Steve's Pad

Optimized Firefox for the Apple G5 processor

November 6, 2004

(I originally posted this elsewhere, but thought someone here might be interested... Note that this is not an official Cocoatech release and is provided with absolutely no warranty, guarantee, or anything else like that. Your mileage will most certainly vary. That said, I might be cajoled to help with problems if you can't get this to run, etc.)

firefoxUPDATE November 9th: With the long-awaited release of Firefox 1.0 comes a G5-optimized version. This version should be identical to the 1.0 release with the exception of the custom form widgets and the application icon - only official builds are allowed to use the Firefox branding.

Download Firefox 1.0 (G5 edition) (10.2mbs, bzipped).

I will probably start building G5-optimized versions again once the main trunk codebase for Firefox gets all of the 1.0 branch UI changes (icons, find-as-you-type bar, etc.), but this is pretty much it for the nightly builds for now.

The only other thing I want to try and figure out is how to build localized versions of Firefox - I know there are quite a few German folks that are downloading this build, and I personally would like a French-localized version. If that interests you, keep checking back and I should have something up in the next day or so.

For the past two weeks or so I have been running a totally kick-ass nightly build of the Mozilla Firefox web browser optimized for the Powerbook G4 processor. Because it was created specifically for my laptop's CPU, it is noticeably faster than the normal nightly builds. If you use a Powerbook (or iBook G4), you should check it out.

Now that I own an iMac G5 (which I plan to post more about soon), I figured it would be interesting to see if I could build a version of Mozilla Firefox for the G5 processor.

With help I managed to get a version to build successfully. All of the rampant nerdiness was worth it: Wow, does this build fly on my iMac. For those of you who run a machine with a G5 processor in it (and who use FireFox), give it a try and let me know what you think.

Update: please see this post on my personal weblog for up-to-date download links and information. -- neilio

Posted by neilio at November 6, 2004 9:01 PM

Comments

1. Posted by: Kevin at November 7, 2004 10:25 AM

Excellent! Wish I had a G5 :)

2. Posted by: b@b at November 8, 2004 11:41 PM

Yeeesss, Good Game !!

FireFox & Mac'OS Pooowwwaaaa

3. Posted by: Hidemaru Yamashita at November 9, 2004 2:33 AM

i want japanese version G5-optimized build of Firefox!! Please.

4. Posted by: Ken Edwards at November 9, 2004 5:04 AM

Holy Toledo Batman!

(yes, it works very well)

Thanks Neil!

5. Posted by: N. Inukai at November 11, 2004 8:10 PM

Try it!

6. Posted by: Taichi Kaminogoya at November 17, 2004 7:46 AM

Good Job! :)

7. Posted by: Glenn Davies at November 19, 2004 10:26 AM

The history setting doesn't seem to work with this build.

8. Posted by: a T at January 7, 2005 6:16 PM

hmm.... download link doesn`t work.... hellppp, I would love to try it out!

9. Posted by: macaddict forums at February 26, 2005 1:18 AM

we've been discussing the new 1.0.1 Firefox release over there. some of us are wondering...are you going to update your G5 optimized version?

we want to stick with yer Firefox mod since it is waaaay faster, but also want to enjoy the benefits of the new upgrade. should we be expecting a revision on your part?

thanks for your hard work!
we all really appreciate it.

macaddict.com (forums)

10. Posted by: Chris at March 8, 2005 5:57 PM

We want a FireFox 1.0.1 G5 build!!! At least give us your build settings guys!