T4Fx 45 coming soon…

[128keaton]

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.

Yeah. I do not care for TFF. I rarely use it unless I need something modern. Stainless is awesome. Decent UI, excellent speed. Only lacks extensions.

 

[crammedberry]

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

Yes, I have that disabled, but it still sort of crawls a bit. I was wondering if there was anything you guys used to make text be a little faster across all sites? Though maybe I'm just expecting too much from my good old ppcs and they just might not be able to handle it. I do spend most of my time with modern systems so it makes the difference that much more noticeable to me.

 

[eyoungren]

@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.

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

Dronecatcher's reply above!

This is not T4Fx's fault, but the fault of the design of the forum software. Essentially what is happening here is that javascript for the Quick Reply is executing in the background ALL the time. Which effects typing and CPU.

So turning off the rich text editor as @Dronecatcher says will eliminate this problem.

The reason it does not affect Intel Macs or more powerful machines is for the same reason we use uMatrix, NoScript and Request Policy. There is a bunch of JS executing all the time on all websites. But the more powerful Macs can handle it faster through brute force.
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Yes, I have that disabled, but it still sort of crawls a bit. I was wondering if there was anything you guys used to make text be a little faster across all sites? Though maybe I'm just expecting too much from my good old ppcs and they just might not be able to handle it. I do spend most of my time with modern systems so it makes the difference that much more noticeable to me.

Take a look through here and try these…

My TenFourFox About:Config tweaks - and my addons

 

[crammedberry]

I've installed all the TFF tweaks, I was just wondering if there was something you did that you hadn't mentioned since I know you modify your browsers heavily. I think I just have to find some lag acceptable given that these are very old machines since in the end that seems to be the limiting factor.

 

[sawpits]

Looks like there will be a G3 version.

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

 

[eyoungren]

I've installed all the TFF tweaks, I was just wondering if there was something you did that you hadn't mentioned since I know you modify your browsers heavily. I think I just have to find some lag acceptable given that these are very old machines since in the end that seems to be the limiting factor.

Sorry, I need to know what you installed.

If you used my own prefs file you'll have everything I have done. If you use Altemose's Easy Installer you'll get just the major speed tweaks and Hack's tweaks, while a clean install or the user.js file also just cover the major speed tweaks.

You are correct, there are other tweaks I've made that even the odds a bit. But the ones I don't mention are generally a personal choice that aren't directly related to speed (but may indirectly affect it).

So if you have NOT tried my own prefs.js file, try that and see what happens. Backup your old one first.

 

[crammedberry]

Sorry, I need to know what you installed.

If you used my own prefs file you'll have everything I have done. If you use Altemose's Easy Installer you'll get just the major speed tweaks and Hack's tweaks, while a clean install or the user.js file also just cover the major speed tweaks.

You are correct, there are other tweaks I've made that even the odds a bit. But the ones I don't mention are generally a personal choice that aren't directly related to speed (but may indirectly affect it).

So if you have NOT tried my own prefs.js file, try that and see what happens. Backup your old one first.

I installed the user.js file since you mentioned that one includes all your tweaks as well and was a bit easier to get to.

 

[eyoungren]

OK. Then it may be down to addons.

This is my list…

Which addons do you have?

 

[Orizence]

As someone who mostly only visits a few forums on my G5 these days, I find it pretty okay. Keep in mind I don't really watch youtube on any of my desktop computers.

 

[crammedberry]

OK. Then it may be down to addons.

This is my list…

Which addons do you have?

View attachment 641707

I mainly have adblockplus and umatrix. I've also made umatrix default to blocking all scripts even on primary sites, kept css since most sites don't render correctly without it.

Thanks for the list, I'll try them out one by one when I get a chance this week and see if they make a difference.

 

[128keaton]

As someone who mostly only visits a few forums on my G5 these days, I find it pretty okay. Keep in mind I don't really watch youtube on any of my desktop computers.

I rarely watch YouTube in general. Music is on Spotify, netflix is on my phone.

 

[crammedberry]

I rarely watch YouTube in general. Music is on Spotify, netflix is on my phone.

I gave up youtube on ppcs a while ago, it's just torture trying unless you have a G5 or really fast G4. My powerbook 1.33 plays youtube videos at lower resolutions but stutters a bit.

 

[eyoungren]

I mainly have adblockplus and umatrix.

Ahhhhh!

Try replacing ABP with BluHell Firewall.

