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Revision as of 01:46, 2 April 2007 editWidefox (talk \| contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Page movers, IP block exemptions, New page reviewers, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers106,831 edits revert suspected sockpuppet/meatpuppet activity.← Previous edit		Revision as of 02:22, 2 April 2007 edit undoKilz (talk \| contribs)1,368 edits →Speed: replace unreliable tag. This tag is in reference to the Browser speed test citation and should not be removed untill it has been replaced.Next edit →
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	== Speed ==		== Speed ==
			{{unreliable}}
	=== Firefox speed ===		=== Firefox speed ===
	Firefox has been criticised for slow startup compared with other browsers, a criticism confirmed by pre- Firefox 2.0 speed tests<ref>{{cite web \| url = http://www.softpedia.com/reviews/windows/Mozilla-Firefox-Review-13677.shtml \| title = Mozilla Firefox Review \| work = Softpedia \| accessdate = 2006-10-30}}</ref><ref name=benchgeneral>{{cite web \| url=http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html \| title=Browser speed comparisons}}</ref>. A speed comparison of various Linux (and other) browsers has been done<ref name=benchgeneral>{{cite web \| url=http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html \| title=Browser speed comparisons}}</ref>. In this 32bit, pre- Firefox 2.0 test, Firefox was slower than both ] and ]<ref name=benchgeneral><ref name=benchgeneral>{{cite web \| url=http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html \| title=Browser speed comparisons}}</ref>.		Firefox has been criticised for slow startup compared with other browsers, a criticism confirmed by pre- Firefox 2.0 speed tests<ref>{{cite web \| url = http://www.softpedia.com/reviews/windows/Mozilla-Firefox-Review-13677.shtml \| title = Mozilla Firefox Review \| work = Softpedia \| accessdate = 2006-10-30}}</ref><ref name=benchgeneral>{{cite web \| url=http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html \| title=Browser speed comparisons}}</ref>. A speed comparison of various Linux (and other) browsers has been done<ref name=benchgeneral>{{cite web \| url=http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html \| title=Browser speed comparisons}}</ref>. In this 32bit, pre- Firefox 2.0 test, Firefox was slower than both ] and ]<ref name=benchgeneral><ref name=benchgeneral>{{cite web \| url=http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html \| title=Browser speed comparisons}}</ref>.

Revision as of 02:22, 2 April 2007

Swiftfox


Stable release	Based on Firefox 2.0.0.3 / Mar 20, 2007
Preview release	4.0.0 [±]

Operating system	Linux
Type	Web browser
License	binaries: proprietary source: MPL 1.1
Website	getswiftfox.com

Related articles

Firefox version history Firefox early version history v2 v3 v3.5 v3.6 v4 Features of Firefox Gecko Add-ons WebExtensions
Origins and lineage
Netscape Navigator Mozilla Foundation Mozilla Suite
Category
v t e

Swiftfox is a freely downloadable, open source graphical web browser. Swiftfox is a binary and settings optimized build of the Mozilla Firefox web browser for Linux made by Jason Halme. An optimized build is created for each of the supported microprocessor architectures. The latest release version of Firefox is available as well as development versions. Firefox extensions and plugins are fully compatible with Swiftfox.

Name

The name Swiftfox comes from the animal Swift Fox which coincidently implies speed . No explicit claim of speed or speedup is made at the Swiftfox site, but simply that it is an "optimized build".

Optimization

Swiftfox is optimized using the following methods:

Binary code optimization

Compiled with the highest level of compiler optimization, rather than optimization for binary size.
- Swiftfox is compiled -O3,
- Firefox is compiled -Os(which is less than -O2 ).
Binaries incorporate additional instruction sets.
- Intel and AMD: SSE2, SSE, MMX, (not generally SSE3).
- AMD only: 3DNow!
Optimization specific to the build microprocessor architecture.
- Intel: Pentium 4, Pentium 3, Pentium M, Pentium 3M, Pentium 2, Prescott, Celeron (various).
- AMD64: Athlon64 (32bit binary).
- AMD: Athlon XP Duron Sempron, Athlon, K6-2.
Compiled with newer version of GCC (Firefox 2.0 uses 3.3.2, Swiftfox 2.0 uses 4.0.4).

Increased Security

Better protection from buffer overflow attacks (Swiftfox 2.0 uses -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2; Firefox 2.0 uses gcc 3.x, which does not support this).

Reduced binary size

Pango is not included. This means that Unicode fonts remain supported (see Unicode and HTML), but without certain extra features provided by Pango.

Changed default preference values

HTTP pipelining is enabled by default. Note that Fasterfox provides a GUI to adjust these settings.
IPv6 DNS lookups are disabled.
For full details, see .

Speed

Some of this article's listed sources may not be reliable. Please help improve this article by looking for better, more reliable sources. Unreliable citations may be challenged and removed. (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Firefox speed

Firefox has been criticised for slow startup compared with other browsers, a criticism confirmed by pre- Firefox 2.0 speed tests. A speed comparison of various Linux (and other) browsers has been done. In this 32bit, pre- Firefox 2.0 test, Firefox was slower than both Opera and KonquerorCite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page)..

Swiftfox speed

No definitive speed comparison has been reported, but an unspecified faster startup time together with a 1.7% webpage rendering speedup has been reported. The details of this test are a page rendering in 4.79 seconds for Firefox and 4.67 seconds for Swiftfox, both 32bit on 64bit system. There is a bigger speed advantage of Opera and Konqueror over Firefox, than Swiftfox over Firefox. There was no benchmarking on different processors, so builds optimized for different processors were not evaluated, nor discussed.

Additional options

Swiftfox is bundled with the following freely available Firefox plugins and extensions:

XForms extension is installed and enabled
libunixprintplugin.so plugin is installed

Downloads available

Current version of Firefox:
- Builds for both both Intel and AMD processors - a different build is available for each processor type.
Development versions of Firefox:
- Builds for AMD Athlon XP processors and sometimes Intel Pentium 4 (and compatible).

License

Similar to Firefox, the Swiftfox source code is open source, with the source code under MPL 1.1 except for parts relating to branding. Unlike Firefox, the Swiftfox binaries have a proprietary license which does not allow redistribution. According to the author, this is to prevent the possibility of any confusion with tainted versions (see the branding argument below). But the name Swiftfox is trademarked by Jason Halme, and accordingly can not be used on other 3rd party Firefox builds without his permission.

Alternatives

Firefox source code and Swiftfox changes are freely available for download, allowing anyone to create their own build.

References

"Swiftfox Forum". Retrieved 2007-4-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
"Swiftfox Forum".
^ Using url of about:buildconfig to check the details of the 2.0 builds
"Optimize Options - Using the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC)".
^ "Swiftfox 2.0pre changelog".
"Swiftfox Forum".
"redhat.com". {{cite web}}: Text "Limiting buffer overflows with ExecShield" ignored (help)
"Script Gallery - Pango".
^ "Swiftfox 1.5.0.7 changelog".
"Mozilla Firefox Review". Softpedia. Retrieved 2006-10-30.
^ "Browser speed comparisons".
^ "APC Magazine: What's The Worlds Fastest Browser". Retrieved 2006-10-30.
^ "Swiftfox license".

External links

Categories:

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