Earlier in 2017, Mozilla introduced its Project Quantum, which is a modernized Firefox that is built especially to handle the needs of the modern web.
Then in September 27, 2017, Mozilla takes a huge step forward by releasing Firefox 57 developer edition. While the old Firefox developer edition was based on the alpha-quality Aurora channel, when Mozilla scrapped Aurora in April, developer edition moved to being based on the beta channel.
And this is the time when Mozilla announced Firefox Quantum, which is an overhaul project on the Firefox web browser. Mozilla said that it had entered the beta stage.
The Quantum project isn't taking a huge step forward in terms of becoming a more capable competitor to Google Chrome, but it's made to take advantage of multi-core processor setups, which is something common in modern computers.
For example, Quantum has a tweaked CSS engine. Written in Mozilla's Rust programming language, it enables the browser to work in parallel across all available processor cores, rather than having one large process on a single core.
To meet the new technology, Mozilla uses Photon as the user interface. It brings square tabs and a more conventional menu. Overall, the looks are more into cleanliness and precision. There's also a new tab page that adds recommended stories to the usual list of your most-visited sites.
Photon is a more minimalist re-imagining of Firefox, and it's better suited for displays with high DPI. Given that 4K displays are becoming more common on mid-to-high-end computers, the upgrade certainly makes experience a lot better.
It also prioritizes tabs based on the order users are using them. Using Quantum, tabs that actively used will download and render before other background tabs. This according to Mozilla, makes Firefox 30 percent more RAM-efficient than its competitor Chrome.
In addition to that, it's also faster.
This is possible as Mozilla made a huge effort in removing bottlenecks from Firefox. The company also said that is had eliminated 469 bugs that impacted the browser's performance.