Earlier this week, Mozilla, the nonprofit organization behind Firefox, launched the first beta of Firefox 57. That doesn't sound like a big deal, but version 57 is the most important Firefox release in years. It's the culmination of years of work on many of the moving pieces that the user never sees but that allow the browser to quickly display your Gmail inbox, YouTube video or cat forum. To mark the fact that this is such a major release, Mozilla has dubbed this release "Firefox Quantum."
Many of the updates in Quantum come from Mozilla's experimental Servo browser and engine. Servo was never meant to be released as a standalone project, but was basically the incubation chamber for the future of Firefox. That engine was written in Rust, a programming language Mozilla developed for exactly this kind of use case.
This means that, unlike previous versions, Firefox Quantum can now take full advantage of multiple CPU cores -- especially when it comes to its CSS engine, which plays a major role in how fast a web page renders. Ideally, this also means Firefox now uses far less memory (and often this means it'll actually use less memory than Chrome).
The team also used this release to introduce a new interface. This means that the rounded tabs are gone, for example. The new interface focuses on simplicity and speed. Like previous versions, you can still modify the interface to your heart's desire, but that interface will now also look good on high-DPI screens and work better on laptops with touchscreens.
