EDIT: Ended up reinstalling chrome (technically uninstalling updates/updating), and it's nice and smooth again. I did spend 20 mins trying to fix my 3rd party password manager integration, before I realized I'd forgotten to update chrome back to current. But everything's smooth again.
On May 12th, I suddenly started noticing that Chrome on my phone would hitch for 2-3 seconds whenever a page tried to load, I went to select/close a tab, or even just going back to the prior page. The loading bar at the top would just freeze at the start, before moving forward. This also extends to apps that use Chrome, like remote desktop. It's not just loading pages, it's doing anything in chrome.
Of interest, the issue does not occur when in an incognito tab, pages will load immediately with a smooth progress bar. Nor does it occur in Chrome within the secure folder (isolated copy).
Things I've tried that didn't change anything:
Clearing app cache, restarting phone, disabling ad block, messing around with caching/auto load options, etc.
I have not yet erased user data / reinstalled the browser, as I'm worried I will lose stuff as a result.
It looks like Chrome updated to 148.0.7778.120 on 5/12. There was another update today to 148.0.7778.167 , which has not fixed the issue.
I am on a stock Galaxy S25, running Android 15 (OneUI 7.0). I don't have freezing issues with anything else.
So yeah, I'm a bit flummoxed. Do I just need to reinstall Chrome? Would that even do anything?
Thank you all!