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I can't properly express how disappointed I am by this release. Chrome on mobile has been a redheaded stepchild for almost a year, with the vague promise that b

by jsnell 14y ago

I can't properly express how disappointed I am by this release. Chrome on mobile has been a redheaded stepchild for almost a year, with the vague promise that big improvements would be coming once they merged with mainline Chrome. But this new beta version seems to solve absolutely none of the issues that Chrome on Android has been suffering from: - Password sync is still not supported. This is absolutely insane, especially since it's apparently supported by iOS. Typing secure password on a touch keyboard is a total pain, and even more so to do it again for every single device. - The much touted smart resizing of text is still completely broken. It still semi-randomly decides that particular bits of text on a page are unimportant (e.g. due to the paragraph being small) and resize them to an unreadable size. Often these elements are actually the most important ones on a page. - The "zoom + double tap resize text" idiom from just about all other Android browsers (including the original default browser) is still not there, which increases the pain caused by the stupid text resizing algorithms. - The edges of the screen are still wasted on the useless unsymmetric tab switching gestures. Ok, unlike the other things, I didn't seriously expect that this would change. Still a bummer :-( I can't believe Google removed the real browser from Android 4.2 if they're really going to leave Chrome as a cute toy with nothing going for it but a couple of easily demoable features.

kklimonda 14y ago
> - The much touted smart resizing of text is still completely broken. It still semi-randomly decides that particular bits of text on a page are unimportant [...] Is this the reason why some HN comments are displayed using a smaller font than the rest of them? I always thought it had something to do with their score.. EDIT: > - The edges of the screen are still wasted on the useless unsymmetric tab switching gestures. Tab switching seems to be affected by your phone case.. when I removed mine from S3 it worked perfectly, but with it I can never reliably switch tabs.
- jsnell 14y ago
  Yes, that's the reason. From what I can tell a sub-0 score (and thus low contrast) would be one reason why Chrome would shrink the text. But that's fine. The real killer is the heuristic that heavily shrinks divs that only contain a couple of sentences of text. Annoying on HN. Even worse on some other sites, where useless help text gets blown up to a huge size, while the login controls are shrunk to near-invisibility. The tab switching is completely reliable on a Nexus 4. It used to be almost impossible to get to work on a Nexus S. My issue with it is that tab switching is simply not an important operation on a mobile browser, and having it completely take over the most valuable real estate (the edges) of a phone is silly. The proper Android browser had an option to get these incredibly convenient quick controls from the edges, which could be used also for operations like accessing bookmarks or reloading the page.
  - markmark 14y ago
    On the other hand the fantastic tab switching is the killer feature of Android Chrome for me and the reason I use it over the many other options.
eprom 14y ago
> - The edges of the screen are still wasted on the useless unsymmetric tab switching gestures. No idea, if it's the same case for you, but I've had trouble with it being unsymetric (edge in from the right works but not the left) and later realized this is caused by Smart Statusbar, and not a bug of Chrome itself.
CrazedGeek 14y ago
Google didn't actually remove the stock browser from 4.2, they just removed it from the Nexus devices. Like Calendar and Music, it's still in AOSP: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Browser/+/jb-mr1-release https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Brow... It's still silly, though.
- polshaw 14y ago
  More specifically, it's just the nexus 4 (and 10?). Does this mean that HTML apps (phonegap etc) will use the chrome engine on the nexus 4?
  - ephemient 14y ago
    Browser's gone from the stock image on the Nexus 4, 7, and 10. android.webkit.WebView is still the same Android WebKit engine that Browser used (whether it's installed or not); Chrome brings along its own WebKit port.
Kiro 14y ago
You're missing the most obvious point: it's slow and jerky as hell. Almost unusable compared to the Android stock browser.
- deleted 14y ago
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by jsnell 14y ago

kklimonda 14y ago

> - The much touted smart resizing of text is still completely broken. It still semi-randomly decides that particular bits of text on a page are unimportant [...] Is this the reason why some HN comments are displayed using a smaller font than the rest of them? I always thought it had something to do with their score.. EDIT: > - The edges of the screen are still wasted on the useless unsymmetric tab switching gestures. Tab switching seems to be affected by your phone case.. when I removed mine from S3 it worked perfectly, but with it I can never reliably switch tabs.

jsnell 14y ago
Yes, that's the reason. From what I can tell a sub-0 score (and thus low contrast) would be one reason why Chrome would shrink the text. But that's fine. The real killer is the heuristic that heavily shrinks divs that only contain a couple of sentences of text. Annoying on HN. Even worse on some other sites, where useless help text gets blown up to a huge size, while the login controls are shrunk to near-invisibility. The tab switching is completely reliable on a Nexus 4. It used to be almost impossible to get to work on a Nexus S. My issue with it is that tab switching is simply not an important operation on a mobile browser, and having it completely take over the most valuable real estate (the edges) of a phone is silly. The proper Android browser had an option to get these incredibly convenient quick controls from the edges, which could be used also for operations like accessing bookmarks or reloading the page.
- markmark 14y ago
  On the other hand the fantastic tab switching is the killer feature of Android Chrome for me and the reason I use it over the many other options.

eprom 14y ago

> - The edges of the screen are still wasted on the useless unsymmetric tab switching gestures. No idea, if it's the same case for you, but I've had trouble with it being unsymetric (edge in from the right works but not the left) and later realized this is caused by Smart Statusbar, and not a bug of Chrome itself.

CrazedGeek 14y ago

Google didn't actually remove the stock browser from 4.2, they just removed it from the Nexus devices. Like Calendar and Music, it's still in AOSP: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Browser/+/jb-mr1-release https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Brow... It's still silly, though.

polshaw 14y ago
More specifically, it's just the nexus 4 (and 10?). Does this mean that HTML apps (phonegap etc) will use the chrome engine on the nexus 4?
- ephemient 14y ago
  Browser's gone from the stock image on the Nexus 4, 7, and 10. android.webkit.WebView is still the same Android WebKit engine that Browser used (whether it's installed or not); Chrome brings along its own WebKit port.

Kiro 14y ago

You're missing the most obvious point: it's slow and jerky as hell. Almost unusable compared to the Android stock browser.

deleted 14y ago
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