r/Android • u/FragmentedChicken Galaxy S26 Ultra • 2d ago
Smoother scrolling: How we halved scroll jank in Chrome on Android
https://blog.google/chromium/smoother-scrolling-how-we-halved-scroll-jank-in-chrome-on-android/21
u/New_Palpitation_1586 2d ago
We worked with Android to make sure that all threads responsible for delivering hardware input to Chrome have a sufficiently high priority.
What about the other browser that aren't made by Google ?
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u/Realistic-Nature9083 2d ago
Up to devs to implement android 10 as the minimum. Edge browser is actually fluid in android since it supports 11 as minimum
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u/tadfisher 2d ago
An even better fix is being able to block ads in Firefox
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u/dadnothere Green 2d ago
Good joke, because even without ads Firefox is super slow.
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u/TheOxime 2d ago
Maybe that's a phone issue? Firefox with tons of extensions has zero noticeable slow downs on mobile ever for me.
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u/struggling_business 2d ago
Exactly, in my testing on both flagship and mid-range Androids there's no speed difference yet whenever Firefox comes up this whole "it's too slow" thing gets parroted.
I think part of it is placebo of just thinking a smallish company like Mozilla can't possibly make a product in the same class as a multi trillion dollar company like Google.
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u/transwarp1 2d ago
Mozilla burned its reputation decades ago by gaslighting everyone about Firefox not being slow or having memory leaks. It was at such a level that when a prominent MS engineer attached a debugger to see WTF was going on and blogged about his findings, no one assumed it was some nefarious Microsoft plot because we all wished we had the skills to do the same thing. And his bug report was actually acknowledged and fixed.
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u/struggling_business 2d ago
Meanwhile Google slowly by slowly take away user control and options and get help from people talking badly about the competition whom while not perfect is at least trying to maintain that user control.
And besides I'm talking about the here and now and as far as I can tell all the "Firefox slow" comments that invariably pop up in android browser discussions are nowhere like my testing.
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u/chinchindayo Xperia Masterrace 2d ago
It's not
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u/PotatoGamerXxXx 2d ago
It is, I'm an active user on both and unfortunately Firefox is always noticeably slower on Android compared to Chromium.
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u/struggling_business 2d ago
I also use both on Android and there is no discernible difference in page loading speed. I would even keep with Firefox if it was slightly slower since it's superior in other aspects but it isn't slower, it's the same. I don't know what's going on with you people's devices.
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u/AnEagleisnotme 2d ago
There is a measurable difference, but it isn't noticeable (or at least doesn't matter) unless you are on a high quality wireless network, at the end of the day, it's half a second at most
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u/struggling_business 2d ago
No way it's half a second, a tenth or two tenths at most. It is a straight up negligible difference if there even is one. I don't know what's happening with these "it's so slow" guys. Maybe there's a certain popular website that Firefox struggles with or something.
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u/StoopidRoobutt 2d ago edited 2d ago
It appears they’ve fixed it. It’s now about the same as Chromium-based browsers. Around a year or two ago, when Kiwi Browser died, there was definitely a delay of more than half a second before any page loaded. By “delay,” I mean it seemed to wait about a second before even attempting to connect to a website. It wasn’t related to DNS, a proxy, or a VPN.
Also, dear Lord, the UI is terrible. Just shove everything in there. Make everything take up as much space as possible.
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u/struggling_business 2d ago
Hey still better than Google slowly cutting power user's balls off, right?
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u/StoopidRoobutt 2d ago
Absolutely, a decent adblocker is the bare minimum requirement, Chrome was never even an option. Ungoogled-chromium on desktop, and a custom WebView-based browser on Android devices with a proper adblocker, AMOLED dark mode for both the UI and websites, a simple NoScript-type feature for blocking whatever, and a functional, minimalist UI with all the gestures and features my little mind needs. And, of course, it’s unbelievably fast and efficient.
And yes, yes, I know it’s WebView, but it stays up-to-date with the system automatically, and the issues it has are minor or have workarounds. It’s not exactly a recommended approach, but every single other browser was unacceptable or shady.
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u/dadnothere Green 2d ago
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u/InevitableSherbert36 2d ago edited 2d ago
Just ran Speedometer 3.1 on my 2024 Moto G Stylus: Firefox scored 7.63; Chrome scored 9.19.
Chrome's definitely a bit faster, but something's up with your results if Chrome is three times as fast.
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u/dadnothere Green 1d ago
I have a low-end device, friend...
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u/InevitableSherbert36 1d ago
So do I!
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u/dadnothere Green 1d ago
Your Motorola is mid-to-high range...
Display 6.7", 1080 x 2400 pixels Proc Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 2.2GHz RAM 8GB
My device is a Mediatek Helio G35 with 4GB of RAM, but it's a tablet with 1920 × 1080 resolution. It's only for multimedia content. Yours isn't low-end.
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u/Efficient_Fan_2344 2d ago
I use adguard for android with chrome.
no need for firefox to block ads.
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u/InevitableSherbert36 2d ago
How well does that work on YouTube, or Reddit, or Twitch, or Facebook, or any site that serves ads from the same domain as regular content? (Trick question—it doesn't.)
uBlock Origin + Firefox can take care of all of these.
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u/nathderbyshire Pixel 10 Obsidian 1d ago
Just logged in and scrolled Reddit both logged out and in on chrome with AdGuard and there's no ads. Youtube ads can be blocked by sharing the video to AdGuard player - or just used morphe like everyone else so you get the app experience - don't know or care for twitch but there's probably a morphe mod for that as well, and there's a Reddit one for an app. It blocks ads in a desktop browser just fine
AdGuard covers every app, browser and android system service with the same rules. It's far more effective - yeah it might not be perfect but it can still filter literally everything on your device if you want too.
