Google Search on Chrome for Android is now speedier than ever before

If you’re accustomed to using Google Search from within Chrome for Android, it looks like good news is headed your way. Ilya Grigorik, a developer at Google, announced in a Google+ post recently that Search on Chrome for Android will begin to fetch your search inquires roughly 100-150 milliseconds faster. Google is making this happen by enabling something called “reactive prefetch.”

Ilya Grigorik explains:

When you click on one of the search results, the browser begins fetching the destination page… and here’s the trick: we also provide a hint to the browser indicating which other critical resources it should fetch in parallel to speed up rendering of the destination page!

This means that instead of prefetching a ton of information when the user opens Search, Chrome for Android will now wait until something is clicked, then proceed with prefetching information. You’d think that 100-150 milliseconds wouldn’t make a big difference, but any time saved is a step in the right direction!

Reactive prefetch is currently only available on Chrome for Android, since it’s the only browser that supports prefetch hints, as well as reliably allows prefetch requests to go on throughout navigation.