T4Fx 45 coming soon…

[eyoungren]

It's alive!

Not ready for it's closeup yet, but Kaiser says it starts!

http://tenfourfox.blogspot.com/2016/07/tenfourfox-45-is-thing.html

 

[redheeler]

Good news, even though this will probably be the last Firefox release ported to the PowerPC. I'll definitely try it on my G5 when it's released.

 

[eyoungren]

Yeah, according to Kaiser it's the last code parity upgrade. After this it's just down to feature parity with all PowerPC code. No more keeping up with Mozilla.

They just have too much now that's impossible to work around or emulate.

 

[redheeler]

Yeah, it's too bad but I can understand Mozilla wanting to move on and develop using APIs in newer versions of OS X. Not that I would use Firefox often on a Mac that can run a current version of Safari, though...

I'm hoping Leopard Webkit will see an update soon as well.

 

[Hrududu]

Not that I would use Firefox often on a Mac that can run a current version of Safari, though...
I'm hoping Leopard Webkit will see an update soon as well.

Yes and yes. I'm not a fan of FireFox just because I find the performance poor and extremely resource hungry. I really hope the PowerPC WebKit build hasn't been forgotten.

 

[eyoungren]

Yes and yes. I'm not a fan of FireFox just because I find the performance poor and extremely resource hungry.

It is.

Which is why I found tweaks to make it better

 

[bunnspecial]

I'm glad to see Mr. Kaiser continuing the good work.

I know there was some discussion about dropping the G3 version. Does anyone know if that's happening this time around?

 

[eyoungren]

I'm glad to see Mr. Kaiser continuing the good work.

I know there was some discussion about dropping the G3 version. Does anyone know if that's happening this time around?

No idea. He hasn't mentioned anything either way since the last time. And there have been a few point releases since then that included G3 versions so I'm going to say he decided to drop any plans on that.

 

[bunnspecial]

No idea. He hasn't mentioned anything either way since the last time. And there have been a few point releases since then that included G3 versions so I'm going to say he decided to drop any plans on that.

Thanks.

Most of my G3s run Classilla in lieu of TFF(or I should say OS X as a whole) but I do still use the G3 version. I'd made a point of downloading it a couple of times as needed mostly to show that there was some continued demand for it(I normally only download each version once and keep it on a flash drive to use as needed).

Ultimately Mr. Kaiser is doing this as a labor of love and he has to do both what motivates and what makes sense for him, but I'd hate to see this particular version go away.

 

[crammedberry]

Yeah, it's too bad but I can understand Mozilla wanting to move on and develop using APIs in newer versions of OS X. Not that I would use Firefox often on a Mac that can run a current version of Safari, though...

I'm hoping Leopard Webkit will see an update soon as well.

I saw Leopard Webkit got an update in July, so it looks like they are still trying to keep it somewhat current. Even if it is once a year. I like webkit a lot more since it is a lot more fluid than firefox and by extension tenfourfox.

 

[eyoungren]

I saw Leopard Webkit got an update in July, so it looks like they are still trying to keep it somewhat current. Even if it is once a year. I like webkit a lot more since it is a lot more fluid than firefox and by extension tenfourfox.

Safari has the bad habit of beachballing on every Mac I own with just about every action.

It will load a page, tell you there are 'X' elements to load and then when you get there load more. It never stops loading. Using it on Google just sucks eggs.

It's addon capability pales in comparison to FF/T4Fx and when it comes to customization just forget it.

I understand that a lot of people like it, but I hate Webkit in every form it comes in on every platform is runs on.

 

[crammedberry]

Safari has the bad habit of beachballing on every Mac I own with just about every action.

It will load a page, tell you there are 'X' elements to load and then when you get there load more. It never stops loading. Using it on Google just sucks eggs.

It's addon capability pales in comparison to FF/T4Fx and when it comes to customization just forget it.

I understand that a lot of people like it, but I hate Webkit in every form it comes in on every platform is runs on.

That's really interesting. Maybe I've just been lucky, Safari has always been my favorite browser due to its speed and slickness. You're right though that add-on capability is very limited, but usually I don't do add-ons so it works for me. The only extensions I use are Adblock plus and clicktoplugin.

 

[eyoungren]

That's really interesting. Maybe I've just been lucky, Safari has always been my favorite browser due to its speed and slickness. You're right though that add-on capability is very limited, but usually I don't do add-ons so it works for me. The only extensions I use are Adblock plus and clicktoplugin.

I can't argue it's speed, although if we're going to use Webkit my choices would be 1) Demeter, 2) Sunrise and 3) Stainless in that order.

