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I like the middle ground of having a range of pre-built binaries that are optimised for common machine types, allowing the user to install the one most appropriate. This allows benefits in performance, as well as reducing the permutations of the software that need supporting.

The Moox builds (http://www.moox.ws/ of Firefox did exactly this, and gave a noticable performance increase over the 'regular' mozilla.com pre-built binaries for Win32. Before the site went down, there were also benchmarks of his builds showing the performance increase - the PDF is still in the Wayback machine linked from the following page: http://web.archive.org/web/20050216043112/http://m oox.ws/tech/mozilla.

And not to forget the MOOX builds optimized for your machine...

http://www.moox.ws/tech/mozilla/firefox.htm

I suspect that operating systems and web clients have now reached the point where they offer much more features than I need and actually use.

I agree about the OS part, but for web browsers, I think that Firefox is a bit too slim for my taste. In fact, I have at least 40 extensions for Firefox with no actual slowdown.

Then, of course, there are custom builds available that also take a load off via SSE/2 instruction sets.

Looks like MOOX has released his versions of Firefox 1.0.4. At the moment, there English and quite a few localized builds popping up on his website. YOu can find out more here: http://moox.ws/

Nice work Mozilla.
But I'll see wait unti my Moox Optimised version :)

If you're on Windows, use the MOOX builds. I'm not sure why, but I'm guessing the compile flags make the timing bug responsible for the overlap go away.

MOOX has always enabled SVG support in his builds - that was one of the things that made them so damn good! Why is this suddenly news to everyone else?

Moox's builds are here: http://moox.ws/

It depends on how many people install it and how many people have downloaded versions 1.0, 1.0.1, etc.

I don't download from there anyway. At work I use Portable Firefox, and at home I use the MOOX builds.

I'd say you could safely estimate 60% of those are unique with about 35% of them keeping it installed and in use. [No flames, please; I'm just guessing.]

Download Here.

Yeah, it used to do that for me. But nightly builds solve the problem just fine. The Moox 1.0 build also works fine. If you don't like those solutions though, there's also the slashfix extension.

In any case, uninstalling the old version and doing a fresh install, seems to have cured the problem.

Windows users who have problems with Mozilla software (Firefox, Thunderbird or Suite) being too slow or using too much memory and CPU, check out the Moox optimized builds.

One of my friends reported having constantly about 100 MB more free memory after switching to Moox M2 in his Athlon XP. A bit of a warning though: I tried to install original 1.0.1 over Moox M2 1.0, and it now crashes every time I press enter in the URL bar. Now typing in Internet Explorer, I'm anxiously waiting for Moox optimized 1.0.1 builds to come out and solve the situation.

Interesting point, being optimised basically means it should run faster, all things being equal.

The only thing I can think of is that they are different versions of Firefox, (1.0 and 1.0.1 are available on Moox.ws), or that the tester used a version that wasn't optimised for his machine.

On that last point, it shouldn't really work that way. If it is optimised for a lesser chip, it should still run faster than the official build. If it is for a better chip (say optimised for Pentium 4 (M3 optimization) but running on a Pentium 3, M2 optimisation), it should crash very quickly.

...is that a motivated user can compile an optimized version or download an optimized build.

That option certainly isn't available in IE or Opera.

Since K-Meleon has a native Windows (non-XUL) frontend, it runs faster.

Oh, and you can get speed optimized Firefox builds. These builds have better 3D-Now, MMX, SSE, SSE2 and SSE3 optimizations, so you need to download the one that is right for your processor.

These optimized builds of Firefox run just as fast as K-Meleon IMO and I don't lose all the great Firefox plug-ins. I personally can't work on the net without AdBlock.

Has anyone tried these? I was googling for a torrent and came across this win32 optimized version (depending on your processor).

MOOX optimized versions
NOTE: This is a third party / unofficial build.

This is a well documented bug and is apparantly fixed in the final version of Firefox. (Copy & Paste link - Bugzilla doesn't like Slashdot, either!) If you're still experiencing this problem, I suggest you look into optimized Moox builds, as he has implemented a fix that has been working great for me. Also, there is an extension that apparantly fixes the problem, as well.

Eh, by the way, you can use 'about:config' in the address bar to access this instead of messing around manually editing config files. You can even add new config options directly from about:config.

And the reason they're not enabled by default is because 1.) it doesn't always help esp. on slower machines (with regards to the nglayout.initialpaint.delay option) and 2.) some webservers and proxies don't support pipelining well or at all. Why not try reading the links, they explain it right there. Enabling these are at your own risk and they may or may not pay off, like most other tweaking people do with computers.

