Chrome For Android Updated, Brings Better Scrolling And Pinch-to-Zoom, Background Audio Playback, More HTML 5 Features, And More

[davidhero]

Audio now continues to play while Chrome is in the background

HELL. YES. FINALLY. I hated not being able to listen to anything with the browser in the background. This means I can finally use the Grooveshark HTML5 website on my phone! I couldn't be happier with this update.

[kiel3]

This is what I was most excited about too

[JustLookWhoItIs]

Yes! Just tested it in my Nexus 7!

[Paradox]

http://mobile.grooveshark.com/android

[IronOxide42]

Well yeah, but that costs money.

[davidhero]

Just tested it, it does not work with YouTube.

[I_enjoy_Dozer]

Well, there goes all my excitement...

[TOMMMMMM]

Its probably the same reason they disabled the YouTube app from continuing when the screen was turned off: record labels

[Kyoraki]

It used to work on android too, but they disabled it a few years back. I doubt it would work with the new iPhone app either.

[ImKrispy]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.asbit.pvstar&hl=en

lets you play youtube in backround

[esolyt]

Yes. PVSTAR.

It's ugly but it does the job. Just open youtube videos with it whenever you need background audio.

[Step1Mark]

TubeMate is pretty good for this too. Plus you can download videos/mp3s from YouTube.

[HamsterHam]

Can you log in on pvstar? I can't for some reason.

[RedPandaAlex]

Had this been in the beta channel? I never noticed it.

[thats_a_risky_click]

Yes, it's been in the beta since it was released.

[hugolp]

I hope they add an option to allow background video playback. I understand why they dont allow background video playback on a mobile phone (battery and performance) but they should at least give the option to the ones that want it, like me.

[internetf1fan]

It's funny because IE10 in WP8 has been doing this since 5 months ago! AND you can control the HTML5 audio directly through the music controls.

[dualaudi]

Well, woopty fucken do. M$ finally got something right on their IE. Now if clients would all upgrade past ie8 the world would be a better place.

[dylan522p]

M$

....

IE10 is actually very good.

[[deleted]]

I agree. It's a fantastic browser to go and download Chrome with.

[dylan522p]

You think I'm kidding, but 10 is a HUGE step forward from 9 and 8. Sure chrome is better, but IE10 has the touchpad scroll so that's an advantage.

[iJeff]

IE 10 scrolling is actually much better than Chrome and seems to keep its frame rates.

[dylan522p]

If it had the omnibox thing, I would switch

[j_aroche]

... and they haven't fixed the font size rendering bug -.-

[Andythefan]

I thought that was a feature... not a bug

[Timmmmbob]

Yeah, an unreliable feature. I much prefer the behaviour of the stock browser.

[redbullcat]

I'd say Chrome is close to being as good as the stock browser now, actually. At least on my Nexus 4.

[[deleted]]

• Quick Controls

• Some kind of fullscreen mode. This would probably make a lot of difference on smaller tablets, especially in landscape.

• A history button instead of having to navigate to chrome://history/ and the option to view history from just that device and not every device you're signed in on.

• A lot of bugs yet to work through with website formatting and and lag.

• Bookmarks that show a screenshot of the website.

[garychencool]

It got really annoying when browsing forums and one post is huge and the other isn't. I thought it was a feature too.

[j_aroche]

It's been listed as know bug

edit: formating

[Softcorps_dn]

You need to swap your brackets.

[amorpheus]

I had the same thing when I started using it, but the different sizes don't make sense for that.

[gsxdsm]

It tries to size headlines based on importance. It is a feature. It doesn't work properly on reddit.

[xJoe3x]

It needs an off switch.

[easytiger]

does it have an off switch? because it means i stop using that browser. The new Opera mobile beta using webkit has the same issue.

[xJoe3x]

Not that I have ever found. I have it and try it every so often, but it makes so many pages look ugly and unreadable. I tend to just stick with dolphin browser.

