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| 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 |
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| Related articles |
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| Origins and lineage |
| Category |
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.
- Optimization specific to the build microprocessor architecture.
- 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
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:
- Development versions of Firefox:
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".
See also
External links
- Swiftfox site
- APC Magazine: "Fastest browser in the world"
- Ubuntu site
- madpenguin.org
- linuxextremist