The new Firefox Electrolysis

[misi]

http://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-gi...er-with-electrolysis-project/?ftag=CAD090e536

You may have moved on from Firefox, and its maker wants to do something about that.

A decade ago, Mozilla attracted millions of users when Firefox showed the world what a cutting-edge browser could do. A lot has changed since then, including the balance of power among browser makers.

Now Mozilla has begun shipping technology called Electrolysis to win you back.

In its glory days, Firefox ran rings around Microsoft's widely used but stagnant Internet Explorer. Since then it's fallen behind Google's Chrome, which rose to claim 49 percent of browser usage, according to analytics firm StatCounter, while Firefox sank to 8 percent and other rivals like Microsoft Edge and Opera Software's Opera fight for other users.

Electrolysis is designed to restore Firefox's fortunes by making it respond faster when you do things like click, scroll and open new tabs.

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"This is going to be a major improvement to the smoothness of the browser interface, especially when heavy web pages are loading," said Asa Dotzler, Mozilla's product manager for Firefox's roadmap and community. "People really appreciate the snappiness of Chrome, Edge and Opera. Firefox is going to gain a bunch of that snappiness with Electrolysis."

Electrolysis teaches Firefox to walk and chew gum at the same time, splitting different parts of the browser into separate computing processes so figuring out how to put Facebook on your screen won't interrupt your mouse clicks. Electrolysis, also called E10S and multiprocess Firefox, increases browser responsiveness 400 percent for ordinary websites and 700 percent for complex ones with many elements, Dotzler said.

Three weeks ago, a half percent of Firefox users became the first people to get the Electrolysis-enabled version of the browser. That early test went well, so Mozilla is gradually spreading the updated browser farther. Electrolysis doesn't work on everybody's Firefox configuration -- only about half of the browser's users are eligible right now -- but all those people will get it in the coming weeks, Mozilla said.

New FF ???
It's time for it to do something to keep its users happy.