Developer Edition now covers Quantum CSS, an entirely new CSS engine written in Rust and based on the Servo co-ordinate browser motor project. Additionally, the “Quantum Flow” team tracked down and solidified 369 performance bugs in Firefox, with a particular focus on responsiveness and UI interactions. Lastly, the “Quantum DOM” plan began overhauling how Firefox prioritizes work, returning more quickly to issues like user input while keeping less urgent numbers until the browser is idle.
The result? Related to Firefox six months ago, today’s Developer Edition is double as fast on benchmarks like Speedometer 2.0 that affect the real-world performance of modern web applications.
Furthermore, Firefox is 64-bit and multi-process by default, and Firefox’s single architecture allows it to take the power of modern, multi-core processors while still considering your available RAM. Meanwhile, the “Quantum Compositor” project significantly decreased crashes caused by buggy graphics drivers.
You’ll hear more about Photon in November, but highlights introduce redesigned menus, square tabs, and a new “Library” button that appears as a single place for your bookmarks, downloads, history, etc. By default, Photon joins the search and URL bars into a particular widget, but the old style is only a preference away.
The “Activity Stream” project redesigned the New Tab Page to highlight from your recent history and bookmarks, as well as suggestions from Pocket. Of course, each of these content blocks is optional, and add-ons can simply replace the new tab page to create entirely different experiences.
We also renewed form handling in Firefox, adding a brand new autofill characteristic and implementing built-in widgets for and elements<input type=date><input type=time>.
A few highlights:
- The Console, Debugger, and Network tabs are now achieved using standard web technologies, including React and Redux, as part of our “devtools.html” effort.
- The Inspector won tons of new features for working with CSS Grid, CSS Variables, toggling classes on parts, etc.
- The Console now holds grouping messages and expanding/inspecting objects in-line.
- The Debugger offers entirely new ways to search, navigate, and debug projects.
And that’s not all. To read in larger depth about what’s new in Firefox Developer Tools, check out Developer Edition Devtools Update.
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