Mozilla has started development of its Electrolysis project for Firefox again, which should improve security and performance of the browser. Electrolysis, abbreviated as e10s has the goal to run the user interface of the browser in a separate process from the web content.
Currently the desktop version of Firefox runs in a single operating system process. The code on which the user interface is built, also known as 'chrome code', runs in the same process as the web content. In future Firefox versions this should be separated, resulting in a 'multiprocess Firefox'. In the first version of this architecture, all browser tabs will run in the same process and the user interface in a different one. The end goal is to run web content in separate content processes. Besides security and performance improvements, it should also improve the stability of the browser.
Electrolysis has been planned for years already but never ended up in a final version of the browser. Only in a Nightly version, for tests, the feature was enabled for a while but eventually was removed again. Firefox is behind other browsers that all do support multiple processes. It appears that Mozilla now has given priority again to the project, Firefox 42 is likely the first version in which Electrolysis will be enabled by default. This version should see the light in November this year.
The e10s feature is currently already available for testing in the Developer Edition of Firefox.