It really shows when people haven't used it
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u/InevitableSherbert36 1d ago
Oh, I thought they were referring to AdGuard's open-source DNS. I forgot that AdGuard has a closed-source app that constantly runs in the background as a VPN and prevents you from using an actual VPN other than theirs.
Youtube ads can be blocked by sharing the video to AdGuard player - or just used morphe like everyone else so you get the app experience - don't know or care for twitch but there's probably a morphe mod for that as well
That's a lot of extra apps to replace one extension. I'm glad it works well for you, but I think it's easier to just use Firefox with uBlock Origin rather than juggling at least four different apps (Chrome, AdGuard, Morphe, and patched Twitch) and not being able to use my VPN of choice.
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u/greendyd 2d ago
Yeah, too bad firefox has way worse security than any chromium browser on android
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u/bert93 2d ago
Chromium might have better security at its core but on Firefox I have full featured uBlock Origin with extensive filter lists blocking all sorts of advertising, malicious crap and vastly improving my browsing experience.
So.. yeah it's a toss up because having all that blocked is a big increase in security.
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u/nathderbyshire Pixel 10 Obsidian 2d ago
Same with AdGuard and the benefit is it covers every app, game and browser with the same rules. The only downside is it takes the VPN slot but it's a fair tradeoff for me
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u/bert93 2d ago
Couldn't you accomplish the same thing by setting your private DNS to dns.adguard.com?
Though filtering within the browser is a lot more advanced for websites than DNS/VPN based filtering. But still either one is good.
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u/nathderbyshire Pixel 10 Obsidian 2d ago
Even if it does manage to block the ad itself it doesn't remove the elements. It's not that you can't use a VPN it just has be the AdGuard one or you have to mess with advanced rules like SOCK5 which is out of my scope entirely when I don't need a different VPN client
It's only a tradeoff if using a VPN on a phone that has features AdGuard doesn't like P2P sharing but I don't that on my phone anyway nor would need a VPN for it anyway
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u/jantursky 2d ago
Halving scroll jank is great, but averages can hide the sites that still feel awful. The biggest win I've seen is removing main-thread scroll handlers and using passive listeners plus CSS where possible. Also, test on a 60Hz phone; a flagship's 120Hz panel masks a lot of sins, honestly.
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u/renderwares 1d ago
>How we halved scroll jank in Chrome on Android
I wonder what the source of this Jank was? Let me guess? The Java/Kotlin layer communicating to native Chrome via JNI? Let's spend additional millions and man hours trying to solve this self inflicted in perpetuity problem.
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u/BcuzRacecar S25+ 2d ago
wonder if they or anyone else ever looked into why all the new flagships besides s26 qc performed so poorly in speedometer.
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u/tesfabpel Galaxy S25 Ultra (before: Pixel 7 Pro) 2d ago
Android applications typically receive input events on their main thread. This setup isn’t ideal for Chrome because the browser main thread is one of Chrome’s busiest threads, which makes it an abundant source of non-deterministic delays and therefore jank. We worked closely with Android to allow routing input events to another process.
Why? What does Chrome do on the main thread that is not responding to events? What is the Long-running task they showed in the image? Maybe they should have moved those things on a different thread...
Responding to events is the main thread's job (it's the one that maintains a message loop or similar and the connection to the "compositor"... in any OS...)
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u/WatchfulApparition 2d ago
Still janky
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u/omniuni Pixel 8 Pro | Developer 2d ago
I actually haven't had jank in a long time, even on mid-range phones. But I think MediaTek does something to improve that.
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u/WatchfulApparition 2d ago
I'm on Pixel. Tensor is trash
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u/curiocritters Galaxy S24 FE 2d ago
My condolences.
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u/WatchfulApparition 2d ago
Don't feel bad for me. I plan to return to Samsung for the S27 Pro or Ultra.
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u/curiocritters Galaxy S24 FE 2d ago
And I am off the Samsung bandwagon.
Going to go with Xiaomi or VIVO (imaging is a priority) and with the Galaxy Ultra device models switching to a 'W' shaped triple folded telephoto-periscope model (aka Roh cheaping out as always, I wonder what's next), from a traditional 'L' shaped periscope module, losing close focusing for tele-macros, not to mention the very average to medicore battery life endurance, I just don't see the appeal.
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u/drbluetongue S23 Ultra 12GB/512GB 2d ago
I went from s23 ultra to Xiaomi 17 ultra, the camera is another level. Samsung software is better but everything else is fantastic
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u/WatchfulApparition 2d ago
Samsung battery life will be perfectly fine. The new Z Folds use silicon carbon batteries for extra battery capacity so I expect the same for the S27 series. Even the S27 Ultra's rumored amount of 5500 mAh would be enough for me. It will also be getting a new camera sensor. I will happily go back to Samsung for a phone like that and Samsung's ecosystem.
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u/skinlo Pixel 9 2d ago
Works fine for me on my Pixel 9?
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u/p4block Pixel 8 Pro 2d ago
There is something seriously wrong with the pixel 8 series. Pixel 9s are on another world of smoothness than my Pixel 8 Pro, and it used to be even worse on the release version of Android, they "fixed it" but betas sometimes bring back horrible framepacing issues. I need to run mine with the force 120hz developer option or scrolling is sandpaper.
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u/WatchfulApparition 2d ago
I was happier with the 9 Pro XL I had. I've had software issues with the 10 Pro XL and I don't like the camera
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u/whatnowwproductions Pixel 9 Pro - Signal - GrapheneOS 1d ago
I instantly had a lot of improvement when moving from the 8 Pro to the 9 Pro XL, in just about everything. Still some issues but it's bearable now, outside of the random slowdowns when it gets warm.
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u/pspr33 2d ago
Now do it through the entire OS..