Download Firefox Quantum beta, new interface, new engine, twice as fast

Mozilla has just released the first beta of Firefox 57 new interface with codename Photon and the new engine with codename Quantum.

For those who do not regularly monitor versions of Firefox, version 57 is a release that will pave the way for the browser. Many new features will be included on the Stable version and many of the features introduced in the previous release will now show all of their capabilities.

New browser engine

Firefox 57 has a new engine, gradually replacing the Gecko engine in previous Firefox versions. The new engine called Quantum was announced last year, replacing the slow Gecko, which was more than two decades old (born in 1997) originally for 'Netscape' browser.

Quantum is written in C ++ and Rust, just like Gecko, but Rust is Quantum's main language, not C ++.

Mozilla tested Quantum on a test browser called Servo. In the past year, it has occupied small parts and replaced Gecko's elements with Quantum's equivalent elements.

For example, Mozilla replaced the CSS Gecko engine with Quantum CSS (or Stylo) last month. This happened during the last year and Firefox engineers described this as 'replacing jet engines while still flying'.

According to Mozilla, Quantum made Firefox 57 Beta and Firefox 57 Developer Edition faster than Firefox 52, the Firefox version released last year, twice.

Speed ​​improvements on Firefox 57 were said by Mozilla because of what they added last year, such as support for multiple processes, allowing process division across all cores and reducing 30% RAM usage. Mozilla also used 468 bugs last year, though they were all minor bugs, but they affected the overall performance.

'Today's release is an important milestone for Project Quantum, but we're not done yet,' said Dan Callahan, an engineer at Mozilla Developer Relations. 'In the future, Firefox will have Quantum Render, a pipeline to render GPU optimization, based on the WebRender project of Servo, and Quantum DOM Scheduler, allowing the tab to run in the background without slowing down active tabs' .

Firefox will have a new look

The second major change on Firefox 57 Beta and Developer Edition is the Photon interface, bringing a new shirt to the entire browser.

Mozilla announced the Photon UI last year and has some sketches in April this year. From August, the Firefox Nightly version brought an initial look at the new interface, but Photo was officially used for Beta and Developer Edition. According to Mozilla, the new UI supports High DPI display and better display on touch devices.

Firefox 57 version is highly anticipated

Currently, Firefox 57 is highly anticipated and seems to be a breakthrough. It will be released on November 14.

However, many people are concerned because Firefox 57 replaces the old Add-on API with the new WebExtensions API. This means that old add-ons will not be available on the new browser.

Currently only 4,609 add-ons support Firefox 57 of nearly 19,000 add-ons. It means that only about 25% is retained, 75% will not work. Fortunately, not everyone uses add-ons. According to one data, 40% of Firefox users do not install the add-on. Download Firefox 57 Beta and Developer Edition here https://www.mozilla.org/en/firefox/channel/desktop/