Google Chrome for Android 2016: Browser Promises Faster, Smoother Playback and Less Battery Usage

By CP Contributor, Friday, August 05, 2016

Good news for Android users: Google will be rolling out Chrome 52 this week, and they can expect smoother video playback, faster loading time, and less battery usage to ensure that users get a more enjoyable experience.

The new Chrome built itself on Chrome 51, which did away with the Merged Tab feature.

Google said that Chrome plays over a billion hours of web video every week on websites such as Youtube, Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon, and much of it is done on mobile devices.

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Battery can be affected

This stands to reason as mobile browsers are often slow to load, and when video is involved, it's likely to drain much faster than normal. While loading largely depends on internet connection and hardware specification, battery can also be affected by software optimizations, according to the Tech Times.

As such, the popular web browser has been tweaked to support Data Saver Mode, which means that a lighter version of your video will be downloaded and played to save nearly half in data consumption.

While there are no figures yet, a demo clip showed that videos now start playing sooner and more smoothly. The battery also drains less upon streaming.

Changes for desktop

Google is also planning the same tweaks for its desktop equivalent. Chrome is notorious for its power issues on Windows, as has been previously pointed out by Microsoft. Meanwhile, Opera and Edge have been claiming superior power over Chrome.

Microsoft recently launched a lab-controlled test between Edge, Chrome, and Opera--one in an automated cycle on online browsing on popular site, and another on streaming video content--to demonstrate how quickly Chrome usage drains battery. The test showed that Chrome only ran a little over four hours compared to Microsoft Edge, which ran for seven hours.

Windows 10 improvement

In a statement to Verge, Google sought to address this issue and is now making 33 percent improvement on video playback on Windows 10, resulting in Chrome 53 being at par with other browsers (Safari, Firefox) in terms of power consumption.

So far, these tweaks are all anchored on HTML5 content, which means that videos that use plugins will not see any improvement. Google notes on its blog, however, that most content are shifting to HTML5. Users can enjoy the updates most noticeably on shorter videos, which make up the majority of web video content.

Android users can also expect Chrome 53 by September.