Google Chrome, the leading U.S. browser at the moment, is about to face some serious competition up ahead. Mozilla just unveiled an improved version of its browser called the Firefox Quantum touted to be drastically faster than its predecessor and offering browsing speeds said to even surpass that of Chrome.
During the late 2000’s, Mozilla Firefox had one of the fastest user growth among Internet browsers according to Forbes. Unfortunately, the browser’s growth lost steam and is now lagging behind rivals Google Chrome and Apple Safari. Chrome is currently leading the pack in the U.S. with a market share of 44.5 percent followed by Safari at 25.4 percent. Firefox, in the meantime, only managed to secure a 7.4 percent share.
However, Mozilla is betting big that it just might be able to reclaim some its lost market share with the introduction of a souped-up browser, the Firefox Quantum. One of the most attractive features of the upcoming browser that just might earn it new followers is its browsing speed. Set to debut by November this year, Mozilla says that it is superfast – twice as fast than the current version and is even faster than the number 1 Chrome. And the best part is that, according to Mozilla, the Firefox Quantum uses 30 percent less RAM when compared to Chrome.
At the moment though, there is no third party data available yet to back up Mozilla’s claim. The claim is supported by data obtained using Mozilla’s own open-source benchmarking tool Speedometer 2.0.
But Mozilla insists it’s not just about speed. The upcoming Firefox Quantum will also come with an improved user interface which will ditch the curved tab design of the current browser. In addition, Quantum is said to be optimized to take advantage of modern high-res displays.
Quantum will also be able to differentiate tabs and can influence the download speeds to a certain degree. Tabs that are currently active will download faster than tabs running in the background.
Firefox Quantum will also incorporate features of Pocket, a popular news and article reader app which Mozilla acquired in February of this year. When users open new tabs, a list of trending pages currently being read by Pocket users will appear as suggestions.
While Mozilla has already set Firefox Quantum launch date this coming November 14, users can already use its beta version for Android, iOS, and desktop. The test version is available to enable users to discover bugs before it is released.