Demeter, while experimental at the time it was released (it never got out of beta), is wickedly fast. Safari can't touch it.

But everyone is different. I spend a LOT of time in my browsers so I want them to be cusomizable. I'm willing to sacrafice a bit of speed for that, especially if I can find tweaks that help to alleviate that loss of speed.

 

[crammedberry]

I can't argue it's speed, although if we're going to use Webkit my choices would be 1) Demeter, 2) Sunrise and 3) Stainless in that order.

Demeter, while experimental at the time it was released (it never got out of beta), is wickedly fast. Safari can't touch it.

But everyone is different. I spend a LOT of time in my browsers so I want them to be cusomizable. I'm willing to sacrafice a bit of speed for that, especially if I can find tweaks that help to alleviate that loss of speed.

One thing that always got me about firefox/tenfourfox was that it was always laggy. And I'm not talking about rendering pages. The overall interface is just SLOW. Typing is slow, animations are slow, everything seems really slow. It's been 40 versions now and for some reason they haven't fixed it yet. I have a retina macbook pro and firefox to this day still feels slow on that computer compared to webkit browsers like safari or chrome. This is made even more prominent on powerpcs as they don't have the raw speed to just power through.

I use 10.4 Tiger on all my ppcs except for my powerbook, and using safari 4.1.3 without any extensions, meaning it loads all the ads and videos on the sides, is still faster than tenfourfox with all your tweaks as I've added them. I still use tenfourfox since using safari 4 for anything modern is impossible but I wish there was a way to just make the interface lean like in webkit.

 

[Dronecatcher]

One thing that always got me about firefox/tenfourfox was that it was always laggy.

That's a relief - I thought I was the only one. TFF is great for modern compatibility but it's such hard work on anything less than top G5s - on my portables it forever pushes the CPU to 100% - even with every tweak and javascript block. Safari/Webkit leaves it behind but does tend to be more crashy - however, it's great to still have a choice and the developer deserves every credit for his work.

 

[eyoungren]

I hear you about slowness and lag. Again, why I am on a quest for tweaks and such.

With all of my tweaks applied in the sticky in this forum I achieve page loads from about 6-8 seconds on a 1.0Ghz PowerBook G4. Now that's total time to load the page. Because of modifying ngpantdelay you are actually reading the content of the page load somewhere around two or three seconds. While you're reading the rest of the page is finishing loading.

On an Intel Mac, with these tweaks applied it's even faster.

But the most important point is that CPU thrashing, which is one of the major problems with Mozilla, returns to normal after the page is loaded. Except for connection issues you don't have the CPU pegged while you're reading a page, which contributes to the sluggishness.

As far as ram, I've done the best I can with finding these tweaks and I think it works fairly well.

All of this is maybe not enough for some people (my page loads in T4Fx beat my pages loads in Safari on PowerPC) but again, I'm willing to sacrafice some speed for customization.

If you have not tried the tweaks, I invite you to try them. It's been made easy to do and there are a few people that weren't sure about it that are converts to it now.
[doublepost=1469371524][/doublepost]Oh, I should mention one other thing.

If you can, turn off all instances of smooth scrolling that you find both in preferences and in about:config.

The computer uses CPU to try and make things scroll smoothly. That makes it sluggish and you end up scolling slowly. But it's on by default. Switch it off and you'll get normal scrolling without sluggishness and without the CPU getting hit.

 

[Dronecatcher]

I hear you about slowness and lag. Again, why I am on a quest for tweaks and such.

I've tried all the tweaks - my own and then the easy prefs download here (and assisted smooth scrolling is always off).
There's no doubt they make a difference but again, personally I've found Safari an easier ride but I use TFF as and when I need to.

I just did a quick test, setting this forum as home page in both browsers and flushed the DNS cache between tests - launching from dock and then reloading the page, the times are:

Webkit 13.7 secs - page reloaded 6.8 secs
TFF 18.4 secs - page reloaded 8.1 secs

This is on my 2.1 G5 iMac.

 

[eyoungren]

I've tried all the tweaks - my own and then the easy prefs download here (and assisted smooth scrolling is always off).
There's no doubt they make a difference but again, personally I've found Safari an easier ride but I use TFF as and when I need to.

I just did a quick test, setting this forum as home page in both browsers and flushed the DNS cache between tests - launching from dock and then reloading the page, the times are:

Webkit 13.7 secs - page reloaded 6.8 secs
TFF 18.4 secs - page reloaded 8.1 secs

This is on my 2.1 G5 iMac.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to convert anyone if they do not wish to be converted. Everyone should use what works for them.