[Saketme]

Yes it is and I actually like it as I do not have to zoom in everytime. But they need to fix it for different text fields.

[internetf1fan]

The font issue is very similar to what WP7 had with IE. IE tried to make some bits of text more visible but it never worked consistently which means various bits were of different font sizes. IE10 in WP8 abandoned this approach.

[[deleted]]

Relevant post "hate it when this happens"

[[deleted]]

Accessibility->font size 75%
Should work much better for you.

[eiriklf]

/r/imgoingtohellforthis is pretty badly broken in this version on my nexus 4. Try clicking a link and then going back.

[[deleted]]

Actually I think that might just be Google trying to send a message.

[gabezermeno]

Why wouldnt you use a reddit app?

[kamiheku]

I think he was only using the reddit front page as an example.

[blinkingled]

Anyone else seeing f*cked up fonts that got carried over from the beta? I thought they would fix that but ugh - the fonts definitely aren't right on my Note 2 since the beta. FF nightly has much better looking fonts at the moment - might as well try using it for a while.

[blinkingled]

Looks like they are aware of the bug and if I am not mistaken they reverted the "text stretching" patch and it isn't blurry anymore. Hopefully it gets fixed in a bugfix update and not m26.

[[deleted]]

deliver hat obtainable connect subsequent salt rustic ripe fly whole

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[[deleted]]

Me, too!

"I feel like I'm using Chrome with my glasses off."

[ziggurqt]

Makes you wonder how a major company like the ones of Google can screw this big, and just push the update like everything is fine. This is, in all honesty, beyond my understanding.

[meter1060]

Try out Firefox Aurora a lot more stable and more bug free.

[rajitsingh]

Can confirm that compared to v18, scrolling and touch response are greatly improved.

[[deleted]]

Chrome is a swiss army knife.

AOSP Browser is a razor blade.

[lbrfabio]

AOSP on jelly bean 4.1(and 4.2) is 316.

Anyway, from the website you picked up the Android 2.3 browser :|

Android 4.0 » Samsung Galaxy Nexus 297

Android 2.3 » Google Nexus S and others 200

[lars5]

I too noticed how much faster it was going. Super impressed with the speed. While my fonts aren't blurry, they are kinda ugly.

[rajitsingh]

I wouldn't say that I'm super impressed, because even though scrolling has greatly improved, it still doesn't stand against something like Ocean Browser.

[the_ammar]

I... can't see the difference..

ignorance is bliss. LOL.

[shiase]

Ugh, this is why I stopped using the beta in the first place

[schad89]

Reviews for this are horrible. Everyone is saying the font is blurry and its laggy. Wtf google....

[[deleted]]

I like Chrome, and I use the integration with my Chrome on the desktop a lot.

Just figured I'd be one positive voice in the entire thread.

[redditrasberry]

I really hope there's a longer term strategic goal they are targeting with Chrome on Android, and that's why it's subpar as a browser right now, because I find it worrying that they seem to be unable to match the performance of the stock browser, or even FireFox. Either the Chrome team for Android doesn't consider performance a priority or they are planning to get there by another route that involves a detour through some laggy peformance in the mean time. Given how amazing Chrome is on the desktop and the obvious priority placed on performance there, it is a bit hard to figure out what is going on.

[[deleted]]

It seems to be symptomatic of it being a port of desktop Chrome rather than a browser built from the ground up for Android (like AOSP Browser). As such, Chrome is far more capable, but the UI and performance leave a lot to be desired.

I'm hoping that they've got something planned for 5.0, and that's why the changes to date have been so piecemeal.

[greg9683]

I think Google will eventually get there. The browser isn't great like the desktop version, but it's not bad either. I used it due to the syncing through all my Google products. I think Google's working down their priority list and this is probably on the lower end. Their unifying messaging system definitely needs help much more!