ABP has a memory leak that has never been fixed. BluHell Firewall will do the same thing ABP does without having to fiddle with any lists. The only website I have ever seen it fail to block ads on is Facebook. Also, it has a very light ram footprint.

PS. Get rid of Ghostery if you have that too. It has the same problem as ABP and uMatrix/Bluhell can block tracking.

PPS. Not all my addons are speed/tweak related so skip some of them (unless you want them). Things like Forecast Fox, Stylish, etc are just for customization purposes.

 

[Dronecatcher]

I gave up youtube on ppcs a while ago, it's just torture trying unless you have a G5 or really fast G4. My powerbook 1.33 plays youtube videos at lower resolutions but stutters a bit.

ClickToPlugin, Greasemonkey, PPC Media Centre - plenty of ways to do it.

This is my iBook 1.33 doing it:

 

[crammedberry]

Ahhhhh!

Try replacing ABP with BluHell Firewall.

ABP has a memory leak that has never been fixed. BluHell Firewall will do the same thing ABP does without having to fiddle with any lists. The only website I have ever seen it fail to block ads on is Facebook. Also, it has a very light ram footprint.

PS. Get rid of Ghostery if you have that too. It has the same problem as ABP and uMatrix/Bluhell can block tracking.

PPS. Not all my addons are speed/tweak related so skip some of them (unless you want them). Things like Forecast Fox, Stylish, etc are just for customization purposes.

Yes, I can go by their descriptions to see if they are useful, I know some are for customization. I didn't know about the ABP memory leak, I just used that one since it was available across all browsers – Safari, Chrome, FF. I'll replace it with BluHell in TFF, I don't think there's a Safari extension for it for webkit though.

ClickToPlugin, Greasemonkey, PPC Media Centre - plenty of ways to do it.

This is my iBook 1.33 doing it:

I managed to get youtube to play smoothly in-browser for the most part on leopard webkit since a few versions back they added hardware acceleration for video playback/decoding. That seems to have helped a bit. TFF plays okay as well but stutters in-browser. I do know about the workarounds for playing it by getting the file itself, clicktoplugin being preferred since I could do it in-browser while searching as opposed to a third party app.

 

[crammedberry]

Tried your add-ons and none of them made a difference in speed (other than BlueHell and uMatrix), but removing ABP did. I replaced it with BluHell.

On an iBook G4 1.07GHz 1.25GB
TFF launch from dock to macrumors home = 15.60 secs
TFF reload macrumors home = 4.09 secs

Cleared cache and offline data for the tests.

Not as fast as webkit, but almost and a lot better than before, though still painfully slow compared to my 1 second loads on my MBP. It looks like the biggest difference is umatrix and I have it set to block all scripts even from the primary sites so it just loads content.

 

[eyoungren]

Tried your add-ons and none of them made a difference in speed (other than BlueHell and uMatrix), but removing ABP did. I replaced it with BluHell.

On an iBook G4 1.07GHz 1.25GB
TFF launch from dock to macrumors home = 15.60 secs
TFF reload macrumors home = 4.09 secs

Cleared cache and offline data for the tests.

Not as fast as webkit, but almost and a lot better than before, though still painfully slow compared to my 1 second loads on my MBP. It looks like the biggest difference is umatrix and I have it set to block all scripts even from the primary sites so it just loads content.

Good to hear!

None of my tweaks/addons are going to turn a Chevette into a Ferrari, but they do speed it up. It will never be as fast as Webkit and I freely admit that. It's just the nature of the beast. But again, that's where my willingness to compromise for customization comes in.

In any case, at least you can now see where I was going with all of this. 🙂

 

[crammedberry]

Good to hear!

None of my tweaks/addons are going to turn a Chevette into a Ferrari, but they do speed it up. It will never be as fast as Webkit and I freely admit that. It's just the nature of the beast. But again, that's where my willingness to compromise for customization comes in.

In any case, at least you can now see where I was going with all of this. 🙂

Yes it is all a compromise but every bit helps. I wish there was an updated tenfourkit to update the tiger version of webkit but there isn't. So for Tiger, at least these tweaks help with modern compatibility.

 

[Altemose]

If you used my own prefs file you'll have everything I have done. If you use Altemose's Easy Installer you'll get just the major speed tweaks and Hack's tweaks, while a clean install or the user.js file also just cover the major speed tweaks.

I did not know there was even a desire for my Easy Installer any more. It is a couple of months behind your thread. Do you think I should update it again, even though your user.js includes it all?

