Mozilla is promising big performance gains with its latest Firefox browser update. The Mozilla community went through Firefox with a fine-tooth comb to identify areas where the browser could speed up and load webpages quicker.
This means scripts for Instagram, Amazon, and Google all load between 40 and 80 percent faster, and things like the auto-fill module doesn’t load unless there’s an actual form on the page.
Alongside these changes, Mozilla is also suspending idle tabs in Firefox if you only have 400MB of RAM left on your system. That should improve multiple tab performance on systems without much RAM, and it means the unused tabs will simply be suspended until you click them again.
Firefox is also getting a lot faster at just starting up for the first time for those who have add-ons installed. “We’ve made it so that the browser skips a bunch of unnecessary work during subsequent start-ups,” explains Marissa Wood, vice president of Firefox product management.
While these changes will help Firefox better compete with Chrome, Mozilla is also improving privacy controls and protections in Firefox with today’s update. You’ll now be able to block cryptomining scripts that attempt to use your CPU to generate cryptocurrency.
Digital fingerprints can also be blocked to better stop ads from tracking you online. All of these performance improvements, privacy additions, and more are available in the Firefox 67 release.
