14 DAY TRIAL // Google Chrome may have been designed from the ground up with multiple processes in mind, but re-engineering Firefox for the same task isn't as easy.
Mozilla doesn't have the engineering prowess of Google either, but the effort of redesigning Firefox with a multi-process architecture at core is still underway.
Dubbed Electrolysis, the project is still some time off from completion. While the first sign of the work landed in Firefox 3.6, when plugins were split to another process, there hasn't been anything new since.
Mozilla's Chris Blizzard has provided an update of sorts on why Firefox needs a multi-process architecture and what are the biggest advantages.
"Since the release of Firefox 4 we’ve been working again to bring multi-process content support to Firefox," Blizzard wrote.
"In the case of Electrolysis we’re not talking about the kind of performance that’s usually referenced in the press or is the subject of benchmarks. What we’re really talking about with multi-process performance is responsiveness," the explained the big performance boost of a multi-process architecture.
The idea is to split the content, the UI and everything in between, in processes which can be managed individually.
One way this drives up performance is by having garbage collection done on each of the processes, rater than holding off the browser with one big garbage collection event once in a while.
There is also the obvious benefit of making it possible to take advantage of the multi core processors that most people have today.
The idea is to have threads sent to different cores at the DOM level, to spread out the load as much as possible.
Yet another positive side effect is that, if you split tabs between more processes, crashing one will leave the others and the whole browser intact and running.
Finally, security could also benefit from a multi-process architecture where each process gets the privilege level that is appropriate for its purpose.