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Minefield offers custom builds of Firefox 3

by Cory Bohon Jul 4th 2008 at 11:00AM

If you think Firefox could run a little faster on your Mac, then you might want to download one of BeatnikPad's custom builds of Firefox 3. "Minefield" (previously known as BonEcho for pre-3.0 releases) is Neil Lee's custom build of Firefox. He is currently offering custom builds for:
  • Minefield (Firefox) 3.0 for Intel
  • Minefield (Firefox) 3.0 for PowerPC G5
  • Minefield (Firefox) 3.0 for PowerPC G4
Neil Lee has been offering custom builds of Firefox for many years now. They can make Firefox run a bit faster and smoother on older Macs. You can download them for free (though donations are accepted) from the BeatnikPad website.


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If you think Firefox could run a little faster on your Mac, then you might want to download one of BeatnikPad's custom builds of Firefox 3....
 

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Juan

Hello folks.I am running Minefield 3.0.1 on an Intel Mac (OS X 10.5.4). I recently added a DSL Modem/Router from Verizon whereupon I had to download an application from Verizon in order to access the web.Now everytime I launch Minefield that app's disk image will mount and launch.I have empied Minefileds cache,deleted Hisory,purged the Downloads,cleared my Private Info,pretty much everything I can think of to keep this from happening.I am not even sure if this is an issue wih Minefield or an ApplScript triggered by Minefield.Any ideas?

September 13 2008 at 10:34 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
orefalo

I don't understand why custom build shall be any faster that universal binaries. Right they may take less space on the disk, that because UB hold both PPC and Intel versions, now in memory... the OS picks the right exe at runtime... So I don't get the point with these special versions...

July 05 2008 at 12:38 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to orefalo's comment
nxiv

there is no point. official firefox builds are already optimized. if these so called "optimized" builds actually performed better, mozilla would have documented it. not a single person has been able to provide hard physical evidence that these builds perform better, so don't believe the hype.

July 05 2008 at 3:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Greg

I don't understand why he's calling them Minefield. Minefield is the name of the nightly builds you get out of the code repository; the proper codename for Firefox 3 derivatives is Gran Paradiso.
This is all from Wikipedia, btw.

July 04 2008 at 8:34 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Neil

I can't honestly say I feel or see any difference for the regular Firefox 3....seems 100% the same, from performance to rendering.

July 04 2008 at 2:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
tim

@legend -

That's cool and all, but now that it's for the final release (correct?), it seems that it might persuade people from using it. I suppose the type of person who would look for this would know the real deal anyway, but still, it seems similar to naming your OS 'error prone' and expecting people to use it.

July 04 2008 at 2:41 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to tim's comment
(01)

I think you mean "dissuade people from using it." I don't know that the average person is going to come into contact with pre-release builds that often, and clearly they didn't have a problem hitting 26 Million downloads for FF 3.

@nxiv: Neil Lee's builds have always ran better for me on my MBP than the official builds, and yes, I've compared the memory. It may not always be apparent, but the optimization does increase the speed of FF.

July 04 2008 at 3:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
tim

@(01) -

Thank you, I did mean 'dissuade.' But we aren't talking about pre-release here, the final release has been named 'Minefield.' And what does the 26 million for Firefox have to do with anything? We aren't talking about Firefox either.

July 04 2008 at 3:52 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
legend

Tim
'Minefield' was a carefully chosen moniker for Firefox test builds to dissuade casual users from upgrading to potentially unstable versions that would make them think poorly of Firefox's quality. The name (and logo of a stylized bomb) was intended to be 'scary'.
FYI, 'Shredder' is intended to be the name of Thunderbird test builds.

July 04 2008 at 1:46 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
nxiv

According to Asa Dotzler, Mozilla already "optimizes" all its releases, so these custom builds are meaningless. If you notice an improvement in performance when using one of these custom builds, it's probably the placebo effect. Nothing has really changed, just how you perceive it.

July 04 2008 at 1:36 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mathew Duggan

Honestly I have been running it side by side with the original build Firefox 3 and while Minefield is a bit faster stability seems to have taken a hit on my Macbook.

July 04 2008 at 1:26 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
tim

Anyone else think that 'Minefield' isn't the best name for a browser, what with security being the top priority and all?

July 04 2008 at 1:22 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
islandgirl45

Sorry, that should have read:
"I have an Intel iMac running 10.4.11, and never had a problem reading TUAW when I was using Firefox 2."

July 04 2008 at 12:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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