14 DAY TRIAL // Google debuted Page Speed almost three years ago as a Firefox extension. It's been evolving ever since and, while it was only introduced to Chrome a year ago, the tool has reached another milestone, it now supports the Android version of Chrome.
Give that more and more people use the mobile web these days and that all predictions say that mobile usage will overpass desktop one within the next few years, the tool is very important to web developers.
Granted, the online version of Page Speed already had a mobile component, but the Chrome extension is much more capable since it taps into the existing functionality which enables developers to debug and test mobile web pages from their desktops via Chrome for Android.
"We are releasing an update to Page Speed for Chrome that supports mobile Page Speed analysis via Chrome for Android. With Page Speed for Chrome and Chrome for Android, you can perform Page Speed analysis on the mobile version of your web pages, as they are loaded in the Chrome for Android mobile browser," Google announced.
"When analyzing the mobile version of pages, Page Speed for Chrome tunes its analysis to reflect the unique performance characteristics of mobile devices and networks, suggesting the optimizations that will have the biggest impact on reducing load times for your mobile users," it explained.
What's unique about Page Speed, the new version in particular, is that it's built into the existing Chrome developer tools. And, since new developer tools can connect to Chrome for Android, having it work for Page Speed is just an extension of the existing functionality.
Page Speed is useful for determining the performance of a web page, i.e. how fast it loads. In this particular case, it can be helpful in determining how fast a mobile web page loads on an actual mobile device, rather than a desktop browser or an emulator.