Firefox Quantum Offers Huge Leap in Speed, Usability

Mozilla remains dedicated to creating an open-source web browser that not only benefits from a global community of volunteer coders, but leads in speed, standards support, usability, and memory savings.

Today, the nonprofit launches a major update to its web browser chosen Firefox Quantum, aka version 57. It's faster, cleaner looking, better with memory usage, and integrates the Pocket webpage-saving service.

"We accept put a ton of difficult engineering work into rebuilding the core web rendering engine," Mozilla CMO Jascha Kaykas-Wolff tells PCMag. "This is the guts that make the product fast."

The Firefox evolution team used the Rust programming language to build this new rendering engine, which incorporates code from the Servo project and tin can accept advantage of parallel processing using today'southward multicore CPUs. The new lawmaking is also 64-flake, Kaykas-Wolff says.

A Faster Browser

To demonstrate the speedup, we ran the JetStream and Speedometer benchmarks (both bachelor via browserbench.org) on a Surface Book with a Cadre i5 processor and 8GB of RAM.

On the Speedometer benchmark, the pre-Quantum Firefox release scored 45, compared with 70 for Firefox Quantum. JetStream is ane of the most thorough JavaScript benchmarks around, incorporating tests from Google'south Octane and the WebKit Sunspider benchmark. Firefox Quantum scored 151 on JetStream compared with 144 for Google Chrome.

Continue in listen that those are constructed benchmarks that only test JavaScript and DOM manipulation. Mozilla full-bodied on actual page load speed, and posted video demos of comparative page loading speed with Chrome.

RAM usage also goes on a diet with Firefox Quantum: Kaykas-Wolff says the browser uses 30 percentage less memory than Chrome. Indeed, even the previous versions of Firefox tested past PCMag showed significantly lower retention usage than competing browsers.

The new Firefox is also a 64-bit awarding when installed on a 64-fleck version of Windows, a performance and security boon. Chrome, by contrast, still defaults to 32-scrap, though a 64-scrap version is available on demand. And Microsoft Edge only installs as 64-scrap on 64-bit machines.

The new release means it'due south the moment of truth for legacy add-ons, aka extensions. Breakthrough volition no longer tolerate legacy extensions, but only those that apply the new extension system. The new arrangement will bring some existent benefits, such as improved security and stability. All-time of all: You'll no longer need to wait for all your extensions to exist checked and updated every time Firefox updates.

Interface Redesign

The new design features, office of what Mozilla calls the Photon Pattern Arrangement, include lots of tweaks to the user feel. The new design sports Edge-similar, squared-off tabs, and an interface bout familiarizes new users with the browser. A new Library button requite you admission to your history, bookmarks, Pocket list, downloads, screenshots and synced tabs. That's correct, screenshots—Firefox Breakthrough includes congenital-in screenshot adequacy. A new start folio not only shows tiles linking to your pinnacle sites, but as well Pocket-recommended sites and highlights from sites you've frequented.

Pocket

Last February, Mozilla acquired Read Information technology Later on, maker of the Pocket website-saving service. But the organization thinks of Pocket as more than just a site saver. The point is "discovery and accessibility of high quality web content," co-ordinate to the acquisition proclamation. Mozilla now uses Pocket to propose sites of interest on the browser'south new-tab page. Of grade, there's still a button, now in the address bar, that lets you salvage sites y'all want to read subsequently, regardless of what devices you're on, since it'south saved in the cloud.

Speedboat

To celebrate the launch of Firefox Breakthrough, Mozilla is offer ferry service for 3 days in New York Metropolis. The ferry runs between Greenpoint, Brooklyn and lower Manhattan, and, as Kaykas-Wolff points out, it'southward x minutes faster than comparable ferries—but similar Firefox is faster.

To try it for yourself, download Firefox Quantum from Firefox.com. For more background, sentry the video beneath. And be sure to look for an updated review of Firefox on PCMag in the coming days.

About Michael Muchmore

Michael Muchmore is PCMag'due south pb annotator for software and web applications, with an emphasis on photo editing, video editing, and Windows. A native New Yorker, he has at various times headed up coverage of web evolution, enterprise software (including databases and application servers), and display technologies (monitors and TVs). Michael cowrote one of the first overviews of web services for a full general audience. Before that he worked on PC Magazine'due south Solutions section, which educated readers near programming techniques similar C+ and Visual Bones, every bit well as offer tips on using part productivity software. He previously covered services and software for ExtremeTech.com.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/news/18245/firefox-quantum-offers-huge-leap-in-speed-usability

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