Apple looks to speed up Safari performance with new updates to its Javascript engine

Safari hasn't received a serious performance update for a long time after Mavericks came out with a "slight" redesign to the browser interface and some extra features like reading lists keep going from one reading to the next with a smooth transition plus minor corrections.

Now according to different information, Apple would be working on significantly increasing performance JavaScript in Safari. The open source browser engine on which Apple's browser is based, WebKit «Nitro», is being updated and improved to compete head-to-head with other proposals such as Chrome with its “V8” Javascript engine or the Mozilla FireFox with "SpiderMonkey".

These new updates to the aforementioned WebKit "Nitro" JavaScript engine are known as «FTLJIT«. On the other hand it is still considered experimental, and as such, it is not activated by default, instead it needs to be activated via command line options.

An attribute that could do FTLJIT Stand out even more, is how well it executes JavaScript code that is not specifically optimized for asm.js., designed by Mozilla so that run on SpiderMonkey with specific optimizations for this engine even right now there is another browser developer who has chosen to follow Mozilla's lead.

Reports say that with WebKit and FTLJIT enabled you are outperforming Chrome in speed tests, however Firefox still tops the charts using the optimized benchmarks in asm.js.

JavaScript allows a variety of user interactions with a web page, which allows functions such as dynamic reloading of information without having to reload the entire web page. As such, the efficiency of a browser's JavaScript engine can have a huge impact on the user experience.

Still there is no date for this engine update to see the light and be permanently integrated into Safari.