Shiretoko makes Firefox 3.5 speedy for the Mac
Reports (like this one on The Apple Blog) persist that beta releases of the Mozilla Firefox 3 browser have rendered it a "perplexingly sluggish performer" on the Mac. Despite Mozilla's speed improvements in Minefield, those tweaks haven't seemed to make it into beta releases of Firefox 3.
Until now.
As an open-source Web browser, Firefox is, of course, open to community tinkering. One member of that Firefox community, Chris Latko, has developed his own version of Firefox 3.5 beta, dubbed Shiretoko, and my informal tests confirm what The Apple Blog and others have been saying: it's mucho fast.
What it's not, however, is compatible with all the add-ons/extensions I use with my latest production release of Firefox (3.0.10): AdBlock Plus, Fasterfox, etc. This, however, is to be expected: Shireteoko is beta software, after all.
At any rate, if you have an Intel-based Mac and you've been disturbed by the sluggishness of Mozilla's Firefox 3 beta releases, and were persuaded by CNET's Stephen Shankland's suggestion that Google's Chrome-on-Mac blows Firefox 3 beta 4 out of the water in speed tests, try Shiretoko.
It may keep you patiently waiting for the next great release from the Mozilla Firefox team, rather than looking for Google's allegedly greener Chrome grass.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
Normally, really enjoy your column, but geez... this one leaves a lot to be desired.
Shiretoko has been the code name for Firefox 3.1/3.5 since its inception. Now, looking at this Chris Latko's page, he says he's built an 'Intel optimized' version of Shiretoko. That's fine - its open source, he can do what he wants. I have not seen his name connected with any of the Tracemonkey or any other Mozilla performance work, though.
Whoever he is, if he has indeed figured out new ways of optimizing performance, I sure hope he shares them with the Mozilla team. Sounds to me like maybe he flipped a few compiler flags to get more optimized Intel code.
Otherwise, it sounds like the FF3.5b4 that we all downloaded from the Mozilla test page. And in that case, Shankland's tests are still correct.
Cheers,
- Bill
So, I agree with the first commenter: Matt, have you been so out-of-the-loop, maybe becoming a Google Chrome cheerleader or (God forbid) Safari cheerleader, that you don't know "Shiretoko" is Mozilla's codename for Firefox 3.5?
Sigh.
- by res2216firestar May 22, 2009 7:29 AM PDT
- I would like to point out that using the add-on called "nightly tester tools", you can use all those addons and they work fine, I use them every day.
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