Servo 0.6 adds CSS Grid support, Threadboost cuts Speedometer time in half
Servo 0.6 shipped with working CSS Grid support and an experimental Threadboost feature that improves Speedometer scores by 50%.
Summary
The Rust-based Servo browser engine released version 0.6 with CSS Grid support, enabling many more websites to render correctly. Other additions include CSS color-scheme, animation-composition, and text-transform support, plus new DOM APIs. Servo upgraded to SpiderMonkey 153 for security fixes and added an optional disk-backed HTTP cache. An experimental Threadboost optimization is showing 50% improvement on the Speedometer benchmark.
What's new in Servo 0.6
- CSS Grid: now functional, expanding site compatibility significantly
- Threadboost: experimental performance feature yielding 50% Speedometer improvement
- SpiderMonkey 153: pulled in for security and crash fixes
- Disk-backed HTTP cache: optional, currently without manual clear capability
- Additional CSS features: color-scheme, animation-composition, full-width, text-transform
- DOM APIs: new implementations landed
- Accessibility and AudioWorklet: ongoing work and prep
Why it matters
CSS Grid support removes a major compatibility barrier for Servo as a viable alternative browser engine. The 50% Speedometer gain from Threadboost, if it holds, could position Servo more competitively against mainstream engines on performance-critical workloads.
Original reference: www.phoronix.com →