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Mozilla's 'Firefox Quantum' Browser Challenges Chrome In Speed (cnet.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the pound-for-pound dept.

The next version of Firefox, aptly named Firefox Quantum, is getting a big speed boost. "The idea, of course, is that the upcoming version 57 is a quantum leap over predecessors -- or, in the words of Mozilla CEO Chris Beard, a 'big bang,'" reports CNET. While Mozilla stopped short of declaring victory over Chrome, Nick Nguyen, vice president of Firefox product, said Firefox Quantum's page-load speed "is often perceivably faster" while using 30 percent less memory. From the report: The new Firefox revamp includes lots of under-the-covers improvements, like Quantum Flow, which stamps out dozens of performance bugs, and Quantum CSS, aka Stylo, which speeds up website formatting. More obvious from the outside is a new interface called Photon that wipes out Firefox's rounded tabs and adds a "page action" menu into the address bar. It also builds in the Pocket bookmarking service Mozilla acquired and uses it to recommend sites you might be interested in. A screenshot tool generates a website link so you can easily share what you see by email or Twitter. Mozilla even simplified the Firefox logo, a fox wrapping itself around the globe. More improvements are in the pipeline for later Firefox versions, too, including Quantum Render, which should speed up Firefox's ability to paint web pages onto your screen.

5 of 297 comments (clear)

  1. So... by Curupira · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...THAT'S why Mozilla decided to ditch XUL (and a lot of legacy add-ons that relied on it). And it is a very important goal -- a faster and more stable Firefox was needed for a long time.

    But I also hope that we soon get back most of the extensions that Firefox lost in this change. Without its previous top-notch configurability, I'm afraid it can't really compete with Google developers working on Chrome.

    1. Re:So... by Spazmania · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The problem with allowing the kind of UI altering extensions that Firefox does is that it's an insane security risk and a massive performance issue.

      The only reason I still use Firefox is the UI altering extensions that make it look and work like Firefox did the better part of two decades ago. I despise the modern UI and have no use for a version of firefox that requires it.

      --
      Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
    2. Re:So... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why is that +5 funny?

      The entire design of Rust is bent towards the idea that the compiler helps you a great deal with writing concurrent datastructures, because you aren't smart enough to do it unaided. If you think writing fine-grained concurrency of complex structures is easy, then please step very far away from threads and never touch them.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  2. Try it before you knock it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I know this is just going to be a Firefox hate fest, but give the browser a try.

    The important extensions will come along. Ublock origin is here and Noscript will be at the part shortly.

  3. Re:How about making it start up faster by GuB-42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Except you don't really have a choice. Web developers put tons crap with their webpages that make it impossible to use them with a Netscape 3 era browser.
    Browsers used to be document viewers, but now, they are essentially OSes.