Firefox 66 will bring some changes to extensions. According to the Mozilla Foundation, the changes will improve the performance of extensions while also reducing the browser's memory footprint.
The upcoming version of the app will require extensions to use IndexedDB as a backend for local storage, thus leaving the JSON files it uses today.
The change will take place automatically and the entire process will be done when the upcoming Firefox 66 is installed.
“This change is completely transparent to extension developers and you don’t need to do anything to benefit from this improvement. When users upgrade to Firefox 66, the JSON file for local storage will be silently converted to IndexedDB,” says Mike Conca, Product Manager, Firefox WebExtensions.
“All extensions that use the storage.local() API will immediately “feel” the benefits, especially if they store small changes in large structures, as is the case with ad-blockers, the most popular type of extension used in Firefox.”
For the average user, this change means that extensions will load faster, improving browsing speed while also helping Firefox reduce the amount of memory it uses.
As you may know, browsers use more and more memory when you open more tabs. The amount of memory Firefox uses is proportional to the number of extensions you use.
A demonstration of the new changes in Firefox 66 can be seen below, as the Mozilla Foundation presents a video showing that opening the browser with an ad-blocker installed takes less time than before thanks to the new caching system.
These updates are already available for testing in the Firefox beta build and will be released to everyone with the release of the upcoming Firefox 66 on March 19, 2019.
