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.

Ed Eubanks over at Low End Mac has a nice set of suggestions for optimizing performance on your Mac. The main upshot of the article is to turn off or delete things you don't need (e.g. Universal Access, seldom used System Preferences, extra localization languages, etc.) in order to salvage as much RAM and hard drive space as possible, but he has a variety of good suggestions. Their motto over there is "How much Mac do you need?", but even if you've got an Intel beast I've found that you pretty much never have enough system resources, so these are good tips for everyone. Check it out over at Low End Mac.

[Via Digg]

Safari users and web designers who aren't entirely happy with the browser's performance, especially under extended use, have another tool for their belts to optimize and tweak its performance. SafariSpeed 2.0 has been able to turn off favicons and Safari's 1 second page loading delay in the past, but this recent 2.0 upgrade includes new features like:

• disable cache (ideal for web designers testing sites)
• enable/disable the debug menu
• toggle PDF support (either downloading the PDF or displaying it in-line)
• swap between the on-its-last-legs brushed metal and Aqua

While I've seen some of these functions offered in various plugins, SafariSpeed's 5-license price of $8 sounds reasonable to get them all in one place. The demo can be run 11 times, and registering also has the added benefit of netting you priority support.

Disk Inventory X takes a unique approach to helping you analyze your disk space usage by visualizing it as a graphical chart. You can see a breakdown of which types of files are hogging the most space, and clicking on a graphical portion will display the file's location in your Mac's system. Let's hear it for the use of color, shapes and sizes in helping Mac users clean up their hard drives; those Britney Spears MP3 duplicates and abandoned BitTorrent downloads aren't going to trash themselves.

Disk Inventory X is donationware and available from derlien.com.

CSS Tweak!, as you might imagine, can optimize and clean up your CSS code with the drag and drop of a file. The widget will report how much smaller your file is going to get, and its description states that your new file is "saved in the same location as the original", so I'm pretty sure this means it doesn't overwrite the original, but proceed (and backup!) with caution.

CSS Tweak! appears to be free and is available from Andy Peatling at his site, CssDev.