Chrome- March 8 Update
Posted by Kike, on Thu, 14 Mar 2013 3:48 GMT
Some time ago we set the Android stock Browser (AOSP) against the newly released Firefox and Chrome mobile browsers for Android. At that time Chrome and Firefox had just been released and were still undergoing a lot of tweaking and optimizing for mobile devices. Unfortunately, if you have sampled either of the browsers in the past few months you may have noticed that the browsers still felt sluggish and choppy compared to the AOSP browser despite scoring higher results in the browserbench benchmark. Chrome has had it especially badly, so much that one of the greatest weaknesses of the Nexus 4 was that it shipped with the Chrome Browser instead of the AOSP Browser, which upset many people. However, Google is looking to redeem the Chrome Broswer with the latest update which claims to drastically improve the performance of Chrome.

UI
Chrome's UI remains unchanged, which is a great thing considering the browser has a somewhat minimalistic approach and still manages to keep things pleasant to look at. The traditional swipe across the screen to switch tabs is still present, which is slightly easier to use than the AOSP browsers tabs button. Just in case you like to use that button Chrome comes with one, which acts in mostly the same way as the ASOP button. The difference here, again, is the looks; where the Chrome browser uses larger cards that display the page that is loaded the AOSP shows little rectangles with the same information. Really this is going to be a thing of preference, but in all honesty you can't go wrong with either browser, they both work and look just fine.
Performance
This area is where the Chrome browser has typically been weak. Loading pages on either browser is very quick, sometimes Chrome is a bit faster than AOSP but sometimes AOSP renders quicker than Chrome. It's extremely difficult to tell which browser loads faster, but in all honesty, both browsers are extremely quick.
Clearing the text when zoomed is just as quick in both devices. With faster phones both Browsers can adjust and render pages almost immediately with no problems.
Scrolling in Chrome has been quite bad for some time. However, after using the latest updated Chrome for a week I have noticed that Google did not lie, the scrolling performance and responsiveness of the browser has improved quite a bit. Scrolling up and down pages is every bit as smooth as it could possibly be, and pinch-to-zoom is equally as smooth. Where Chrome is still a little rough around the edges is in the fluidity of the UI. Say you are trying to swipe from one tab to another; the browser will still skip a few frames sometimes and stutter, which really ruins the experience. The UI looks nice, if it could respond as nicely as it looks I would have no problems recommending the Chrome Browser over the AOSP browser any day. However, until the UI is optimized to flow as nicely as the AOSP UI flows Chrome is still not good enough to take down the good old AOSP.
Chrome is a great browser, but until Google can make the entire experience flow the Chrome browser will not be able to overthrow the AOSP Browser. Google has made many improvements that noticeably affect the browser's performance but they still have somethings to improve before Chrome will feel like a next generation browser. This update shows that Google is working on improving their environment, which makes Android fans very excited; Google knows it needs to bring change and is working toward it.

Nikosite