If your iOS Chrome browser has been crashing a lot lately, fear not — Google is releasing an update to Chrome that reduces crashing by 70%.
According to a Chromium blog post, the open-source browser project that Google bases Chrome off of, Chrome 48 is a much more stable and faster app than the previous version. With the release of iOS 8 in September 2014, Apple introduced an updated engine that allowed Google to tinker with the Chrome app to make some much-needed improvements.
As a non-default browser in iOS, Chrome has to provide a stable and well-performing app in order to attract people away from the built-in Safari app, which recently had to fix its own crashing issues. According to StatCounter, Chrome has continued to beat out Safari as the favorite mobile and tablet browser worldwide, and increased stability and speed could help Chrome hold that title.
The Chrome update, according to the blog post, effectively localizes crashes. When something goes wrong on a webpage or the phone reaches its memory cap, only that problematic process will crash — instead of the whole app.
The update also improves its handling of HTML and JavaScript, which are essential programming languages on the web. You’ll be able to notice this improvement with faster and smoother scrolling, as well as tabs reloading less often when switching between them.