Firefox 3 Beta 5 twice as fast in the cloud: Mozilla

By Stan Beer
Thursday, 03 April 2008 04:49

Networking

Firefox browser developer, Mozilla Foundation, says the beta latest version of its new browser is now twice as fast as the widely used Firefox 2. According to Mozilla, the performance improvements are most apparent when using cloud applications.

Mozilla says in its release notes: "improvements to our JavaScript engine as well as profile guided optimizations have resulted in continued improvements in performance. Compared to Firefox 2, web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office run twice as fast in Firefox 3 Beta 5, and the popular SunSpider test from Apple shows improvements over previous releases."

A quick play with with the latest Firefox beta does indeed show it to be extremely zippy, although not blindingly quicker than the other popular browsers. Rudimentary physical testing showed it be about 10% faster than either Safari or IE7 when loading pages. However, tests on Google Mail and Calendar were inconclusive and showed no discernible difference. The same thing goes for Google Documents.

Basically, most cloud applications are so good these days, that all the major browsers are fine to use on them.

The new Firefox beta also boasts improved integration with Windows, Mac and Linux and improvements to the Places Organizer on the tool bar.