This week, Mozilla announced Firefox 54, which provides multi-processing capabilities for “remarkably” improved performance and memory usage.
“This is the best release of Firefox ever, with improvements that will be very noticeable to even casual users of our beloved browser,” Mozilla’s Nick Nguyen explains. “Our new version of Firefox nails the ‘just right’ balance between memory and speed.”
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The key to Firefox 54 is a new “Electrolysis” (E10s) engine that allows the browser to run in multiple processes. In previous versions, Firefox used a single process for all open tabs, but the new version uses up to four processes for tabs.
“This means that a heavy, complex web page in one tab has a much lower impact on the responsiveness and speed in other tabs,” Nguyen says. “By separating the tabs into separate processes, we make better use of the hardware on your computer, so Firefox can deliver you more of the web you love, with less waiting.”
Firefox 54 makes websites run much better on all computers, Mozilla says. But it’s especially beneficial on PCs with less memory.
Aside from the multi-processing capabilities, Firefox 54 also includes major improvements in RAM usage, and now uses significantly less memory than other browsers. There are some small UI tweaks as well.
You can download Firefox from the Mozilla website.
Locust Infested Orchard Inc.
<blockquote><a href="#125452"><em>In reply to Pbike908:</em></a></blockquote><p>It's a fallacy to believe Google Chrome is better behaved in regards to memory and resources. Firefox is better in all respects. The masses use Chrome, well because they'd rather use the devil they know (data-thieving Google) than the devil they don't (Mozilla).</p>
Locust Infested Orchard Inc.
<blockquote><a href="#125471"><em>In reply to Tony Barrett:</em></a></blockquote><p>If you think Firefox is a memory hog (which it is), Google Chrome is an even bigger and fatter memory hog, so says Task Manager with the many tests I've conducted with identical tabs open.</p>
Locust Infested Orchard Inc.
<blockquote><a href="#125507"><em>In reply to Daniel Blois:</em></a></blockquote><p>The new Electrolysis (E10s) engine breaks numerous extensions, and that's a real problem.</p>