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Introducing Aquafox: A New Hope (TenFourFox fork) | Updated Aug 25, 2025
- Thread starter thewireless
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Excellent! Thanks, @thewireless, this just makes my day! I've already downloaded it and will give it a whirl later this AM.
Thanks from me and all the PPC users who refuse to stop using them! Long live AquaFox! Thanks for keeping it going.
Quick feedback. I downloaded Aquafox 2.0 to my PowerMac G5 DP 2.3 GHz and tried it out. It worked perfectly on everything I tested it with! It will get a good workout over the next several days, but I wanted to get back to you with that quick feedback.
Hi Kangtoshi, are you using the G4 version? Immediate crashing is usually a compatibility issue. The G4-7450 version should work on your PowerBook G4 without any problems.
a VLC plugin would be great, it's what allows me to run (in Pale Moon, since FF doesn't allow plugins anymore) a web applet I've coded to watch TV (DVB-T or net based) and listen to radios (local or internet), quite complete and very convenient (more than what I found on the net).
Although, I doubt my poor PPC G4 @1.33GHz would be able to decode on-the-fly modern HD DVB-T video formats, but hey I'd love to give it a shot.
p.s. sorry for the horrible editing, dunno how to get embedded quotes in my reply.
Other than that, thanxx a lot @thewireless for the continued effort to improve Aquafox, I've installed v2.0 and it works just fine, not sure how much of an actual difference yet with the previous release, but I guess I'll find out.
I'm afraid the single best improvement (a drastic one at that I'd guess) would be to add GPU support in Aquafox (or any other -fox browser), but if I understand it correctly this is a daunting task that no-one's willing to take on... oh well.
I'm afraid the single best improvement (a drastic one at that I'd guess) would be to add GPU support in Aquafox (or any other -fox browser), but if I understand it correctly this is a daunting task that no-one's willing to take on... oh well.
Thanks for taking this on - much appreciated. To move this further along, have you gone through Cameron's notes about his work on TFF over the years, on https://tenfourfox.blogspot.com And what he found to be, in the end, the obstacles for him to move past Firefox ESR 45? It was amazing what he accomplished (in particular his ability to put together a PPC-optimised JS engine).
First time I've checked in here for a while, and was really pleased to find out about Aquafox! It's pretty slow on my G4 Cube, but it works. And I love the icon! Great work, nice to have a working "modern" browser again after TenFourFox.
Aquafox 2.1
Hey everyone! First things first: Happy New Year! Not much time has passed since version 2.0, but it's a new year, and that means fresh starts and new beginnings; I'm introducing a release schedule for security updates! You can expect an update roughly every three months.Aquafox 2.1 marks the first of these updates and updates security to 128.6 ESR.
Thank you for your support, and I’ll see you all again at the next release!
Direct downloads here:
https://github.com/BlackBirdLC/Aquafox/releases/expanded_assets/v2.1
Great news thank you! And Happy New Year!
Hello. Thanks for the update, however I found that whenever I try to add a search engines to the browser in the preferences the browser ALWAYS locks up and needs to be "forced quit". Also the built in "DuckDuckGo" search browser ALWAYS gives results that lead to a "404" page if clicked.
If these 2 issue were fixed, then, Awesome!
If these 2 issue were fixed, then, Awesome!
I haven’t tried switching search engines yet so I don’t know about the freezing issue.Hello. Thanks for the update, however I found that whenever I try to add a search engines to the browser in the preferences the browser ALWAYS locks up and needs to be "forced quit". Also the built in "DuckDuckGo" search browser ALWAYS gives results that lead to a "404" page if clicked.
If these 2 issue were fixed, then, Awesome!
But I haven’t gotten any 404 errors in clicking links.
Edit: I just realized it was updated again on the 5th. The version I’m using has been on my G4 for a couple weeks so disregard. Could be newly introduced bugs.
Hi,Hello. Thanks for the update, however I found that whenever I try to add a search engines to the browser in the preferences the browser ALWAYS locks up and needs to be "forced quit". Also the built in "DuckDuckGo" search browser ALWAYS gives results that lead to a "404" page if clicked.
If these 2 issue were fixed, then, Awesome!
Thank you for reporting these issues. I tried to replicate them, but when adding a new search engine using the "Add more search engines..." link (which directs to the Basilisk Search Plugins page), I did not experience any issues. There was no freezing, and everything worked as expected. I should mention that I am using a Power Mac G5 running Leopard. May I ask what machine you are using? Perhaps the issue only occurs on lower-spec machines.
Regarding the DuckDuckGo search results, this appears to be a redirect issue. When clicking a result, it redirects you to https://duckduckgo.com/l/?uddg=url-you-wish-to-visit before directing you to the site you intend to visit. However, something seems to go wrong, resulting in a 400 Bad Request. This can be resolved by going to DuckDuckGo's settings page and turning off "Redirect (When Necessary)" in the Privacy tab.
I suspect this might be JavaScript-related (as usual), since the non-JavaScript variant (html.duckduckgo.com), which also redirects you to the same URL, successfully takes you to the correct page without issues.
Thanks @thewireless! I tested out Aquafox 2.1 on my Power Mac G5 DP 2.3 GHz and it works flawlessly. Thanks for keeping up the great work!
Hello,
Thanks for the info. I won't have a chance to try this out on my PowerBook G4 until this weekend but I'll try your DuckDuckGo fix and report back. As far as the machine I'm using, it's the last version of the PowerBook G4 17" Double-Layer SD. I'm using the version of AquaFox that is specific to this G4 also, the 7450 version.
