Firefox’s Quantum Browser Is Faster, It Has Also Brought Back Google Search As Default Search Engine

Mozilla has released its ‘Firefox Quantum (Firefox 57) as its latest browser with the aim to overtake Google chrome as one of the best and most used browser come 2018.

Mozilla’s new Firefox Quantum uses 30% less memory space than its rivals Edge, Chrome and Safari on Windows operating system and also a little bit more than chrome on MacOS.

The 30% memory space used by Firefox Quantum can run more tabs and fast without slowing your browser or even crashing it to a pause.

However, with so much hype, the company says its new browser will stand out in its interface and also add hints for its users in order to help them navigate the browser with ease and much simplicity.

Mozilla  after much study has observed that users are impatient, when browser content with graphic image or side bar are loading and therefore has optimized the Firefox Quantum browser to work in that respect, thereby giving users a faster and more reliable browser for all their internet loading and music or movie downloads.

In a blog post by the company which reads “It’s by far the biggest update we’ve had since we launched Firefox 1.0 in 2004,” also added that “Firefox Quantum is over twice as fast as Firefox from 6 months ago, built on a completely overhauled core engine with brand new technology stolen from our advanced research group, and graced with a beautiful new look designed to get out of the way and let you do what you do best.

In the test conducted by researchers between Firefox Quantum browser and the most used Google Chrome browser, Firefox loaded top websites including Google Search, YouTube faster than Chrome.

Still talking about speed, they added that Firefox Quantum is 2X faster than what Firefox was 6 months ago and this is according to their Speedometer 2.0 (which is still in development) ratings. As earlier said, the fact that the new browser consumes 30 percent less memory would make it faster than what we are used to.

One other significant change of course would be that Google Search is back as the default search engine in Quantum after Firefox decided back in 2014 to drop Google Search for Yahoo Search.

But it isn’t just about speed, here’s what to expect when you upgrade to Firefox Quantum;

• A completely new browsing engine, designed to take full advantage of the processing powerin modern devices
• A redesigned interface with a clean, modern appearance, consistent visual elements, and optimizations for touch screens
• A unified address and search bar. New installs will see this unified bar. Learn how to add the stand-alone search bar to the toolbar
• A revamped new tab page that includes top visited sites, recently visited pages, and recommendations from Pocket (in the US, Canada, and Germany)
• An updated product tour to orient new and returning Firefox users
• AMD VP9 hardware video decoder support for improved video playback with lower power consumption
• An expanded section in preferences to manage all website permissions
• Various security fixes
• Firefox now exclusively supports extensions built using the WebExtension API, and unsupported legacy extensions will no longer work. Learn more about our efforts to improve the performance and security of extensions
• The browser’s autoscroll feature, as well as scrolling by keyboard input and touch-dragging of scrollbars, now use asynchronous scrolling. These scrolling methods are now similar to other input methods like mousewheel, and provide a smoother scrolling experience
• The content process now has a stricter security sandbox that blocks filesystem reading and writing on Linux, similar to the protections for Windows and macOS that shipped in Firefox 56
• Middle mouse paste in the content area no longer navigates to URLs by default on Unix systems
• Removed the toolbar Share button. If you relied on this feature, you can install the Share Backportedextension instead.
• Some older versions of the ATOK IME, including ATOK 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010, can cause crashes and are therefore disabled on the Windows 64-bit version of Firefox Quantum. To fix those incompatibility issues, please use a newer version of ATOK or one of other IMEs.
• The default font for Japanese text is now Meiryo
• Complete visual refreshof both the Light and Dark DevTools themes, matching the new visual style of Firefox Quantum
• The Inspector shows the values of CSS variables on hover
• Completely new and re-designed Console panel. Joining the Debuggerand the Network Monitor, the Console has been rewritten using modern web technologies such as React and Redux. It now also allows to inspect objects in context.

It also brings significant changes on iOS and Android as well.