Filed under: Internet Tools
Optimized Firefox 3 builds available
Neil Lee has updated his optimized Firefox builds for Firefox 3. The architecture-specific versions of Firefox 2 had been dubbed BonEcho, but Firefox 3 brings a new moniker: Minefield. I'm unsure as to the intended implications of the name (it sounds like the perfect way to refer to an alpha release), but I've been running the Intel version with great results.
If you were a user of BonEcho, you were used to the icon being visibly different than the standard Firefox icon. The icon for Minefield, designed by Adam Betts, is a slight variation on the standard icon and not immediately discernible as a deviation from the original. This has confused a few people, but it's definitely a less jarring transition. You still get the title "Minefield" wherever Firefox would have shown up in the interface, so you know what you're running.
As far as performance, I haven't run any solid benchmarks but have noticed what seems like a significant decrease in initial load time and and improvement in general responsiveness when comparing clean installations (no addons) of Minefield to the standard Firefox 3 build.
When I went to grab Minefield, I also discovered a link to the GrApple theme. It's designed to look like Safari and, being a Safari fan, I've fallen in love with it. If you're not overly attached to the default Firefox 3 look (which I didn't mind to begin with), there are great screenshots of the multiple versions available.
Minefield is currently available in G5 and Intel flavors. Neil is also working on a set of instructions for building your own optimized Firefox builds at home for the DIY speed enthusiast.
Clarification: As pointed out in the comments, the name "Minefield" has been used for Mozilla builds for a while. These optimized builds use the codenames so as not to infringe on any Firefox trademarks.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Josh said 6:11PM on 6-22-2008
Err... Minefield has been an active codename within Mozilla for quite a while now. You make it sound like it is something new. =\
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Big John said 6:13PM on 6-22-2008
Actually, I thought Brett was quite clear that he hadn't heard of 'Minefield' before. Poor researching on his part, yes, but he's hardly to be made at fault for making it 'sound new'.
Josh said 6:19PM on 6-22-2008
Hm. I guess you're right. My bad. But yeah, definitely poor researching.
Big John said 6:12PM on 6-22-2008
Minefield is the .app name of development builds of FF, at least during this last development phase. It allows users to run it next to another (presumably stable) release of Firefox.
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Alex McKee said 6:18PM on 6-22-2008
I would actually recommend the builds at firefoxmac.furbism.com over these. The icon is better, and there are G3, G4 7400 and G4 7450, G5 and Intel builds of pretty much every Firefox release since 1.5.
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Rae Whitlock said 9:20PM on 6-22-2008
So, other than the "better icon" (I disagree with that assessment, personally, but to each his own) . . . any advantage to this Intel build over Neil's?
Rae Whitlock said 9:22PM on 6-22-2008
So, other than the "better icon" (an assessment I disagree with, but to each their own) . . . any advantage of using this Intel build over Neil's?
Anand said 1:59PM on 6-23-2008
I'm not sure what "optimizations" firefoxmac.furbism.com adds but I just tried running the intel build of 3.0 from this site and just leaving that open on this page and doing nothing else caused my laptop (MBP 17" 2nd gen) to hit 140*f and would not go any lower (when my fans were turned up to 6000RPM). Now, I just switched to the intel build that TUAW recommended and it works just as fast without the increase in temperature (at 122*f, with 6000RPM).
Santiago said 6:29PM on 6-22-2008
How is an Intel-optimized version different from using Xslimmer on the UB version?
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Ondra Soukup said 7:06PM on 6-22-2008
XSlimmer just strips it out of the PowerPC parts. This is recompiled for Intel, with all the SSE2/3 stuff in it...
Merlyn3D said 12:52AM on 9-16-2008
Correct me if I'm wrong, but seeing as how all Intel Macs will obviously have the SSE2 and SSE3 optimizations (the first of the intel macs being core duos), wouldn't it just make more sense for Mozilla to compile the OS X Intel binaries with those optimizations out of the box?
Daniel said 6:32PM on 6-22-2008
So what's Gran Paradiso?
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Ondra Soukup said 6:50PM on 6-22-2008
It's the codename, you can't build an optimized nightly or even final release and call it Firefox, it's against something Mozilla made up :)
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Tony said 7:00PM on 6-22-2008
I'd worry about updates - if a security fix comes out you want it pushed to your machine as fast as possible not a week later when this guy decides to make a new build. He also days that plugins will need to be rebuilt.
btw. to remove the awful FF3 look I recommend https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6898
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Daniel said 7:57PM on 6-22-2008
I wasn't clear: what's the difference between Minefield and Gran Paradiso?
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matthew zeier said 12:44PM on 6-23-2008
Minefield is the codename for builds off the nightly trunk. Gran Paradiso is codename for builds off the Firefox 3.0 release.
grandmaschineseapple said 8:31PM on 6-22-2008
Unless I missed it, it doesn't really say in what manner minefield is optimized. What specifically is optimized?
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James Madley said 2:21AM on 6-23-2008
There are certain features of individual processors that cannot be used in the official build because not everyone has an Intel or a G4 or a G5 processor.
These builds do.
JD said 8:48PM on 6-22-2008
I know this is a bit off-topic, but does anyone know how to turn off the inertia/coasting scroll feature in Firefox 3, without turning off the smooth scrolling altogether? They've finally gotten the scrolling almost as smooth as Safari's, but I can't figure out how to get that without the very annoying (to me) coasting after I let go. I can't figure out anything in the basic preferences or about:config menu that solves it....
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nxiv said 11:41PM on 6-22-2008
i would disable firefox's smooth scrolling and get the add on extension called "yet another smooth scrolling"
https://addons.update.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5846