Although Google Chrome is the go-to browser for a majority of internet users, Mozilla Firefox has always been preferred by those who are concerned about their online privacy and security. And with rising privacy concerns, people are quick in making a switch to the browser which provides them with the best cover — Firefox seems to take the cake here. “This is the best release of Firefox ever, with improvements that will be very noticeable to even casual users of our beloved browser,” the company stated.
What’s New in Firefox 54?
The company has added support for Burmese, simplified the download button and download status panel and added support for multiple content processes (codenamed: E10s). Earlier, Firefox browser used a single process to run all tabs in a browser. Multiple processes make the browsing smoother and increases efficiency. Multiple content processes are aimed towards providing a better browsing and multi-tasking experience to users, especially those with less memory on their PCs, by striking the ‘right balance between speed and memory usage’. “The performance improvements are remarkable. Besides running faster and crashing less, E10s makes websites feel more smooth,” the company added. Not only does the new multiple content processes feature make browsing a seamless and faster experience, it also ensures that Firefox doesn’t hog up all the available memory of the PC and other programmes run efficiently too. In addition to these, the company also fixed critical security vulnerabilities in the browser, changed the location of mobile bookmarks folder to the main bookmarks menu and have made some tweaks to the Web Platform and WebExtension APIs for web developers.
How Does Firefox Fair Against Chrome?
Firefox uses four content processes, which are four less than the numbers used by Chrome browser and it has enabled the former to hog less memory of a system it’s running on. “First 4 tabs each use those 4 processes, and additional tabs run using threads within those processes. Multiple tabs within a process share the browser engine that already exists in memory, instead of each creating their own,” the company added. On 64-bit Windows 10, Chrome used 1.77X memory as compared to Firefox while it used 2.44X memory on 32-bit Windows 10. On MacOS (64-bit), Chrome used 1.36X memory as compared to Firefox. On Linux (64-bit), Chrome used 1.42X memory as compared to Firefox. Safari browser on Mac uses a significant amount of memory as compared to Firefox, as does Edge browser on Windows 10. Looking for tips to speed up your Google Chrome browser? Here are three.
