Google will FINALLY solve Chrome’s laggy scrolling issue by using a Microsoft-made solution

Google has made many improvements to Chrome over the years to increase stability, add features and make it a much smoother experience, but one thing they have had trouble solving is the occasional lag and stutter you’ll get when strolling through a web page. No matter how many advancements they make in development and no matter how powerful your hardware is, it happens.

But it seems they’re finally looking to make the one move that should rid us of that evil once and for all. The company recently confirmed that they will look to implement the Pointer Events API, which is an all-encompassing standard for mouse, touch and stylus input. Microsoft, with help from Mozilla, was the company that originally proposed this new standard to the W3C.

Pointer Events offers some technical advantages over the existing use of Touch Events and Mouse Events.  Most notably, pointer event listeners never block scrolling, and so replacing all touch event handlers with pointer event handlers will address the main longstanding source of scroll-start jank we see on Android (irrespective of whatever scheduler improvements we’re able to make to better prioritize input handling).

Google was hesitant at first, but after folks started to see the benefits of Pointer Events (smoother scrolling, more responsive link and button presses and other various improvements) in the latest versions of Internet Explorer they urged Google to ditch the old Touch Events method they currently use. The response was so overwhelming that they practically had no choice but to agree.

So when’s it coming? That’s one question Google can’t answer just yet. The company says there are still a lot of technical challenges, constraints and risks they have to solve before implementing the API, and as such they aren’t giving any sort of timeline.

Whether it be here within the next few months or three years from now, it’s in the works, and that’s all we know. We’re just happy to know that they’re considering it at all, and we hope it’ll finally solve one of the most frustrating problems that comes with using Chrome for Android.

[via The Verge]

Google Chrome’s “Canary” dev channel can now be downloaded from Google Play

Google Chrome is always available in a few different states. One of those states is stable, and it has the latest features stable and fit enough for your everyday user. There’s also the beta channel, which brings you many new features ahead of their arrival to the stable channel.

But did you know there’s a third channel where you can be on the most bleeding edge of bleeding edge? It’s the “canary” channel, otherwise known as the dev channel. That channel is now available to download from Google Play if you’re brave enough to do so.

We say “brave” because although the development channel can be great for experiencing the latest Chrome features sooner than everyone else, it’s so bleeding edge that sometimes it is in a state not fit to be a daily driver. I personally haven’t had much of an issue with the development channel of the desktop version of Google Chrome, but the possibility of broken, incomplete and buggy features is always present.

But if you have not a care for that and just want to check out Google’s latest ideas and features as soon as they start working on them you can head right here to download it.

Google formally announces Chrome’s new tap to search feature, will support Asian languages eventually

After it began rolling out earlier this week, Google is now formally announcing their latest feature to hit Chrome: tap to search. If you haven’t noticed this yet, you basically tap anywhere there’s text on a web page and Google Search tab will appear near the bottom. If you slide it up, you’ll be presented with Google Search results straight from inside the Chrome web browser.

Since this is working in Chrome, Google knows the context of the word or phrase being searched, meaning if you search “Active” when visiting a page about the Galaxy S6 Active, it’ll pull up Galaxy S6 Active results. Well, at least that’s how it’s supposed to work. You can see it in action in the GIF down below.

It’s already rolling out to Android devices courtesy of the Chrome web browser so if you don’t have it yet, give it a download. While it’s only English at the moment, Google promises to have Asian languages covered in the near future so be on the lookout.

Chrome Browser – Google (Playboard) | Chrome Browser – Google (Play Store)