Firefox 7 Brings Memory Usage Improvements

Posted 09/28/2011 at 8:23am | by Pulkit Chandna

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While still news, the release of a new browser version of Firefox - or even Chrome for that matter - is not the kind of earth-shattering event it used to be before Mozilla adopted a rapid release schedule. But the latest stable release of the Firefox is noteworthy as it is said to address an issue that has rankled users for many years now. Yes, we are talking about the notorious memory leak problem.

Firefox 7 bears the fruits of Mozilla’s project “Memshrink,” an initiative aimed at reducing the huge memory appetite of the browser. Describing the latest version’s memory management as more efficient and the resulting browsing experience as “nimble”, Mozilla claimed in a blog post Tuesday that the browser is now “faster at opening new tabs, clicking on menu items and buttons on websites.” According to the open-source outfit, the browser now delivers “enhanced performance when lots of tabs are open and during long Web browsing sessions that last hours or even days.”

Other notable features and enhancements included in this version are an improved version of  hardware-accelerated Canvas, support for the  W3C navigation timing spec API, and the Telemetry tool (opt-in) for anonymously sharing browser performance data with Mozilla.