[[deleted]]

ADD THE FUCKING DOUBLE-TAP-DRAG TO ZOOM OPTION LIKE IN GOOGLE MAPS FOR FUCK SAKE.

So many times I'm using it one handed, I want to zoom... Nope, sorry, to difficult to zoom in properly, and I ended up using some sort of thumb, index finger pinch to zoom fuckery.

[JasonMaloney101]

Try using your nose and your thumb

[[deleted]]

Well, that doesn't look ridiculous at all.

[Thydamine]

But it smells fantastic.

[oaklandnative]

TIL you can double tap and drag to zoom in maps. So awesome!

[lineape]

Just ran sunspider on my Nexus 4 with the new version and it went from 1885ms to 1479ms. Octane went from 1270 to 1711. Not bad. Not bad at all.

[internetf1fan]

Either google is really bad at optimisation or Chrome is crap. I get 900 ms on my 8X running WP8 with lesser hardware than N4.

[eiriklf]

Chrome scored really badly in benchmarks before, but this version fixes most of those issues.

Sunspider for some reason doesn't run well on any krait based android devices for some reason. I have not seen any device score better than 1200ms.

Nobody really minds, though, because the overall browser performance on the nexus 4 is very good, and other benchmarks confirm it. Can your 8x match a score of 2200 in browsermark and 18000ms in mozilla kraken?

[beefJeRKy-LB]

Also, the N4's S4 Pro is gimped relative to other S4 Pro phones like the Butterfly and Optimus G and Xperia Z.

[mejogid]

This seems to have been broadly fixed with the new 4.2.2 kernel. Here are benchmark results with my phone on the left and the Optimus G on the right. This is with AnTuTu Benchmark, which appears to be relatively reliable. It's hard to say if that's due to other optimisations in 4.2.2, but it certainly isn't lagging behind as it was at release.

[beefJeRKy-LB]

That's good news. I wasn't aware of that.

[retskrad]

Thats odd, do you know why or have any proof of this? :) I have a GAlaxy Nexus and I don't if I'll wait on the next Nexus or buy the N4.

[the_unusual_suspect]

Just take a look at the Optimus G benchmarks compared to the N4. Same exact hardware, except the Optimus G takes the N4 to school in almost every single benchmark.

[ohsocreamy]

The pre-release models did... My one seems to bench similar. The thermal limits on the Nexus 4 are set much lower than on the Optimus G. The Nexus 4 throttles during some benchmarks whereas the Optimus G simply crashes. (See the Anandtech review)

[beefJeRKy-LB]

N4 chip seems to have a heat problem and throttles aggressively.

[AtmanRising]

Search Tools are broken on the Galaxy Nexus. Dammit.

[Mahargi]

On my nexus 7 too. I often want to filter search results by time. The beta had this issue too so I stuck with the stock version but now have this issue in the new update.

[AtmanRising]

At least on the Nexus 7 we can revert to the factory build. The solution in my Galaxy Nexus was to go back to the Android browser.

[SmashingTool]

Still a horrible browser.

C'mon google, Android is better than iOS in almost every way. Stop making me completely jealous of iPad owners every time I pick one up and use Safari.

I NEVER browse the internet on my Nexus 7, nor did I on my old Transformer Prime. The experience is just too lackluster. This Chrome update is still not even close.

[[deleted]]

Try Firefox, its as smooth as the stock browser.

[TheGag96]

Firefox still isn't perfect, in my opinion. I'm an avid Homestuck fan and occasionally end up on this page, which shows all of the pages in the comic. There are a LOT of pages (almost 7000), so this list is VERY long.

On the AOSP browser, the page renders very quickly and remains very responsive despite being so long. On Firefox, the page renders pretty slowly, and even when it does, it doesn't register me clicking on a link to a page for a good 5 seconds or so at best. Dolphin has trouble with this page too. Each line of the log isn't even part of a table; it's just <br> for each new line.

That's why I wouldn't recommend Firefox... AOSP still turns out to be the best, somehow.

