The Firefox 9 has just arrived and Mozilla claims that its latest browser is 36-percent faster than the older version. Along with the new release came patches to
Firefox’s six issues and finally a fix to a two-year old security problem on Firefox 3.6. This new release is in line with the new release policy by Mozilla and comes six weeks after the Firefox 8 release in November.
Type Interface Technology
FireFox 9, the new release comes with a technology called ‘type interference’ to run its SpiderMonkey JavaScript Engine, which increases the speed of generation of the native code on the just-in-time compiler JaegerMonkey. This compiler is relatively new as well as it was added earlier in March, this year.
Since most of the online media such as: online gaming content, websites using rich content or sophisticated Web Apps rely on JavaScript, Firefox 9’s specialized technology increases the speed from 16% to 36% in comparison to earlier version Firefox 8. The speed has been recorded on reputed sites like SunSpider JavaScript, Google V8 and Mozilla’s Kraken.
Mac OS too tweaked
Interface for Mac OS X 10.7 is improved allowing swipe gestures, using two-fingers, to move from pages, sites already opened or viewed.
Windows interface reveals no new interface changes.
Patches ride high on Firefox 9
Firefox 9 also comes with patches for four critical issues while others are for ‘high/moderate’ issues.
One of the critical patches was for a series of 23 memory bugs found in the core of the browser engine.
These bugs were found to corrupt the memory on occasions and which, could at a point in future, be exploited posing security threats. Mozilla comments on this bug with this security advisory.
Firefox 3.6 updates
As of the first day of Dec, Mozilla has offered a new edition Firefox 3.6 as it wants users yet on Firefox 3.6 to move to the rapid releases. StatCounter has, so far measured the effectiveness of this, and found that Firefox 3.6 has shown a drop in the past few weeks of Dec, in comparison to the user percentage in entire November.
No’ silent update’ yet
However, this does not yet match the ‘quiet’ update prowess of Google Chrome, since this is done with minimal input from users. Mozilla has since its April 2010 release, aimed at providing silent update of its latest versions and has again missed the goal with the latest release as well.
Mozilla proposes to reach this benchmark with its Firefox 12 release, slated for release for April 2012.
Firefox 9 comes for Android and first interface for tablets
Firefox 9 has released an Android version as well. The interface for Android OS smartphones is now tweaked for faster features.
Interestingly, Firefox 9 has for the first time a browser tuned for tablet use and is available for download at Android Market.
Firefox and Google announce new search contract
Firefox and Google have chosen to help each other. The default search engine on Firefox will be Google, for which the search-engine giant will provide revenue to Firefox.
The next release of Firefox will happen on Jan 31.
