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Browser for iBook G4?

MBHockey

MBHockey

macrumors 601
Original poster
Oct 4, 2003
4,063
314
Connecticut
I recently offered to fix up my cousin's 2004 iBook G4 (1.33 GHz, 512mb). It's in really good condition, just painfully slow. I decided to upgrade the ram to 1.25 GB, get a new battery (the old one only held a charge for a few minutes), and swapped out the original 60 GB 4200 rpm HD to a 64 GB SSD. I also upgraded it from tiger to Leopard.

The machine runs noticeably better with much less beach balling, although I guess the SSD is pretty constrained by the old IDE/ATA bus (I was hoping the SSD would have made more of a difference). But Safari is pretty slow and boggy. Typing in the address bar is laggy, there's lots of beach balling, and when I look at activity monitor it is constantly using >40% CPU.

Are there better browser options for this machine? It's a shame that it's been somewhat modernized but Safari chokes so much on seemingly simple websites. It has all the updates on Leopard.
 
Leopard Webkit, which is a modernized version of Safari.

There is also TenFourFox, which many of us use. It's a PowerPC fork of Firefox that works on G3, G4 and G5 machines. The latest non stable version is 29 and I think the current stable version is 24. Equivalent to Firefox 29 and 24 respectively.

T4Fx, because it's Mozilla code, lets you use any addons that you can use in normal Firefox. However, plugins (including Flash) are disabled in T4Fx for security reasons.

Honestly, you cannot expect this Mac to do well with Javascript or Flash intensive sites. If you need to use sites such as Youtube then apps like Mactubes are a good alternative.

Also, Leopard has a lot of eye candy. If you turn some of that off the machine will perform better. Things like image previews, coverflow and so on.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. Would it be better off back on Tiger? I cloned the original HD with Super Duper so I could very easily throw Tiger back on to the SSD.

Is there any consolidated list of eye candy to turn off? I've only disabled the 3D dock so far.
 
You will find lots of fans of Tiger here, especially on lower-specced Macs. However, Leopard has an undeserved reputation for slowness that can be fixed with some tweaking.

It's true that Leopard is more ram intensive, but each succesive version of OS X has always demanded more ram. Leopard works best on systems with at least 1GB ram. So, you're already there.

The problem with downgrading to Tiger is that you limit what can be run on the iBook. Many devs abandoned Tiger a long time ago and if there are still apps to be found that run on PowerPC Mac most of them now require Leopard. So, by rolling back you are going to have to use much older apps that work on Tiger.

This is not a problem for some people who are ok with that, but I'm just informing you.

As far as improving Leopard, have a look here.

You may also be interested in installing the Secrets prefpane. It gives access to a lot of hidden settings where you can turn off/on or modify system settings for better performance. I don't have a link for you right now, but it's around here somewhere.
 
Thanks. TenFourFox was a great recommendation. The CPU-specific build is leagues better than Safari on this machine. Absolutely no beach balling. I will look into your other suggestions on improving Leopard's general performance. I think I'll stick with it though.
 
TenFourFox is probably your best bet.

I use Dillo full time and it renders pages instantly. It actually renders pages faster on my PowerBook than Firefox 29 does on my Mint desktop with an AMD FX-8350. It's extremely lightweight and does not support Java, Javascript, or Flash. It handles images just fine, though sometimes text can be misaligned.

I don't know if it works on Leopard, but according to the developers, Dillo works on OS X 10.6 and other OS X versions. Since it also works on my PowerPC machine, you might be able to compile it successfully on yours, though you may have to play around with it a little. It might be worth giving it a shot. If it doesn't work, you've still got a great browser with TenFourFox.
 
eyoungren said:
You will find lots of fans of Tiger here, especially on lower-specced Macs. However, Leopard has an undeserved reputation for slowness that can be fixed with some tweaking.

It's true that Leopard is more ram intensive, but each succesive version of OS X has always demanded more ram. Leopard works best on systems with at least 1GB ram. So, you're already there.

The problem with downgrading to Tiger is that you limit what can be run on the iBook. Many devs abandoned Tiger a long time ago and if there are still apps to be found that run on PowerPC Mac most of them now require Leopard. So, by rolling back you are going to have to use much older apps that work on Tiger.

This is not a problem for some people who are ok with that, but I'm just informing you.

As far as improving Leopard, have a look here.

You may also be interested in installing the Secrets prefpane. It gives access to a lot of hidden settings where you can turn off/on or modify system settings for better performance. I don't have a link for you right now, but it's around here somewhere.
Click to expand...

Good use of the guide! Glad to see people can use it.

