Google makes page reloads work 28 percent faster for Chrome on smartphones

Google has announced enhancements to the way reloading pages works on Chrome for smartphones. Originally, the reload feature was designed to fix broken pages, and refresh the page to represent new content that has been added since the last time the page was loaded. The existing methods for reloading a page, worked better with fixing broken pages, and was less efficient at representing added content, especially on mobile phones.

The conventional methods for page reloads checks with the server if the cached resources are still usable, a process known as validation. The validation process results in hundreds of requests per page issued to dozens of domains. On low latency connections, over cellular networks, this can result in serious performance issues for users, and result in an overall bad experience for web surfing.

The outdated methods for reloading pages is a relic from the time broken pages were very common on the web, and web pages have improved a lot since that time. It is now unnecessary to address both the problems, of broken pages and additional content, at once. Google now has a simplified Chrome reload behavior where the main resources are verified, and the rest of the content continues to be loaded.

The latest version of Chrome reloads pages 28 percent faster. Facebook had contacted Google engineers over a worrying problem where Chrome users were reportedly sending validation requests at three times the rate of users of other browsers. After the update, Facebook has reported that there has been a 60 percent reduction in validation requests from Chrome.