Mozilla doubles the speed of its browser with Firefox Quantum

Mozilla has announced the the latest update to its latest browser, Firefox Quantum, which the company claims is over twice as fast as the previous version of its browser.

While being faster than the release from six months ago, thanks to an overhauled core processor and according to Mozilla, it uses less memory, meaining your computer should run faster if you're using other apps at the same time.

More than 700 developers worked on the creation of Firefox Quantum, making it one of the most resource-intensive builds yet. The company's engineers spent a lot of time looking into how people browse the internet, Mozilla said, to ensure its latest browser addresses all the challenges the average user experiences on a day-to-day basis.

The result is an overhauled interface, named Photon, which aims to bring everything together from the Firefox portfolio, making it easier for people to find what they need, when they need it.

"We looked at real world hardware to make Firefox look great on any display, and we made sure that Firefox looks and works like Firefox regardless of the device you're using," Firefox said. "Our designers created a system that scales to more than just current hardware but lets us expand in the future."

Another major new feature in Firefox Quantum is Pocket recommendations, which will offer up three recommended stories to the user when they open a new tab in the browser. These are curated from the millions of items people are adding to Pocket, to make sure it's a true reflection of the best content available on the internet. There will also be other content presented across popular topics and instant access to Pocket Explore where you can find a greater selection of content according to your favourite topics.

"We made many, many performance improvements in the browser's core and shipped a new CSS engine, Stylo, that takes better advantage of today's hardware with multiple cores that are optimised for low power consumption," Firefox added. "We've also improved Firefox so that the tab you're on gets prioritized over all others, making better use of your valuable system resources."

Firefox Quantum is available immediately for desktop on Windows, Mac and Linux, an on iOS and Android mobile operating systems.

Main image credit: Mozilla