SquirrelFish Extreme debut

The team behind WebKit -- the rendering code used in browsers like Chrome and Safari -- says it has developed a dramatically faster version of its JavaScript engine, SquirrelFish. SquirrelFish Extreme is said to use four different technologies, such as bytecode-level optimizations, that together contribute to performance more than twice that of the current engine or 10 times the level in Safari 3.0. Speed is expected to increase as Extreme development progresses.

Mac and Windows builds are currently available for testing, but it is uncertain which if any public browsers the release code will be featured in. Although Apple is believed to be working on Safari 4, which should incorporate some form of SquirrelFish, neither fact has so far been confirmed, and Safari 3.1.x does not incorporate even the standard edition of SquirrelFish. WebKit is, however, an open-source framework originally developed by Apple.

by MacNN Staff