Google fixes Chrome issue that broke text highlighting on some sites

The latest version of Chrome (Version 131.0.6778.86) has addressed an issue in the browser that broke the ability to highlight text on some websites over the weekend, Google’s Scott Westover confirmed to The Verge in an email.

We tested the change, and found that we were able to highlight text within stories on sites like Bloomberg and The Verge, and in the post composer on X, both in updated Windows and Mac versions of Chrome. It’s not clear whether the change applies to other Chromium-based browsers, such as Arc, which continues to be affected in our testing.

Westover says the update has gone out to all users. To see the change, you’ll need to restart Chrome; if text highlighting still isn’t working, you can check the Chrome version number in the app’s “About” menu.

Here’s text highlighting working on our story from yesterday about the issue:

Screenshot: The Verge

The issue, which cropped up with the Chrome 131 update last week, was related to the way the selection styling tool Tailwind CSS implemented text highlighting. Users affected by it could still select text, there was just no visual indication you’d done it.