Google Chrome for iOS packs gesture navigation making it easier to surf the internet. It allows you to go back or forward a page by simply swiping right or left. However, the company seems to be working on bringing this to Android, according to a new commit posted on Chromium.
It is an early work-in-progress version of gesture navigation for Chrome’s Android app. By “over scrolling” to the left or right, you will be able to quickly navigate forward or backward through your history. Chrome for Android offers a vertical ‘pull to refresh’ gesture, which is being used as the basis for these new horizontal gestures.
As it’s still in the work-in-progress state, it may be a few weeks before we see the new navigation gestures in action. It would first become available to Chrome Canary Android app. Once it does arrive for testing, the gestures will still need to be enabled with a flag. Gesture navigation certainly needs a solid amount of testing, as there are surely mobile-friendly sites that use a swipe to the left or right to do things like change pictures in a gallery or open a context menu.
Furthermore, the Chromium team is also working out when certain native pages, like the New Tab page, can use the gesture. We should know the exact functioning when the feature becomes available.