Firefox 54 processes Web content not in one thread, but in four, which should make it faster and prevent the hang of all the tabs at the same time. In Firefox 55, the user can increase the number of threads to seven. From the policy "one tab = one thread" the developers refused to save RAM.

Multiprocessing Firefox 54.

Mozilla has released Firefox 54 - the first fully multiprocess, which means a faster version of its browser. Previously, all web content was processed in one thread, now it is processed in four streams. Each thread is allocated its own RAM and its processor resources. Thanks to this, Firefox will work faster, and hanging one of the tabs will stop hanging all the others.

The innovation is a logical step in the development of the project Electrolysis, or e10s, in which Mozilla gradually turns Firefox into a multi-process browser. In August 2016 year. The company released Firefox 48, which highlighted the user interface processing in a separate process, so that it continued to work even if the tabs hang. However, the content was still processed in a single stream.

Comparison with Chrome Because the increase in the number of processes leads to a larger memory consumption, Firefox will not process each tab as a separate stream. The number of content streams is limited to four, in contrast, for example, from Chrome, which opens a new process for each tab, taking up more and more memory. In Firefox 54, according to the developers, was found the optimal balance between speed and memory.

According to Mozilla tests, the version of Chrome for Windows requires 1.77 times more RAM than the 64-bit version of Firefox, and 2 times more than the 32-bit version. In macOS Chrome uses 1.36 times more memory than 64-bit Firefox, and 1.42 more than 32-bit.

Future plans.

In Firefox 55, the default number of threads will be four, but the user can optionally increase their number to seven by using the string dom. Ipc. ProcessCount in about: config.

In addition, Mozilla is developing a project Quantum, within which it is going to optimize the browser engine by the end of 2017. Optimization will adapt Firefox to work with multi-core processors and improve the performance of graphics chips with content streams.

Other changes in Firefox 54.

In Firefox 54, Mozilla continued to implement the cross-browser WebExtension API, which in Firefox 57 will become the only APIs available for add-ons. With WebExtension, you can now create a custom DevTools toolbar. In addition, WebExtension can now replace or customize the new tab page.

In addition, the display of the download status has changed, which has become more informative. Also there was a function to create and save user's own devices in Responsive Design Mode. In addition, the browser has ceased to support HTTP / 1 Pipelining, in the plans of developers, the rapid transition to HTTP / 2.