The competition is heating up between the world’s most popular browser, Google Chrome, and underdog, Firefox.
With Mozilla’s new release of Firefox Quantum, which is the biggest Firefox update in 13 years, they’re hoping to capture a few thousand users and finally convince them to set a new browser as their default.
What’s so great about Firefox Quantum that Mozilla is so sure people will switch? For one, it’s supposed to be really fast, as in twice as fast as the previous Firefox version and substantially faster than Chrome.
Firefox Quantum will also be 30 percent lighter than Chrome with smaller RAM usage, meaning that opening more tabs won’t take up as much memory.
This isn’t just a nice perk, it’s actually been a complaint of Chrome users for some time, which means that those who relish the freedom to multi-task to their heart’s desire can open tab after tab on Firefox Quantum without affecting performance.
Mozilla substantial improvement to Firefox’s speed and weight is all thanks to the next-generation multi-core processor as well as more than 700 contributing authors and 80 volunteers.
In addition, Firefox Quantum features fresh UI and customizable toolbar including Pocket recommendations, Night Mode, and other free add-ons and extensions that are “making Chrome look old”. Plus, now you can sync your devices through Firefox and share access to passwords, bookmarks, tabs, history, etc. between your desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.
This sleek new design is due to something Mozilla calls the Photon initiative, where researchers extracted data about what people expect from their browser experience, which apparently includes a cartoon octopus.
With Firefox Quantum proving its worth in speed, space, and design, we can expect to see a larger percentage of users adopting the browser and visiting the web from Firefox on multiple devices in the coming months.
Testers and devs that solely run their web application on Chrome or Safari will be missing out on understanding how their application responds Firefox’s new code base, which changed by 75 percent for this major release.
We won’t tell you to update your browser or abandon Google Chrome, but we will suggest adding a Firefox Quantum configuration to your cross-browser testing as it rises in popularity.
If you do want to switch from Chrome to Firefox, here’s how to do it in 2 minutes. For the die-hard Chrome users, sign up for a free trial or log into your CrossBrowserTesting account now to test Firefox Quantum without updating your browser.
