Chrome 59 for Android Brings Faster Page Load Times and More

Soon after the release of Chrome 59 for Windows, Linux, and Mac users, Google has now released Chrome 59 for Android users as well. The update brings security improvements, faster page load times, and much more. The more notable change includes full support for animated PNG files and a new Image Capture API.

Chrome version 59.0.3071.92 release contains performance and stability fixes, loads pages faster and uses less memory with an updated JavaScript engine. In April, Google claimed to have improved average page load times on Chrome by tweaking the V8 JavaScript engine bringing improvements over the course of the past year which has helped Chrome to load pages 10-20 percent faster on average than it did a year ago. For those unaware, V8 is Google's open source JavaScript engine has been written in C++ and is used in Chromium and multiple other embedding applications. This update furthers page load times on Chrome thanks to the updated JavaScript engine.

Chrome 59 for Android also introduces full support for aPNG which is basically similar to GIF format but comes with additional support for 24-bit images and 8-bit transparency as well. It caught developers’ attention after Apple adopted it in iMessages with iOS 10. Android Police reports that there is also the introduction of image capture API that essentially gives web pages more control over your device’s camera. The new API lets webpages choose between multiple cameras available on your device, zoom, use flash, and even focus on an image. It takes photos in full resolution as well, and as is the norm, it asks for permission to access the camera before performing the task.

Chrome version 59.0.3071.92 for Android has been released and will be available on Google Play over the course of the next week.