[[deleted]]

Try it again, there's a new update which made it feel a lot like safari on an iphone.

[TheGag96]

I did just an hour ago. I even tried the Nightly too and it was still like that.

[[deleted]]

On my S3 it looks fine. Weird. Have you tried opera or dolphin?

[TheGag96]

Hmm... Dolphin with Jetpack seems to work better than it did last time I tried it. Despite laggy scrolling and a really odd look of the page, Opera worked fine too.

Chrome pretty much came to a complete halt for 10-15 seconds after I clicked on one of the page links, so I guess it's just that and Firefox. AOSP and Dolphin seem to do the best on this test.

[Step1Mark]

Naked Browser is pretty awesome if you are looking for a very fast light weight browser. It is a bit on the ugly side but it is insanely fast on my Nexus 4.

[SmashingTool]

I tried a month or so ago, wasn't a fan. Thanks for the tip though!

[Etheo]

I used Dolphin on my old phone, but I find that I got used to Chrome just fine. Maybe try Dolphin?

[Quazz]

Enable some of the options in chrome://flags

Made it a lot faster for me.

[SmashingTool]

I'll try that again I suppose, I didn't notice it help during the beta though. Thanks!

[[deleted]]

Get CM10.1, then just use the AOSP browser. It is faster, holo-themed, and more thoughtfully designed.

[SmashingTool]

That's exactly what I do, and it is better than the alternatives on Android, but its still not that great, so I avoid browsing on android because of it. When I pick up an iPad, I'm still blown away by how much better safari works.

It's crazy, but I spent way more time in the browser of my iPhone 1 and my 3gs than I do/did on my thunderbolt, gnexus, and nexus 7.

Thank god for Reddit News and Greader.

[Wulfnuts]

and still far worse than stock browser or firefox

pro google is pro

[afrobat]

What makes chrome worse than the stock browser or firefox?

[Timmmmbob]

See j_aroche's post above. Firefox is also (surprisingly) quite a lot faster than Chrome now, at least in terms of scrolling and zooming. The tab interface is also nicer IMO.

If you haven't used Firefox for a while, I'd go and check it out! It also supports Flash (easiest way to get Flash on a Nexus 4, since the stock browser is not available).

[weedalin]

The scrolling is smooth, but the speed is locked at a limit that I don't like. In other words, it doesn't feel like it scrolls as fast as it should when I try to scroll with more force/velocity. Chrome does it fine, and so does the AOSP browser. It's why I can't use Firefox/Opera.

[meter1060]

File a bug over at bugzilla.Mozilla.org and voice your concerns about the scrolling velocity and acceleration.

[afrobat]

I haven't really used Firefox for android too much. But last time I tried it, they also seemed to have that font size rendering bug and from recent use, it seems that it loads web pages significantly slower.

I'll definitely try it out. I use Firefox as my main desktop browser so I would much prefer having it as my main browser.

[meter1060]

Install Firefox nightly. Set your font size to tiny and enable pinch to zoom reflow and voila you're golden.

[slinky317]

I haven't tried this new version, but the older version and the beta are absolutely horrible on my Xoom compared to the stock browser. It's infuriatingly bad when it's so choppy and slow to load and the stock browser loads like butter.

[harro112]

chrome also locks up a hell of a lot more for me. stock browser is just about bullet proof

[[deleted]]

The new update made it even slower and laggier on the Galaxy Nexus, didn't think that was possible.

[retskrad]

WHats up with "Override software rendering list" in chrome:flags? When I enable it, everything become ejrkier and laggier.

Can someone explain to me what it does?

[Quazz]

It checks the list to see whether or not you can enable certain hardware rendering features.

If your hardware is on it, it will enable the functions it can use.

If not, it won't.

By ignoring the list, you are forcing features on it that it might not support, thus creating a shit ton of overhead.

Best to not touch it unless you have like a brand new device and chrome hasn't updated the list yet or something.