Besides, Firefox is not some beast of a download or anything. The setup file from mozilla.org for Windows is 6.8MB IIRC, and you can get 7zip compressed nightly builds that are optimized for specific architectures (or just have neat additions/changes) which usually weigh in at 4.8 or so MB. At least that's how my MOOX M2 builds work. And when it comes down to it, I myself use Firefox because I know that it has some of if not the best standards compliance around for anything that I myself deal with, esp. on my own webpage. Everything just looks right and it's extremely rare that I have to fire up anything else to browse a page.

Firefox can be even faster -- the guy who runs the site below uses Visual Studio and tweaked compiler settings to produce optimized executables for different x86 processors (i.e. K6-2, K7, P3, P4, etc):

http://www.moox.ws/

I just started using this a few days ago on my K7-2800+ and I'm *very* impressed. The speedup is noticable and not a single crash...what more could you ask for?

Do the optimized Firefox builds at MOOX help performance any?

If your too lazy to compile yourself, or don't know how to. Then grab a copy of moz/FF that is built to run on cpus that are newer then i586.

Correction:

Thanks to This helpful post which references this moox forum post

"Lastly, I have now made SVG a permanent component to my builds!" - Oct 28th 2004.

So, if you're looking for a firefox with SVG built in, Moox has it.

Thanks to This helpful post which references this moox forum post
"Lastly, I have now made SVG a permanent component to my builds!" - Oct 28th 2004.

So, if you're looking for a firefox with SVG built in, Moox has it.

This is the link you want for 1.0 Release builds: http://www.moox.ws/tech/mozilla/releasebuilds.htm

Optimized Firefox & Thunderbird Release Builds

Also, be sure to check out the Moox Optimized Win32 builds. I installed the Firefox M3 build a while back, and I have to say, Firefox was fast before, but now it's downright snappy.

Be kind to his bandwidth though.

Here are the Moox cpu-optimized builds for windows (I've been using these since 0.9.3, and they seem significantly faster on my Athlon XP).

Enjoy

Keep an eye on Moox's Site.
He's already in the past done release builds of Firefox with SVG. They were pretty nice.

I'd watch for it in a few days.
Meanwhile, I've already setup a Mirror of Moox's FireFox 1.0 Optimized release builds, just incase he gets slammed.

Also don't forget about the excellent resource of Moox's optimized releases of Firefox: http://www.moox.ws/tech/mozilla/


His site seems to be holding up under the stress.
He has Optimized Release Builds of FireFox 1.0

I'm still waiting for 1.0 with SVG.
Anyone?

Also don't forget about the excellent resource of Moox's optimized releases of Firefox: http://www.moox.ws/tech/mozilla/


His site seems to be holding up under the stress.
He has Optimized Release Builds of FireFox 1.0

I'm still waiting for 1.0 with SVG.
Anyone?

Also don't forget about the excellent resource of Moox's optimized releases of Firefox: http://www.moox.ws/tech/mozilla/


His site seems to be holding up under the stress.
He has Optimized Release Builds of FireFox 1.0

I'm still waiting for 1.0 with SVG.
Anyone?

Moox has some optimized builds with SVG support compiled in.

The Moox builds are compiled for many specific processors, including Athlon64.

Definately improved performance on my P3 laptop!

The Moox builds are compiled for many specific processors, including Athlon64.

Definately improved performance on my P3 laptop!

Took me a while find it: RC1 is on the "Release Builds" page here.

See http://www.moox.ws/tech/mozilla/
It's firefox and Thunderbird compiled specifically for processor architectures. (they have slightly better performance than normal Firefox)

I'd just like to note that yesterday i finally decided to upgrade from 0.9.3 -> 1.0PR -- and I went to grab the latest MOOX Release Build

I was very surprised to see 1.0.1 -- now I finally understand what it is --.
Damn I love this guys releases -- this is sooo friggin' fast. Highly recommended. Just be sure to read his build explanation on his Main Page So you grab the right one.

I'd just like to note that yesterday i finally decided to upgrade from 0.9.3 -> 1.0PR -- and I went to grab the latest MOOX Release Build

I was very surprised to see 1.0.1 -- now I finally understand what it is --.
Damn I love this guys releases -- this is sooo friggin' fast. Highly recommended. Just be sure to read his build explanation on his Main Page So you grab the right one.

I've been using Mozilla Firefox for 3 weeks now, and lemme tell ya... i'm not going back to IE. Great, great product, and it's simply wonderful to see a product finally give IE a run for the money (been a long time coming since the Netscape browser wars).

Incidentally, you can download *optimized* builds specific to your particular processor here:

MOOX

The proper builds run noticeably faster on my AMD XP and Centrino procs.

Or get an optimized firefox build here in a day or two.