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PowerFox Web Browser - A brand new browser for PowerPC (Beta)
- Thread starter Jazzzny
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Gloomy
macrumors regular
The numbers suggest an almost 2000% improvement in JavaScript rendering in the next PowerFox update, i.e. much faster browsing.
DurltazorOSXPower
macrumors regular
Hey everyone,
Another thing I have been working on for the next release is enabling the Skia graphics backend:
Currently, two of PowerFox's weakest areas regarding performance are JS execution and graphics (browser rendering).
The former is solved with our new IonPower JIT, and now the latter is solved with Skia, which is a very fast rendering engine that even browsers such as Chrome still use, which no browser on PPC OS X has ever supported. I've seen a doubling in graphics performance across various parts of the browser, and pages that used to scroll quite sluggishly are now much better. This is shaping up to be a very nice release!
Another thing I have been working on for the next release is enabling the Skia graphics backend:
Currently, two of PowerFox's weakest areas regarding performance are JS execution and graphics (browser rendering).
The former is solved with our new IonPower JIT, and now the latter is solved with Skia, which is a very fast rendering engine that even browsers such as Chrome still use, which no browser on PPC OS X has ever supported. I've seen a doubling in graphics performance across various parts of the browser, and pages that used to scroll quite sluggishly are now much better. This is shaping up to be a very nice release!
Appleuser201
macrumors 6502
You sir, are fantastic. Along with other people who have helped significantly like Dr. Cameron Kaiser. This is very good work, and I believe will make the high end powermac G5s daily drivable again, and the later G4s finally usable on the modern web. I'm very excited to see the future of this project and what other great things we can achieve in our fight against planned obsolescence.
Smithwick’s
macrumors regular
This is huge! Thank you for your tireless work in the retro community. Frankly, despite the niche nature of the project this should be a huge resume booster in my opinion!
Any idea of the timeline for a release?
I'm currently putting finishing touches on all 10 unique builds that will be shipped, which takes quite a bit of time and effort to ensure that every configuration is working properly. At this point, I am quite close to a release and I think I can get one out within the next week.
this doesn't belong here ...
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It is inappropriate to report issues about Intel here, please use the Intel thread. Additionally, please try again once the new release is published.
I'm sorry for that, I totally forgot that we have two threads ... most the time PowerFox beta runs so well on all systems of mine that I didn't post anything in a long time. I even may have already overseen an error report that may exist already.
And of course I am looking forward to the new release!
And of course I am looking forward to the new release!
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DurltazorOSXPower
macrumors regular
Hello all,
I have some news, I may have to delay the release for a few days while I track down a bug I discovered in the PPC JIT.
While the JIT now works in 98% of circumstances, it still behaves slightly incorrectly on certain immensely heavy sites. I would rather ship a browser that works 100% correctly, so as such, the release will be unfortunately on hold until I can isolate this rather difficult issue and fix it.
I have some news, I may have to delay the release for a few days while I track down a bug I discovered in the PPC JIT.
While the JIT now works in 98% of circumstances, it still behaves slightly incorrectly on certain immensely heavy sites. I would rather ship a browser that works 100% correctly, so as such, the release will be unfortunately on hold until I can isolate this rather difficult issue and fix it.
Intel builds already have a highly optimized JIT written by Mozilla, there is no real improvement that can be done without drastically altering the architecture of the browser, which I cannot sustainably do myself.
Hello everyone,
I'm happy to announce the release of PowerFox 26.3.0! This release includes the IonPower JIT for substantial JavaScript improvements, and many new features, improvements, bug fixes, and security fixes:
As always, you can download the latest release from powerfox.jazzzny.me or the GitHub. Enjoy!
I'm happy to announce the release of PowerFox 26.3.0! This release includes the IonPower JIT for substantial JavaScript improvements, and many new features, improvements, bug fixes, and security fixes:
- Implemented IonPower JavaScript JIT compiler for significant performance improvements on PowerPC builds
- Enabled Skia graphics backend for improved rendering performance on all builds
- Enabled WebRTC support for 10.5+
- Implemented automatic update notifications for all builds
- Implemented AltiVec optimizations in VP9 decoder for PowerPC builds
- Added PowerFox settings tab
- Fixed WebGL support for 10.5 Intel builds
- Fixed Cloudflare Turnstile issues
- Fixed various crashes on 10.6 builds
- Fixed keyboard shortcuts and other input issues on 10.4 builds
- PDF viewer improvements and bug fixes
- Stability improvements on 10.4/10.5 Intel builds
- Updated NSS security library to 3.90.12 (UXP)
- Synced with UXP@ddf5d6256e for HTML, CSS, JavaScript engine improvements and security fixes
- Addressed security vulnerabilities: CVE-2026-12318 (CWE-125), CVE-2026-12322, CVE-2026-12292, CVE-2026-4707, CVE-2026-4690, CVE-2026-4727, CVE-2026-2806, CVE-2026-2758, CVE-2026-2804, CVE-2026-2787, CVE-2026-2757, CVE-2026-2773, CVE-2026-2779, CVE-2026-2775, and several others that do not have a CVE designation.
As always, you can download the latest release from powerfox.jazzzny.me or the GitHub. Enjoy!
Andrew-R
macrumors 6502
It works! Even with Cloudflare-protected sites!
On long Youtube vids playback may stop after minute or so, but I think it really just youtube bing bloated.
Edit: embedded Youtube player (for example here) works ok, left it playing for half a hour. Only youtube-website stops
test link above (tested on G5 using G5 build)
On long Youtube vids playback may stop after minute or so, but I think it really just youtube bing bloated.
Edit: embedded Youtube player (for example here) works ok, left it playing for half a hour. Only youtube-website stops
test link above (tested on G5 using G5 build)
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jktwice
macrumors regular
Typing this on my G5 Quad on Leopard. YMMV.
This is such an unbelievably massive leap in performance. No question about it, 26.3 was worth the wait. The JIT is the big improvement of course. Intel even on Tiger has had a JIT since the first betas so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect given that the performance of the G5 Quad and early MacBook Pros were pretty equivalent. Still, I am blown away by how responsive this web browser actually is.
IDK how PPC Tiger performs, but Leopard has a few extra bells and whistles anyways so I would probably just go to that if your computer can run it. So any of those fast PowerBook G4s, Power Mac G4s, or literally any G5, they should use this.
I'm definitely most interested in how the mac mini g4 handles this browser on Leopard. Great job, great release. My CPU usage is so low too...
Edit: I am trying out VP9 performance through an invidious instance. This is absolutely incredible the decoding performance. It is a Quad, but at 720p no core is pinned. In fact it's not even close to being pinned each core is maybe 30-40% usage. On a slower machine I bet 720p is perfectly fine still and 480p no question is playable. This raises the bar no doubt. It makes me get giddy like when QMPlay2 got the OpenGL 2 accelerated video player.
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I sent you a small donation. I wish I could send more but I was recently laid off.
Awesome job!
sparty411
macrumors 6502a
JS performance is infinitely better for me on my PB G4 DLSD running Tiger. Do you happen to know what would prevent ublock origin and umatrix from functioning? It's pretty difficult to browse the web on these machines without being able to filter the cruft and bloat.
You can download versions of both from https://powerfox.jazzzny.me/addons.html
sparty411
macrumors 6502a
Right, that's where I got them from. My problem is that they don't functional at all. The both make the CPU spike to around 80-90% when installed while the browser is just sitting idle, then have no functionality.
This is going to need a lot more work, but I'm happy to say that one more big cat will be getting PowerFox support!