9 Jul 2011

Firefox 7 enters Aurora channel, improves memory usage



Mozilla has announced the release of Firefox 7 into the Aurora Channel. According to the release notes, the latest developer preview is "focused on delivering performance enhancements and optimizing memory utilization", addressing a problem that long-time users of the open source browser have been complaining about for ages.

The latest version will reportedly bring memory usage down by 30% or more for some users, thanks to various general improvements in the way the browser manages memory and a change to the JavaScript garbage collection process. As detailed back in April, the improved garbage collection will make the process of looking for unused JavaScript objects and freeing memory faster by breaking it down to many short sweeps instead of doing it all at once.

The new Aurora channel release will also include a 'Telemetry' feature to which users can opt-in for automatic memory usage, performance testing and reporting to help improve future versions Firefox. Other changes include support for CSS3 Text-Overflow, faster canvas-based animations, instant synchronization of bookmarks and passwords, enhanced font rendering, the 'http://' is no longer displayed on the address bar, and the browser should startup faster.

If you already have Firefox Aurora installed, you will receive an automated update notification in the next few days. Otherwise you can grab the latest developer release here.

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