Chrome scrolling is going to be smoother (eventually) thanks to a new API

It looks like scrolling is about be smoother in Chrome, as Google plans to integrate Microsoft's Pointer Events API into the browser.

While there's no timeline for when the API will be implemented, the end result should be less jank when scrolling through a website in Chrome.

The Chromium team notes that though it initially decided to focus on improving existing APIs, feedback from developers has swayed them to adopt the Pointer Events API that is already in use in Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Opera. From the Chromium Google Group:

Pointer Events offers some technical advantages over the existing use of Touch Events and Mouse Events. Most notably, pointer event listeners never block scrolling, and so replacing all touch event handlers with pointer event handlers will address the main longstanding source of scroll-start jank we see on Android (irrespective of whatever scheduler improvements we're able to make to better prioritize input handling).

The above is a lot of technical speak that boils down to this: the Pointer Events API will offer improved, smoother scrolling for Chrome users by combining touch and mouse events into a single set — as opposed to the current implementation that handles the interactions separately. The changes will hit all six of Chrome's Blink platforms — Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome OS, Android and Android WebView — but "implementation is expected to take some time."

Source: Chromium Google Group