Tag: Chrome for Android

Chrome for Android has a small update rolling out for users of the browser.  The update remains in the Chrome 57 train, with the version number updated to 57.0.2987.126.  The update is a minor one and mainly focuses on addressing a crash issue that some users were experiencing.  If you have been experiencing stability issues with the browser on your Android device, this update hopefully will address those issues for you.

In addition, the Chrome team indicated in the release notes that some improvements around CSS and performance regressions are in this update with the crash fix.

The Google Chrome team has posted on Google blog some improvements that are available in the browser today with other new features that are in the pipeline.  Starting now, with a behind-the-scenes change, the browsers Data Saver feature works on videos.  Previously, Data Saver worked on text and images and when you had the feature enabled, Google would compress everything before sending it to your phone.  Essentially it acted like a proxy and the data savings were huge.  Initially the company rolled this out in India given the bandwidth constraints and costs in that country but the feature has now rolled out globally.  Back to this update, if you enabled Data Saver and view a site with a MP4 video, that video is now compressed before it hits your phone, saving you that extra bandwidth.

If you haven’t tried Data Saver, you can enable it on Chrome by going to Settings>Data Saver and enabling it.  I have been using it for months and I’ve had no ill effects on sites plus I’m saving on average 55% of the bandwidth the sites I visit would have required.  It’s pretty impressive.