Future Firefox versions may slim down, use less memory thanks to new ‘Performance’ option
has long been playing defense against the unstoppable juggernaut of Google Chrome (to be fair, Microsoft isn’t in much better shape). Over the past year, we’ve reported on Mozilla’s attempts to add to its existing browser, and yes, the rather silly new logo that the organization came up with for itself: “,” if you’ve been trying to forget it.
Now the organization apparently has a new plan to create a browser with more fine-grained controls to reduce how much load it places on a system. The idea behind the project is to give end-users much more visibility into various settings, so they can make their own decisions about where to prioritize performance and where it makes sense not to.
If you have an older dual-core system (particularly if it’s dual-core without HT), you might want to limit the number of processes Firefox can use simultaneously, especially if you don’t have much RAM. Page prefetching can be great if you have a slow system and fast pipe, but in the reverse situation multiple pages prefetching in the background could slow your system down. Little touches, like turning off animations, won’t make a huge difference on anyone’s computer. But if you’ve ever been slogging your way towards getting a project done on an underpowered machine (or if you’ve basically used a computer at a college or high school, ever), these types of features could make the browser a little easier to use.
There are a few other touches being considered as well. There would be an option to turn off all add-ons and restart the browser without having to manually start Safe Mode. Mozilla has long maintained that certain extensions are responsible for slow performance or bug-related issues and this option allows users to quickly and easily check to see if that’s the case.
As for controlling the amount of memory the browser uses, it looks like this is tied to the number of content processes you allow the browser to launch simultaneously. More processes = faster performance, but it also means more system memory in-use at once.
Personally, I’d love to see Firefox return to the days when it was the snappy, responsive, and altogether-better option compared with anything else on the market, but I’m not certain that’s even possible. Mozilla has emphasized the improvements and strengths of its browser family at each release, but I can’t recall the last time Firefox actually felt fast. I believe the organization that certain operations have improved, but it hasn’t seemed to make much difference for quite some time. Still, hope springs eternal. Hopefully by the end of the year we’ll see some of these ideas shipping (Mozilla is targeting v55, we’re currently on v52).