Running Firefox 33.1.1 on G5

[bunnspecial]

I thought you folks might find this interesting, even though it's fairly impractical.

I recently picked up a copy of VirtualPC 7 for my work G5, primarily to allow me to run some windows programs that I need(such as Originplot). I bought a copy of VirtualPC that included Windows XP Professional for $12 including shipping on Ebay.

After installing it, I thought that I would at least install some current, still maintained browsers even though I have no intention of actually using them.

Below is a screen shot running Firfox 31.1.1 in Windows XP on my Dual Core G5.

Unfortunately, the limitations of VirtualPC make everything very slow. It's actually fine for the fairly simple programs I want to run, but a modern web browser is a bit much. VirtualPC will only allow me to allocate 512mb of RAM to Windows, and I think that allowing more might speed things up.

In any case, here it is. As I said, it's not really practical, but is at least possible.

 

[2984839]

Interesting. I routinely use Firefox 33 on my PowerBook when I need Javascript and it isn't too terrible on most websites, considering its massive codebase and the fact that it isn't optimized at all, but I don't use it as much as Netsurf or Dillo. I've had to do a lot of poking around about:config to get it performing acceptably. Javascript performance in 33 is about twice as fast as Firefox 29, 30, and 31 . I'm not sure what changed but it was a dramatic difference.

I haven't made the leap to using it full time, but FF 33 is decent enough that I think I could. The main thing keeping me back is the fact that I need to block so much Javascript that I might as well be using Dillo, which loads pages instantaneously.

 

[bse5150]

Dillo is terrible at rendering pages in my experience. I don't see how anyone can actually use it.

 

[2984839]

Dillo is terrible at rendering pages in my experience. I don't see how anyone can actually use it.

It's definitely terrible with some websites, especially the Javascript laden ones. I keep Netsurf around for those, or use Firefox if I need the Javascript support. If I'm just browsing a mostly text based site or Macrumors, Dillo does fine and is noticeably faster than Netsurf, even though Netsurf is very fast.

 

[Imixmuan]

Links2 is way better than Dillo at just about everything, I've even downloaded webvideo in Links2 recently and played in back in VLC. I know you are running OpenBSD but in Puppy and other tux's there are a bunch of useful browsers that have no analog in OS X. Palemoon (a fairly newish Firefox derivative) Qupzilla, Slimboat, Maxthon, Midori and Xombrero to name a few. I am also partial to the barebones webkit browsers like luakit, surf and dwb.

Its embarrassing, sometimes, how many lightweight browsers exist on other UNIX based platforms. I'd port them to OS X but...I suck at code. Like, bad.

 

[2984839]

Links2 is way better than Dillo at just about everything, I've even downloaded webvideo in Links2 recently and played in back in VLC. I know you are running OpenBSD but in Puppy and other tux's there are a bunch of useful browsers that have no analog in OS X. Palemoon (a fairly newish Firefox derivative) Qupzilla, Slimboat, Maxthon, Midori and Xombrero to name a few. I am also partial to the barebones webkit browsers like luakit, surf and dwb.

Its embarrassing, sometimes, how many lightweight browsers exist on other UNIX based platforms. I'd port them to OS X but...I suck at code. Like, bad.

I might give Midori another try on the PowerBook. It would be a much faster alternative to Firefox if I need Javascript, which is usually just for logging in through captive web portals. I like it a lot, but it had a lot of stability issues on PowerPC last time I tried it. Works great on my MBP though.

 

[roadbloc]

Might seem a bit of an obvious question, but why not just use TenFourFox? Are there any benefits to using FF in VirtualPC?

 

[bunnspecial]

Might seem a bit of an obvious question, but why not just use TenFourFox? Are there any benefits to using FF in VirtualPC?

The answer is "to do it."

If you look at the dock, you'll see that I actually have Leopard Webkit(my main PPC browser) open, and the TenFourFox icon(which I use a lot also) right next to it.

As I said, the virtual machine is to run some specific Windows-only programs that don't have a Mac equivalent. There really is no practical use to web browsing in the VM. Remember that VirtualPC actually has to emulate an x86 processor, so there's a lot of overhead with that, and the limited RAM allocation within the VM(512mb) doesn't help either. Programs like Firefox are slow in VirtualPC.

So, again, there's no practical reason-I just did it to see that it could be done.