Hi folks,
Since Release 147, our Android browsers have been running on the new Fission architecture. This architecture was introduced on desktop Firefox in 2021, and it allowed us to unify the code paths within Gecko, making more Gecko features available on Android. The main idea of Fission is sandboxing of web content - each web site would be isolated in its own OS process for security. In Release, we have that feature turned off, but in Nightly we run a partial isolation. With Labs, you can now get access to full web content isolation in Nightly, and partial in Beta or Release. We would greatly appreciate your feedback on the experience and performance, to make Fission more polished and stable before fully shipping it to all our users.
What is Fission?
Fission is a new site isolation architecture that sandboxes each website to its own OS process, making it much harder for malicious sites to read users private data. It is Mozilla’s response to [Meltdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meltdown_(security_vulnerability)) and [Spectre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(security_vulnerability)) vulnerabilities. It was a monumental effort, which took years to accomplish. For a while, Android remained on the old architecture, and was more vulnerable compared to desktop Firefox. Beginning with Firefox 147, our Android browsers run on this more secure architecture. However, the feature of web content isolation is limited to Nightly only, and to a partial isolation only, to ensure stability.
Ready to share your feedback?
Please try out Fission with additional web content isolation, and tell us what works well and what can be improved. We actively seek feedback on performance and app stability (crash rate), as well as navigation history functionality – ensuring that the app remains usable and that the history contains all the navigation it should and is updated correctly. We're curious to know how often you experience problems with performance – be it memory or battery; as well as any crashes or new weird issues with the navigation history. Do the history items disappear unexpectedly or the history is not updated correctly? Please share any issues you’ve encountered here or file a Bugzilla ticket in GeckoView component.
Want to know more about Fission?
Check out this doc for details.