You can use a dark theme:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/themes

I don't want to use a dark theme. I want to have default settings that are not user hostile.

The main problem is the lack of contrast in the entire theme, and how the inactive tabs are merged and confused with the window chrome, making it extremely difficult for me to identify the tab I want to click. 

The dark theme does not solve this problem. 
The dark theme also makes the distinction between a normal and incognito tab also harder to identify. 

By the way, the lack of contrast in the dark themes in the store are even worse, they make it even more difficult to distinguish active as well as inactive tabs, and also makes buttons and text in the interface much more difficult to read. 

Contrast ratios in general should meet WCAG standards.  In particular we try to ensure that tab titles always hit at least ratio 4.5.  So it shouldn't be true that the default theme lacks contrast.  If you think something is wrong in your case I can verify a screenshot.

In terms of identifying background tabs, we didn't see any major problems surface with this in user testing, but every individual is different.  We've also seen that people's reactions shift over the initial time spent using Material Refresh; for how long have you been using the new theme?

This is how the address bar looks like on my primary display.
It is not a very fancy, expensive, new super high quality display. But
it is the one I have.

While on software you might be respecting your whatever contrast
ratios, they look like this to me. Picture was taken with phone, but
this is extremely close to what I'm experiencing.

The image attachment was lost. I attached it to this post. 

Deleted: Snipaste_2018-12-05_17-37-42.png 456 KB

	Snipaste_2018-12-05_17-37-42.png 456 KB View Download

You used to be able to change the UI back by setting #top-chrome-md to normal but it looks like they took this out in Chrome 71. 

Why cant chrome have an option to have the tabs go back to the normal/better shape so people can discern them better?

FWIW you can customize each color individually via theme editor:
http://www.themebeta.com/chrome-theme-creator-online.html

Switching to brave now.

Thanks for the final push off the cliff google. 

chrome://flags UI Layout for the browser's top chrome = normal is gone 

So am I.

I would like to note that my complaint does not have anything to do with
the shape or styling of the tab.
In fact, the only reason why I requested to return to the old theme is
because the other theme does not have these accessibility issues.

The issue has only to do with contrast and the colors, with how (1.) this
specific choice of colors looks like on monitors with limited color and
contrast display, due to the lack of disctintion between the blinding white
and the light grey overlay of selected and hovered items, and on how the
(2.) background tabs being the same color as the window frame makes it
difficult to use the browser on my computer, and makes the text harder to
read.

This is absolutely not a question of taste and opinion, in fact I have no
problem with the shape, this complaint is strictly an accessibility issue.


On Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 15:50 matt.rou… via monorail <
monorail+v2.1141236380@chromium.org wrote: