Firefox Quantum to be faster & more efficient than Google Chrome

Continuing its steady recovery, Mozilla has unveiled its big browser overhaul dubbed Firefox Quantum. Progressing on from Firefox 52, Quantum is two times faster and designed to make use of multi-core systems.

Firefox Quantum was announced last year, making use of technology from the Servo research project. This has allowed the new browser to tout itself as being twice as fast as its predecessor while “often [being] faster than Chrome, while consuming roughly 20 percent less RAM.”

These figures are to be taken with a slight pinch of salt, however, as tests were conducted by Mozilla's new Speedometer 2.0 open source benchmarking tool.

“This improved utilization of your computer's hardware makes Firefox Quantum dramatically faster,” claims Mozilla. “One example: we've developed a breakthrough approach to laying out pages: a super fast CSS engine written in Rust, a systems programming language that Mozilla pioneered. Firefox's new CSS engine runs quickly, in parallel across multiple CPU cores, instead of running in one slower sequence on a single core. No other browser can do this.”

Mozilla has managed to fix over 468 issues in its “browser-wide initiative to zap any instances of slowness you might encounter while using Firefox.” Firefox is also receiving a facelift, with its user inferface being overhauled as a part of Mozilla's Project Photon, allowing the browser to utilise high-resolution screens.

Firefox Quantum is currently in beta on desktop, iOS and Android with a release date set for November 14th. Developers can also get in on the action before its release too.

KitGuru Says: Given the popularity shift from Internet Explorer to Chrome, I wouldn't be surprised if it's Mozilla's turn on the throne given all of the improvements made. Chrome is still a bit of a resource hog, especially for those working with multiple tabs on a regular basis, so count me in on trialling Quantum. Will you be making the switch?

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