MBHockey said:
Thanks. TenFourFox was a great recommendation. The CPU-specific build is leagues better than Safari on this machine. Absolutely no beach balling. I will look into your other suggestions on improving Leopard's general performance. I think I'll stick with it though.
Click to expand...

Install MacTubes. Then go to MacTubes --> Preferences, then set the player from Flash to QuickTime. It will use the QuickTime format for all videos, which is easily played on a PPC Mac. However, when loading an official video like a VEVO video (music videos), it will not load using the QuickTime format sadly.

Also, install MacTubes Enabler. It lets you search YouTube regularly through the browser, but open the video right in the MacTubes program.
 
im_to_hyper said:
Personally, I enjoy using WebKit along with the ClickToPlugin plugin and Reddit Enhancement Suite.

There is also AuroraFox which seems a bit faster than TenFourFox in regard to browsing, but for functionality and features I would choose TenFourFox any day!

I don't have a G5 anymore, but back in 2012 I did this and could watch Hulu!!

http://scriptogr.am/nordkril/post/adobe-flash-11.5-for-powerpc
Click to expand...
Aurorafox is actually my preferred browser. Fast, Mozilla-based, optimized for Leopard. The problem though is that they stopped development at AFx 20. They were ahead of T4Fx for a considerable length of time, but now T4Fx is 9 versions past them.

Once T4Fx got about two versions ahead I had to go back to it. It's still a good browser, but Cameron Kaiser is a Tiger fanatic so it's optimized more for Tiger than it is for Leopard.
 
im_to_hyper said:
Personally, I enjoy using WebKit along with the ClickToPlugin plugin and Reddit Enhancement Suite.

There is also AuroraFox which seems a bit faster than TenFourFox in regard to browsing, but for functionality and features I would choose TenFourFox any day!

I don't have a G5 anymore, but back in 2012 I did this and could watch Hulu!!

http://scriptogr.am/nordkril/post/adobe-flash-11.5-for-powerpc
Click to expand...

What PowerPC are you using currently? A lot has changed since 2012.
 
Don't forget about...

Seamonkey....

http://sourceforge.net/projects/seamonkey-for-ppc/

Hiker-Biker also restored carbon plugins, so things like the extremely outdated hacked flash for PPC and viewtube should work with Greasemonkey. Not all Firefox plugins work with Seamonkey, but many do. Its not a good idea to use such an old version of Flash, but tens of thousands still do and I am not aware of any notable exploits.

And, iCab....

http://icab.de/

Neither of the above are as complete or current as T4Fx or LeopardWebkit. But, they are still "supported", and its always good to download and use them, so the developers don't ask themselves if they should still be writing code for an obsolete platform.

Don't forget about Youview either.

https://mrgeckosmedia.com/applications/info/YouView

Does the same thing as Mactubes, except uses FFMPEG instead of Quicktime. I use both and I think Youview performs a little better.
 
Imixmuan said:
Seamonkey....



http://sourceforge.net/projects/seamonkey-for-ppc/



Hiker-Biker also restored carbon plugins, so things like the extremely outdated hacked flash for PPC and viewtube should work with Greasemonkey. Not all Firefox plugins work with Seamonkey, but many do. Its not a good idea to use such an old version of Flash, but tens of thousands still do and I am not aware of any notable exploits.



And, iCab....



http://icab.de/



Neither of the above are as complete or current as T4Fx or LeopardWebkit. But, they are still "supported", and its always good to download and use them, so the developers don't ask themselves if they should still be writing code for an obsolete platform.



Don't forget about Youview either.



https://mrgeckosmedia.com/applications/info/YouView



Does the same thing as Mactubes, except uses FFMPEG instead of Quicktime. I use both and I think Youview performs a little better.
Click to expand...


I have used YouView in the past but MacTubes brings me back with MacTubes Enabler. Would you say whether YouView works with official videos like music videos? MacTubes doesn't when using QuickTime Format.
 
Nope

Youview will not display official VEVO videos, and some videos with ads for me. Also, age restricted videos that require you to login. But there is a age bypass Greasemonkey script for that.
 
In Reply

Like most people here have said, browsers are dwindling for PowerPC machines these days. Luckily, awesome people who still want to use the PowerPC platform have developed a PPC-Only version of the latest distribution of Mozilla Firefox. Its is called TenFourFox and is specifically designed for different PPC processors. If you go to the TenFourFox download page you will see different versions of it for different PPC processors, and for your machine just select the G4 7445-e version to download. If you are running Tiger or Leopard, this is an excellent web browser.

PS- Try disabling the 3D-Dock feature if you want to free up some CPU work, because your machine does not have a Core Image supported graphics card (Radeon 9200) and the CPU is forced to software emulate Core Image. I don't remember the specific command for it, but just google "Dock no glass leopard" to search for it.
 
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