Safari To Get JavaScript Speed Enhancements via SquirrelFish

The battle for Web browser performance bragging rights is all about speed. Both Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox are jostling for the title of fastest browser, with one of the key metrics being how fast JavaScript performs.

Apple this week upped the stakes with the new SquirrelFish bytecode JavaScript interpreter, which it claims offers significant performance improvements. JavaScript performance is critical for Web developers and users since it has an impact on how quickly Web sites (especially Ajax-heavy sites) load and perform.

SquirrelFish promises 1.6 times faster JavaScript performance as compared to Webkit/Safari 3.1. This is accomplished by using "a register-based, direct-threaded, high-level bytecode engine" which aims to eliminate the overhead associated with traditional syntax tree walking interpreters like the one currently used in Safari 3.1.x.  SquirrelFish is now part of the Safari nightly build, although it is not yet included in the main, generally available Safari 3.1.x release. According to Safari developers, SquirrelFish is 1.6 times faster than its current JavaScript interpreter.

That’s good news for iPhone users since SquirrelFish will no doubt make its way into Mobile Safari at some point. The speed boast in Mobile Safari should mean your favorite JavaScript-heavy apps — like Gmail and others — will run faster once SquirrelFish is added.

To know more about SquirrelFish..