Google Chrome update fixes annoying page jumps

Google is introducing a new feature on its Chrome browser today to prevent articles from skipping back to the top if you’ve scrolled farther down the page. Called Scroll Anchoring, the feature was first available in a developer build last year, but is now rolling out more widely to users on Chrome 56 or later.

“This feature works by locking the scroll position on an on-screen element to keep our users in the same spot even as offscreen content continues to load,” Google wrote in a blog, which uses a Recode story as example (oops). In the browser without Scroll Anchoring, the page jumps back to the top after it finishes loading, while the other stays where the user has scrolled to. This is particularly helpful for mobile browsers, where more of the content gets pushed down when the page skips back up top.

Google claims the feature is, on average, helping prevent three jumps per page view, and encourages developers to check out its Exclusion API if they need to disable anchors on pages where they may be unwanted.