Ever wonder why there’s a half-second pause before anything happens when you tap on a link in a mobile web browser? That’s because most browsers intentionally wait 300ms to see if you were planning to double-tap.
Now Google’s removing that delay from Chrome for Android. If you install Chrome Beta 32 or later, the delay should be gone when viewing many web pages.
Google developer Jake Archibald says the change shouldn’t affect pinch-to-zoom, but it does remove the ability to double-tap-to-zoom-a-little-bit on some pages.
What you get in the trade-off is a mobile browser that’s theoretically just as responsive as a desktop browser.
The change isn’t entirely new: Firefox and Chrome for Android had both already disabled the delay on websites that didn’t support zooming. But now it should work with any site featuring <meta name=”viewport” content=”width=device-width”> in its code. That should cover most websites with “responsive” design — which should include sites like Liliputing that are designed to change their layout based on the size of your screen.
Mozilla, meanwhile, has an open ticket to remove the 300ms delay in Firefox Mobile.
via Hacker News