Industry News » New Firefox has smaller feet
New Firefox has smaller feet
Mozilla has released Firefox 7, and claims it will use considerably less memory when used.
It seems like only days ago that Firefox 6 was released and, for many users, the changes it brought with it seemed minimal at best. The latest version, 7, has been seen to consume between 20 to 50 per cent less memory when browsing, dependent on the type of online tasks a user carries out. For some time now, Firefox has been gaining a deserved reputation as a memory hog.
Benchmark testing has shown Firefox 7 to be the leader of the pack in memory efficiency, though this is of course dependent on the type of activity a user is carrying out as well as the various plug-ins they have installed to the browser. Firefox’s memory savings have been achieved with a memory-optimising project Mozilla has returned its focus to, known as MemShrink.
Plug-ins remain an issue with Firefox in light of its new rapid release cycle, with many becoming obsolete upon on the release of a new browser. Though there is little word on how this will be addressed, Mozilla plan to tackle this in future releases.
(Source: Ars Technica)
Epicentre Says: “Firefox’s tendency to slow down a system has been a long-standing issue for Mozilla and it’s good to see that this has been addressed. This should help keep them on track in their plan to ‘take back the web’, though with Metro-style browsing rapidly gaining favour and recognition, the browser war will no doubt continue as normal.”