Just presenting my points is all.

18.1 seconds for initial page load seems high though as I'm completing page loads in 8 seconds max. Have to try on my iMac at work.

 

[crammedberry]

I've tried all the tweaks - my own and then the easy prefs download here (and assisted smooth scrolling is always off).
There's no doubt they make a difference but again, personally I've found Safari an easier ride but I use TFF as and when I need to.

I just did a quick test, setting this forum as home page in both browsers and flushed the DNS cache between tests - launching from dock and then reloading the page, the times are:

Webkit 13.7 secs - page reloaded 6.8 secs
TFF 18.4 secs - page reloaded 8.1 secs

This is on my 2.1 G5 iMac.

This pretty much mirrors my experience. I think the problem is the interface, it slows everything down, launching takes forever, even on a PPC with an SSD! I've added every possible tweak to TFF and Webkit still beats it. Like you, I use TFF when I need to, but I tend to prefer using Webkit/Safari until absolutely necessary.

 

[Dronecatcher]

18.1 seconds for initial page load seems high though as I'm completing page loads in 8 seconds max. Have to try on my iMac at work.

If you try the same test and get 8 seconds there must be some magic being worked by your add-ons? When I did it, I only had Bluhell running - on other machines I have NoScript aswell.

 

[eyoungren]

If you try the same test and get 8 seconds there must be some magic being worked by your add-ons? When I did it, I only had Bluhell running - on other machines I have NoScript aswell.

Ah, perhaps that may be the case.

I'm using uMatrix. uMatrix is a lot like NoScript, but it also combines the features of Request Policy.

And perhaps that is the reason in your test? NoScript is great, but all it does is block scripts. Both Request Policy and uMatrix block third party requests by default. So, when I load pages I am automatically blocking all the third party analytics sites as well as other sites that have nothing to do with the page I am loading.

 

[Hrududu]

This pretty much mirrors my experience. I think the problem is the interface, it slows everything down, launching takes forever, even on a PPC with an SSD! I've added every possible tweak to TFF and Webkit still beats it. Like you, I use TFF when I need to, but I tend to prefer using Webkit/Safari until absolutely necessary.

I find TFF comfortable ONLY on dual and quad CPU systems. Granted, I don't have any single CPU G5's anymore, so maybe it isn't bad on 2GHz+ iMacs but on my faster single G4 setups (1.25GHz iMac, 1.5 PowerBook 12" and 1.67 PowerBook 17") it just draws full CPU power nearly nonstop. Just loading up Google nearly brings the machine to its knees. I just don't like the fact that you have to work over the app and disable a ton of stuff just to try to get close to WebKit's performance out of the box.

All that said, I couldn't be more grateful that TenFourFox exists and is being developed for PowerPC systems especially since we all have great PowerPC machines that are still fast enough for most of us and internet usability is what allows us to keep these great systems around for day to day use. I have it installed on all the systems that will run it (even if it doesn't run it well).

 

[eyoungren]

Just loading up Google nearly brings the machine to its knees.

uMatrix prevents all kinds of Google crap when loading Google. Request Policy as well.

This is a 1.5 second page load on my MBP, but I get around 2-3 second page loads on my PowerBook.



CPU idling about 13% on Google Images, one of the most intensive uses of Google you can get.

 

[crammedberry]

uMatrix is actually a really usefull little addon. I've even added it on my MBP even though it isn't that necessary there, it is still nice to block unwanted sites.

As far as TenFourFox, I am very grateful that it exists and my issue isn't with the TFF but with mozilla as a whole. It just baffles me that after all this time on extremely powerful systems, typing a website on the address bar still brings quad core systems down. There's something very inefficient about mozilla's code. If this is indeed the last iteration of TFF, then at least we've been quite lucky to have it until now, considering PPCs were discontinued 11 years ago. Cameron Kaiser has really done a remarkable service to the community. Hopefully once he stops adding new firefox implementations leopard webkit still keeps us up to date for a few more years. I figure eventually our systems will be completely useless on the web, no matter what tweaks we might try as everything keeps getting bloated, and when smartphones are now as fast as modern day PCs, web developers have no incentive to make their sites lean.

@eyoungren, have you found a way to speed up text in TFF? By that I mean when you're typing, for example repplying to this comment makes the computer lag behind when I'm words ahead in typing out my response. I've disabled spellcheck and everything else I could think of but it still seems to be about a sentence behind as the letters crawl onto the screen.

 

[Dronecatcher]

it still seems to be about a sentence behind as the letters crawl onto the screen.

That's the rich text editor - you can disable it in your profile preferences.