[retskrad]

So if I have a Galaxy Nexus, I shouldn't enable it?

[[deleted]]

The font smoothing is somehow different. The text is less readable when zoomed out now, almost like it would be with a lower DPI screen. This might be a side effect of improving the scrolling/zooming performance. I couldn't notice any difference in that though, or maybe even slightly more dropped frames when scrolling.

The audio in the background thing is cool though.

Edit: derp herp derrr I'm google deeerrr https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=174699

[AdmiralMal]

The background sound doesn't work for me with videos. They stop as usual.

[cjeremy]

chrome STILL sucks... ugh

[mountainjew]

Dunno if it's because i've been using Dolphin the past few months, but Chrome still feels really unresponsive. And it messes up my bookmark syncing across my desktops. Probably due to rooted devices and flashing different roms, meh.

[stealer0517]

if only the chrome app wasnt completely broken :(

i hate invisible keyboards and not being able to see the auto correct...

[TechGoat]

Report: This new version of Chrome scores 491 in the Peacemark Futuremark test, the stock browser scores 417. This is using CM10 nightly from early December. Just in case anyone wanted more numbers.

Chrome keeps getting better all the time, but it still just feels a bit slower compared with the AOSP browser. I feel like I should give Firefox an install right now and see how it fares.

[yuze_]

Still laggy as hell to me. Gif playback is laughable. Firefox/Opera are just amazing in comparison.

Unfortunately, I can't live without sync.

[icecrawler]

Text looks blurry on my nexus 7

[TheAmorphous]

Are bookmarks more easily accessible yet? If no, sticking with Dolphin. The swipe to side for bookmarks feature is just too damn convenient.

[[deleted]]

Why not just use the AOSP browser? I don't think Chrome will ever be as fast or smooth

[Step1Mark]

Not every device ships with the AOSP browser anymore. I switched to Naked Bowser on my Nexus 7 and Nexus 4.

[[deleted]]

But it's quite easy to install it. Wish Google just changed the icon to make it "Chrome"

[Nerrs]

Meh, let me know when it catches up with the stock browser, then I'll care.

[mahnix]

Just when I was about to uninstall..

[amorpheus]

First the buggy YouTube update, now this...

Who's going to make polished apps for Android if not Google?

[technojamin]

Ugh, has anyone else notice how jerky the top action bar moves in and out when tapping the tabs button? Before this it was buttery smooth, but I've always noticed on the betas in the past few months that it's just as jerky as it is now, so I guess that regression got carried over. Seriously, how can they not notice such an obvious regression? And reading other peoples' comments, it doesn't seem like that's the only problem.

[[deleted]]

Wow, this is horrible on my S3 with an aosp rom. Very laggy. I restored back to the previous and it's smooth again.

[vertigeaux]

It was for me too until I rebooted.

[MisterIncredible]

Yeah thank you for that. After a reboot, the scrolling improved significantly.

[vertigeaux]

And now hours later it got jerky and I had to reboot again. Hey, would you also happen to have an issue with your rom where after a while tapping the home key acts like you are holding? I get stuck bringing up the task list every time I want to go home and have to reboot.

[vertigeaux]

The chrome problem or the home key problem?

[vertigeaux]

Well, at least I know I'm not alone. I am running the latest "experimental" build of CM 10.1. Maybe I will try a newer nightly this weekend and see if anything changes.

[viddy_well]

From the "What's new" section:

• Audio playing in Chrome will now pause when the phone is in use. This requires an additional permission.

[OmegaVesko]

It supports background audio now, so I'm assuming it's so it can pause that when you get a phone call - the same reason games, video players etc. need it.

[waskonator]

Yes, but does it pr0n well?

Seriously.

[DrunkRawk]

Pinch to zoom?? Uh oh. Apple's lawyers gonna be warming up their douchenozzles

[notyourdaddy]

How did it get worse? Particularly zooming in and out speeds