Android - Browser that doesn't reload tabs all the time

Turns out the OPs issue only occurred in the Chrome browser, and when using Chrome Beta it worked (sort of).


Old Answer:

Try going to chrome://flags

Look for "Auto Reload" tags, turn them off:

chrome://flags/#enable-offline-auto-reload
chrome://flags/#enable-offline-auto-reload-visible-only

Relaunch Chrome (using the button at the bottom after you have toggled the flags)

If the problem persists, it is not because the page is reloading, it is because it is being redrawn, i.e. it is already downloaded, just not displayed to the user yet. This is due to the fact that, for performance reasons, Chrome doesn't draw all tabs simultaneously.


Turns out the problem is (it seems) a memory leak in Android lollipop. The OS was using well over 1GB of RAM, which caused all the tabs to constantly reload. I got suspicious when I noticed that apps also got reloaded immediately.

After restarting the phone, the problem is no longer there. It seems it's a known bug, but I don't know when it's going to be fixed.