Electrolysis (e10s) is one of the core features of Firefox that Mozilla is currently working on. This feature, or enhancement, adds the highly acclaimed multi-process architecture to the Mozilla browser.
Multi-process architecture separates open tabs from each other and plugins separately, strengthening not only the browser's stability but also its security. We shouldn't confuse this with a "sandbox," but it's certainly a step towards making it a reality in the future.
Mozilla implemented Electrolysis in the Nightly channel builds of Firefox a few months ago in February. The implementation was experimental at the time and disabled by default.
Tests showed that a lot of work needs to be done, especially regarding stability and compatibility with plugins. Work on Electrolysis has continued and there is, for now, a roadmap for planning the continuity of this feature until it is fully stable. This could vary according to the bumps that may appear during development.
Firefox multi-process, where and when?
Roadmap for multi-process Firefox architecture
- July 18th, 2014 - Milestone 1: make E10s usable for average Nightly version users but disabled by default.
- July 21th, 2014 - Firefox 34 development begins. Mozilla wants to use the next six weeks for Nightly channel users and plugin developers to test e10s and especially plugin compatibility.
- 1 for September, 2014 - Firefox 35 development begins. Mozilla plans to reach the second milestone in this development period. When milestone 2 is reached, Electrolysis is at a point where it can be enabled by default for users of the Nightly versions.
- 13 for October, 2014 - Firefox 36 development begins. This is the Firefox version, where the multi-process will be moved from channel to channel (Nightly> Aurora> Beta> Stable) until it is released in the stable version on February 16, 2015.
A change in architecture is a major change, and one of the consequences of implementing e10s is that there are plugins that are not compatible with it.
Plugins that are not supported at the moment, among others, are Adblock Plus, LastPass, RequestPolicy, Greasemonkey, HTTPS Everywhere, BluHell Firewall or Video Download Helper.
Mozilla tracks plugin compatibility with e10s on the Are We e10s yet page . Here you can see a list of bugs and track the progress being made to make a plugin compatible.
Many other popular add-ons have not yet been tested. However, those that are constantly being developed and updated will be patched to make them compatible with e10s if necessary. Other add-ons, on the other hand, those abandoned by their authors, will become defunct when e10s is included in the stable version of Firefox.
Source: FirefoxManía