I mainly have adblockplus and umatrix. I've also made umatrix default to blocking all scripts even on primary sites, kept css since most sites don't render correctly without it.

Sadly, AdBlock Plus has been the enemy of even Intel Macs due to its leaks. Bluhell Firewall is the best on Mozilla browsers by far!

I'll replace it with BluHell in TFF, I don't think there's a Safari extension for it for webkit though.

Safari has a couple of ad blocking extensions available, but I have not found one as fluid and resource conservative as Bluhell on TenFourFox. I used to use AdGuard, but sadly their latest version will crash WebKit.

 

[eyoungren]

I did not know there was even a desire for my Easy Installer any more. It is a couple of months behind your thread. Do you think I should update it again, even though your user.js includes it all?

I would - if you're good with that.

The problem with MY file is that it includes all my preferences. Hack5190 found crap in there dating way back, a lot of it for addons I stopped using years ago. On Intel Macs, my prefs file also has an annoying bug that causes three purple squares with numbers in them on the top left where the window controls are.

So, your file allows people to get most of the major tweaks with a clean install. The difference between your prefs file and Hack's is that he is using ALL of the tweak changes, not just the ones you select.

Some people may just want only the tweaks that pertain to speed, which is what your Easy Installer was originally for.

 

[Altemose]

So, your file allows people to get most of the major tweaks with a clean install. The difference between your prefs file and Hack's is that he is using ALL of the tweak changes, not just the ones you select.

Some people may just want only the tweaks that pertain to speed, which is what your Easy Installer was originally for.

Alright... My goal is to get a new release out there by Wednesday.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Replaced my prefs file with Erik's and still get 19.7 start, 7.6 reload - plus strangely, uMatrix doesn't load.
Going back to my original tweaked prefs, uMatrix now works but times are as before.
Maybe it's yet another bizarre depends on your machine PPC thing - I'll test later on G4s.

BTW when I say "flush cache" I'm not referring to the browsers setting but the Terminal command:

(for Tiger) lookupd -flushcache
(for Leopard) dscacheutil -flushcache

I believe without this your browser has a head start on pages already visited.

 

[crammedberry]

Replaced my prefs file with Erik's and still get 19.7 start, 7.6 reload - plus strangely, uMatrix doesn't load.
Going back to my original tweaked prefs, uMatrix now works but times are as before.
Maybe it's yet another bizarre depends on your machine PPC thing - I'll test later on G4s.

BTW when I say "flush cache" I'm not referring to the browsers setting but the Terminal command:

(for Tiger) lookupd -flushcache
(for Leopard) dscacheutil -flushcache

I believe without this your browser has a head start on pages already visited.

I used your terminal commands to clear out the cache and ironically it was slightly faster.

TFF dock to macrumors home = 14.62
TFF reload macrumors home = 3.60

Cleared out the cache with command between the tests. I think clearing out settings probably makes more of a difference since the program itself saves its own files somewhere.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Results on my 1.33 iBook"

With Hack's prefs 17.7 reload 8.8
With Erik's prefs 21.4 reload 9.2

With Eriks prefs my add-ons wouldn't load.

I'll do some tests later after tinkering with the config - maybe greater caching to RAM might help?

 

[eyoungren]

Replaced my prefs file with Erik's and still get 19.7 start, 7.6 reload - plus strangely, uMatrix doesn't load.
Going back to my original tweaked prefs, uMatrix now works but times are as before.
Maybe it's yet another bizarre depends on your machine PPC thing - I'll test later on G4s.

BTW when I say "flush cache" I'm not referring to the browsers setting but the Terminal command:

(for Tiger) lookupd -flushcache
(for Leopard) dscacheutil -flushcache

I believe without this your browser has a head start on pages already visited.

If one of your addons is AdBlock Plus you might try uninstalling that. Also, BluHell Firewall helps.
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Results on my 1.33 iBook"

With Hack's prefs 17.7 reload 8.8
With Erik's prefs 21.4 reload 9.2

With Eriks prefs my add-ons wouldn't load.

I'll do some tests later after tinkering with the config - maybe greater caching to RAM might help?

Yeah, this may be the downside of using my prefs file. Whole lot of junk in there from over the years.

Going to see about an update to it soon.

That said, my point of completely turning off the cache was to force T4Fx to load directly from the net each time. With a fast connection this reduces ram use. So it balances out. At least that's the argument anyway.

Every setup is different, so if tweaking ram cache for your situation works then by all means up the ram cache.