The web browser is the most often used application in our daily computer work. And the most popular one that currently dominates the Internet is Google Chrome. However, aside from the fast and accurate rendering of web pages, many other minor invisible aspects contribute to the big picture for a complete and pleasant user experience.
One of these is the mouse wheel scroll sensitivity. For example, have you ever noticed how, when using Firefox on Linux, you use fewer motions to scroll a page from bottom to top or vice versa? This is due to a browser engine operation that defines the length of the scroll step.
Here are the details. So far, historically, the Linux version of the Chromium web browser uses a scroll step of 53px. Meanwhile, the Windows version of the browser was 120px. Firefox, for example, uses an even larger one – 130px.
However, a recently released just a few days ago, Chromium 109, puts an end to the years-long discrepancy in user experience between the Windows and Linux versions of the browser. In other words, Chromium 109 now has a scroll step of 120px as the default.
And the best part? Because Google Chrome is based mainly on Chromium, it has inherited this behavior in its recently released version 109. Some rolling release distributions, such as Arch, have already received package updates. At the same time, if you use Chrome on Ubuntu or any other Linux distribution, and the browser is installed from the official Google repository, you should update to the current version and enjoy the improved user experience.
So, Chromium & Chrome 109 updates are important for Linux users who often have to deal with slowly scrolling on their browser as it provides a faster one. With this update, they can finally enjoy a more seamless browsing experience.
You can find more information on the subject here.
Dear sir,
You wrote
”
(…) when using Firefox on Linux, you use fewer motions to scroll a page from
bottom to top or vice versa? This is due to a browser engine operation that defines
the length of the scroll step.
(…)
Firefox, for example, [under Linux] uses an even larger one – 130px.
”
The mouse wheel scroll step under Firefox is font-size related and is not a fixed one.
The mouse wheel scroll step in Firefox seems to depend on the computed
font size for the document block which is scrolling. If the font size is 16px, then
the mouse wheel scroll step is 114px. If the font size is 20px, then the mouse
wheel scroll step is 144px. I get these values with Firefox 102.6.0 ESR while using
this page:
http://www.gtalbot.org/DHTMLSection/DOM3-events-wheel-event.html
Use [Shift]+Mouse-wheel-rolling to get the horizontal value.
Another parameter may also affect the behavior of mouse wheel scrolling
in browsers, at least in Firefox: if smooth scrolling is enabled or not.
Gérard
I need slower scrolling and less page jump, not faster scrolling.