calculate a readable color. This doesn't
affect the classic theme but makes the text a little darker in some
cases (like GTK mode).

BUG= 615175 

Review-Url: https://codereview.chromium.org/2018023002
Cr-Commit-Position: refs/heads/master@{#396522}

[modify] https://crrev.com/480bd209859e7848c6636638d4b4a6804bc6dc4f/chrome/browser/ui/views/status_bubble_views.cc

I want to mark this as fixed but I anticipate there could still be tweaks in this area. I'll just leave it alone for a bit then come back and mark it fixed if everyone's reasonably happy.

I don't know the result yet, but I take it as being at least 10% (and
perhaps significantly more) darker than current classic theme, which
is OK with me.

PS. Please merge. Thanks.

low priority but also low risk merge

Your change meets the bar and is auto-approved for M52 (branch: 2743)

The following revision refers to this bug:
  https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/71494fd8723d7ed2f3414d09d7e0f52eaa9ae2dc

commit 71494fd8723d7ed2f3414d09d7e0f52eaa9ae2dc
Author: Evan Stade <estade@chromium.org>
Date: Wed Jun 01 21:49:56 2016

Modify status bubble text color.

Change from 50% alpha to 60% alpha as starting point (as per sgabriel's
recommendation).

Add a second step where we calculate a readable color. This doesn't
affect the classic theme but makes the text a little darker in some
cases (like GTK mode).

BUG= 615175 

Review-Url: https://codereview.chromium.org/2018023002
Cr-Commit-Position: refs/heads/master@{#396522}
(cherry picked from commit 480bd209859e7848c6636638d4b4a6804bc6dc4f)

Review URL: https://codereview.chromium.org/2036443002 .

Cr-Commit-Position: refs/branch-heads/2743@{#173}
Cr-Branched-From: 2b3ae3b8090361f8af5a611712fc1a5ab2de53cb-refs/heads/master@{#394939}

[modify] https://crrev.com/71494fd8723d7ed2f3414d09d7e0f52eaa9ae2dc/chrome/browser/ui/views/status_bubble_views.cc