Firefox users can expect a considerable speed bump in complex JavaScript applications over the JaegerMonkey engine that was launched with Firefox 4 in early 2011. Mozilla currently claims that IonMonkey, which is similar in its architecture to Google's Crankshaft in Chrome, is not too far behind Chrome in the Kraken benchmark, and provides a substantial performance increase in Google's v8 benchmark.
Besides IonMonkey, Firefox 18 will not deliver much else. According to Mozilla's feature tracking, the browser will get per-site third-party cookie setting support as well as inline PDF support. The final version of the browser is scheduled for release on January 1, 2013.
The beta version can be downloaded here (opens in new tab).
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