Google is aiming at improving the scrolling experience in its Chrome browser using a standard that was first introduced by Microsoft for its Internet Explorer browser.
Scrolling performance and general touch support for Chrome browser on a Windows tablet has not been impressive and Google aims to fix that by supporting Microsoft’s Pointer Events standard.
A report in The Verge stated that Google has traditionally focused its efforts on supporting Touch Events, a method used by Apple in its Safari browser. Microsoft, Mozilla, and Opera have all adopted Pointer Events.
Now Google has announced that based on the feedback from the web community, it has decided to bring in the change. With support for Pointer Events, scrolling and touch interactions should improve dramatically in Chrome.
Google’s Rick Byers said,”replacing all touch event handlers with pointer event handlers will address the main longstanding source of scroll-start jank we see on Android.” The company is optimistic that it will be able to implement the new standard alongside its existing Touch Events support without affecting performance.
However, users will not be able to see the change immediately as Google will take time to build the support and test it with nightly and weekly versions of Chrome.