I do not own any PowerBooks, but I do have a 1GHz single-processor PowerMac3,6 running Tiger on hand. Although not entirely comparable, the 7450 build is meant for this machine as well. I followed the same steps mentioned previously and added a search engine I had never tried before. I immediately set it as the default and made a successful search using the browser's search bar. I was even able to solve the captcha (I personally tend to fail those a lot).Hello,
Thanks for the info. I won't have a chance to try this out on my PowerBook G4 until this weekend but I'll try your DuckDuckGo fix and report back. As far as the machine I'm using, it's the last version of the PowerBook G4 17" Double-Layer SD. I'm using the version of AquaFox that is specific to this G4 also, the 7450 version.
I wonder what is causing the browser to lock up on your end. I should mention that my tests were performed using a new profile.
Just installed 2.1 on my Alubook G4 1.33GHz under Sorbet Leopard and... works just fine, Google search no problemo, Greasemonkey there (just have Viewtube script installed so far), RAMdisk effective, etc... in fact I'm typing this in Aquafox, so pretty happy so far, despite the CPU at or near 100% a bit too often to my taste (but that's true for any browser).
Thanxx for the update, and keep up the good work ! 👍
Thanxx for the update, and keep up the good work ! 👍
p.s. actually a slight issue with the RAMdisk, dunno why but it stubbornly gets mounted on "
/Volumes/RAMDisk 1" instead of "/Volumes/RAMDisk" no matter what I try ("RAMDisk" is its correct name showing on the desktop btw), so I've edited the about:config entry with that string and restarted Aquafox, but nothing gets written to the RAMdisk. (no big deal, I'd rather fix the mount point name)
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Actually as soon as I entered Edit mode for the prev msg (to Spoil the last part) the CPU shot up to 100% and have stayed there for the last 5mns or so. Didn't stop me from saving the edits and posting this very message, but doesn't feel right (and everything super slow of course, including text/chars while I'm typing).
EDIT : in reality I just found that the CPU sticks at 100% only when displaying some pages, when navigating to other sites or even other threads in this forum the CPU immediately goes back down to normal usage on most pages...
Other than that, most smileys appear "hollow" i/o plain colour, weird. 🙃
EDIT : in reality I just found that the CPU sticks at 100% only when displaying some pages, when navigating to other sites or even other threads in this forum the CPU immediately goes back down to normal usage on most pages...
Other than that, most smileys appear "hollow" i/o plain colour, weird. 🙃
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@Alubook133
Thank you for your messages. I personally don't use Aquafox or PowerPC Macs as much as I would like, so I don't experience these kinds of issues on a regular basis. High CPU usage appears to be quite common; I'm fairly sure the browser just gets stuck on something it doesn't fully support. It also varies widely from page to page. When idling on a MacRumors forum page or on Google search results, CPU usage is very low (<1%). However, when I'm on Emojipedia, CPU usage does not dip below 85%. The webpage with a full list of emojis on uncode.org idles at 30% after it finally loads.
Now that we're on the subject of emojis, they are rendered as black and white symbols for me as well, rather than the colorful images they usually are. This is due to missing (recent) Unicode support. Perhaps this can be updated to some extent.
Although I'm often busy and don't get to play around much with these machines, if you need me to test something, I'll be able to fit that into my schedule.
Thank you for your messages. I personally don't use Aquafox or PowerPC Macs as much as I would like, so I don't experience these kinds of issues on a regular basis. High CPU usage appears to be quite common; I'm fairly sure the browser just gets stuck on something it doesn't fully support. It also varies widely from page to page. When idling on a MacRumors forum page or on Google search results, CPU usage is very low (<1%). However, when I'm on Emojipedia, CPU usage does not dip below 85%. The webpage with a full list of emojis on uncode.org idles at 30% after it finally loads.
Now that we're on the subject of emojis, they are rendered as black and white symbols for me as well, rather than the colorful images they usually are. This is due to missing (recent) Unicode support. Perhaps this can be updated to some extent.
Although I'm often busy and don't get to play around much with these machines, if you need me to test something, I'll be able to fit that into my schedule.
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yeah, had the same thought, I guess not much can be done other than being patient (and like I said Aquafox was not entirely frozen like it happens in some other situations/browsers/sites, I could continue using it and the rest of the Mac - albeit slowly at that).
make sense, but not a biggie (though it does look bizarre), can live with that.
Looking forward to the next Aquafox release.
Its because there isn't an appropriate font installed to provide the emojis, so some of the older emojis fall back to whatever symbol font happens to provide the same codes.
There is code in the Mozilla codebase to load a color emoji font (Twemoji), search for the code ifdef-ed behind MOZ_BUNDLED_FONTS. However, you will need to patch it up, as TenFourFox replaced all of the used CoreText code with ATS code but not for the calls that load the fonts as it is normally unused (gfxMacPlatformFontList::ActivateBundledFonts()), and some changes are required to package it correctly (see https://github.com/Jazzzny/interweb55-snowleopard/commit/09595caf57649abb4d98a0cd739841cf106d82e3)
Thank you! I assumed that TenFourFox simply lacked support for any Unicode released afterwards and that the code to provide this (which is really just a font, it seems) could possibly be updated. I did not expect that there was no emoji font installed at all! Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.
Hello,
So I've got my PowerBook G4 running Aquafox and it definitely freezes if I try to update the search engines...like every time. The only way I can get it closed is to force quit the App from the Finder. Hmmm. Also, where are you talking about I am supposed to "going to DuckDuckGo's settings page and turning off "Redirect (When Necessary)" in the Privacy tab." I cannot find a "DickDuckGo's settings page" anywhere in Aquafox. Where is this setting?
Incidentally I tried adding a search engine (StartPage) in InterWebPPC the exact same way and it worked as expected, no issue, so this is definitely an Aquafox on my PPC issue that I'm experiencing.
Thanks for your help!!