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A faster Firefox for Linux!

Genesius

Apathetic Agnostic
Genesius
Joined
Apr 23, 2004
Messages
1,583
Sorry Windows/OSX folks, this one is just for Linux. The speed difference is really noticeable.

Here's the info, copied from ubuntuforums.org:

Here is how to install it:
  1. Go to http://www.getswiftfox.com/releases.htm and download a build of your choice (e.g. Swiftfox 1.5.0.1)
  2. Extract the downloaded tar.bz2-file into your home directory, giving you a "swiftfox" directory.
  3. If you have any Firefox windows open, close them.
  4. Go to the "swiftfox" directory in your home folder (with Nautilus or in a terminal or whatever you like) and start the file called "firefox" (surprise). Enjoy surfing faster!
To uninstall, just delete the "swiftfox" folder.

Swiftfox automatically used my old preferences, bookmarks, etc.

To enable all plugins (flash, etc.) from your original Firefox installation do (make sure to enter that trailing dot):
Code:
cd /path/to/your/homefolder/swiftfox/plugins/
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/* .​


As long as you have one Swiftfox window open, all calls from other applications (e.g. your e-mail client) to open a new Firefox window/tab will open it in Swiftfox.
If you have a starter on your desktop or taskbar for Firefox and want to make it start Swiftfox:
  1. right-click on the starter icon
  2. choose "properties"
  3. change the command to Code:
    /path/to/your/homefolder/swiftfox/firefox​
 
Well, you could follow the link and email him.

Or, you could stop putting money in Billy's pockets and move to a decent, virus-free operating system. . . ;)
 
There is no such thing as a virus-free operating system. You let a process have root priveledges it can do whatever it wants. The basic difference is that Windows is generally setup to allow random processes that priviledge and linux systems are not.

Besides no-one should care about viruses anymore - they are nothing like as much of a problem as spyware, malware and the like, all of which tend to infest Windows systems.
 
Ummm. . . guys? Ever seen the ";)" smilie before? I know there's no such thing as a virus-free OS. Just a light-hearted tip o'the hat to the ongoing Windows vs Mac vs Linux flame war happening on forums everywhere.
 
I assumed that the speed of web-browsing was limited by your internet connection. How can optimizing the code for the processor improve this significantly? How clueless am I? :o
 
All I can suggest is install it and make up your own mind. I noticed a speed difference, but your actual mileage may vary.
 
Ririon said:
I assumed that the speed of web-browsing was limited by your internet connection. How can optimizing the code for the processor improve this significantly? How clueless am I? :o
Click to expand...

Back in the bad old days of 56k dialup, bandwidth was invariably the ultimate bottleneck. With high bandwidth connections, its now just one of many. FF users tend to be techies/early-adopters, techies open dozens of web pages at the same time and they're quick to grumble about memory and cpu usage.

Recently Firefox got a lot of bad press for using a caching system that essentially stored the last ~8 pages you'd been to. This took up a lot of ram, FF became a system hog and viola, much gnashing of teeth. There are also several buggy extensions that eat system resources, AND MS Windows has a memory issue in that it tends to handle all memory clean up itself and does a slow, mediocre job of it. There's been a flurry of "speed up firefox" on a number of boards.
 
Genesius said:
All I can suggest is install it and make up your own mind. I noticed a speed difference, but your actual mileage may vary.
Click to expand...
Sounds remarkably like advice given in other sections of this forum... ;) Aren't we supposed to be skeptical and demand evidence?
 
Tirdun said:
Back in the bad old days of 56k dialup, bandwidth was invariably the ultimate bottleneck. With high bandwidth connections, its now just one of many. FF users tend to be techies/early-adopters, techies open dozens of web pages at the same time and they're quick to grumble about memory and cpu usage.

Recently Firefox got a lot of bad press for using a caching system that essentially stored the last ~8 pages you'd been to. This took up a lot of ram, FF became a system hog and viola, much gnashing of teeth. There are also several buggy extensions that eat system resources, AND MS Windows has a memory issue in that it tends to handle all memory clean up itself and does a slow, mediocre job of it. There's been a flurry of "speed up firefox" on a number of boards.
Click to expand...
Interesting. Well, it seems people are working hard to make things better.
 
Ririon said:
Sounds remarkably like advice given in other sections of this forum... ;) Aren't we supposed to be skeptical and demand evidence?
Click to expand...

Nothing worse than a lazy skeptic who wants everyone else to gather his evidence for him. Install it and discover the joy of doing your own investigation!

:D
 
The only real wait-times I get on firefox are waiting for java to start and waiting for the browser itself to load. Everything else makes me happy.
 
Genesius said:
Nothing worse than a lazy skeptic who wants everyone else to gather his evidence for him. Install it and discover the joy of doing your own investigation!

:D
Click to expand...
It's hard to surf the web when you're double-blind. :)
 
Genesius said:
Ummm. . . guys? Ever seen the ";)" smilie before? I know there's no such thing as a virus-free OS. Just a light-hearted tip o'the hat to the ongoing Windows vs Mac vs Linux flame war happening on forums everywhere.
Click to expand...

Having used Windows/DOS based computers for about 20 years, I'd love to take the Linux plunge, and in fact I have, a number of times, although somewhat half-heartedly.

I've purchased Mandrake 6.5, Red Hat 7, and Caldera Open Linux, doing a full Caldera install on an old box at my local Community Learning Center. I've downloaded and tried out live CD versions of Beatrix, Knoppix, Ubuntu, Damn Small Linux, MEPIS, elearnix, Lindows, Feather, SuSe, and probably a couple others I'm forgetting.

More recently here at home, I did full installs of Beatrix and Knoppix, and though I give high marks to both for their ability to automatically configure my internet, Beatrix kept locking up and Knoppix wouldn't let me do an apt-get update or apt-get upgrade, nor would it let me download and use the Linux version of Firefox. With my WinXP box I've seldom had a glitch I couldn't recover from, I've had no problems downloading either .zip or .rar files, and my updates are automatic. I must say, I DID love the simplicity of Beatrix. It looked crisp, attractive, and uncluttered. Knoppix just gave me too many choices and I found it somewhat frustrating to use.

After reading through what seemed like reams of pages in search of help with my apt-get problem, I came to the realization that Linux was NOT as 'easy' to use as my familiar Windows XP. I just can't convince myself Linux is a better O/S.

I'll bet, had I spent the past decade installing, updating, and using Linux instead of Windows/DOS, I'd have a different opinion.

Any advice anyone?

RayG
 
RayG said:
After reading through what seemed like reams of pages in search of help with my apt-get problem, I came to the realization that Linux was NOT as 'easy' to use as my familiar Windows XP. I just can't convince myself Linux is a better O/S.

I'll bet, had I spent the past decade installing, updating, and using Linux instead of Windows/DOS, I'd have a different opinion.

Any advice anyone?

RayG
Click to expand...

I'm using Kubuntu 6.06 "Dapper Drake". I got turned off of KDE when I was using SuSE, but decided to try Kubuntu and fell in love. It's more user-friendly than the Gnome-based Ubuntu, with the ability to set things like numlock from the GUI instead of typing in cryptic commands. Give it a look.
 
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