TenFourFox

TenFourFox is a web browser for Power Macintosh computers, based on Mozilla's Gecko layout engine. It is a port of Mozilla Firefox for PowerPC-based Macintosh computers running Mac OS X to retain compatibility with the older architecture and older versions of the operating system, and to add PowerPC-specific optimizations for improved performance. The project was started after Mozilla announced that it would not release Firefox 4 for PowerPC versions of OS X. Like Firefox, it includes compatibility with a wide range of addons, Acid2 and Acid3 compliance, and HTML 5 and CSS 3 features. It also includes JavaScript just-in-time compilation,[3][4][5] custom builds for specific PowerPC processor families,[6][7] and AltiVec acceleration of key media codecs.[8][9] The primary maintainer is Cameron Kaiser.

TenFourFox
TenFourFox 12 running under Mac OS X Tiger.
Initial releaseNovember 8, 2010 (2010-11-08)
Stable release(s) [±]
FPR30 (December 16, 2020 (2020-12-16)[1]) [±]
Preview release(s) [±]
FPR24b1 (June 18, 2020 (2020-06-18)[2]) [±]
Operating systemMac OS X 10.4 and 10.5
TypeWeb browser
LicenseMozilla Public License, GNU General Public License, others
Websitewww.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/

The project shares administration with Classilla, a fork of Mozilla Application Suite for Mac OS 9 and Mac OS 8.6.

History

In 2010, Mozilla's Mike Beltzner announced that the forthcoming Firefox 4 would not be released for Power Macintosh computers,[10] compatibility with Mac OS X Tiger having already been removed,[11] making Firefox 3.6 the last supported release of Firefox on the older architecture and platform. Mozilla stopped making PowerPC-compatible universal builds of Firefox 4 with beta 7.[12]

In response, developer Cameron Kaiser created a test build of Firefox 4 that could run on his Power Mac G5 at the same time as support was being withdrawn from beta 7.[13] This was released to users in separate builds for AltiVec Macs and G3 Macs on November 8, 2010.[14][15] Aligning with precedent that modified builds of Firefox source could not use Firefox trademarks without permission, the project was forked and named TenFourFox.[16] A full complement of builds for the G3, the 7400 and 7450 G4 families and the G5 were released with beta 8 on December 15, 2010.[17][18][19] JavaScript acceleration using its completed PowerPC version of TraceMonkey was released with beta 9 on January 12, 2011,[20][21] and enabled fully for beta 11 on February 2, 2011.[22][23] The finalized first release version, 4.0s, incorporated a security update and a fix for JavaScript performance,[24] and was released on March 24, 2011.[25] Version 5.0 switched to the current Mozilla rapid release framework, based on Firefox 5 and including additional AltiVec scaling and color features,[26] and was released on June 16, 2011.[27]

After Mozilla announced the extended support release (ESR) of Firefox, Cameron Kaiser stated that starting with version 10 of TenFourFox, stable releases of TenFourFox will be based on Firefox ESR to reduce maintenance burden. Between major ESR versions, developers tracked changes in Firefox's 6-week rapid release cycle with test builds only to determine whether or not they would still be able to build the software after the next ESR version was released. Only minor ESR updates were advertised as suitable for general consumption.[28]

In December 2015, Kaiser declared TenFourFox would move away directly from Firefox source code with 45 ESR, citing an inability to port later versions due to operating system and Rust compiler limitations.[29] The first of the "Feature Parity Releases," or FPRs, in which major later Firefox features were backported to TenFourFox's modified Firefox ESR 45 base, was released after the official end of Firefox ESR 45 support on June 13, 2017.[30] The TenFourFox FPR series of releases include additional later features as well as backported security patches from the most current supported Firefox ESR.

Features
Further information: Features of Firefox

TenFourFox shares its main feature set with Firefox along with optimizations for the PowerPC platform. Similar to other optimized build projects such as Pale Moon and Swiftfox, TenFourFox includes specific compiler optimizations to improve its overall performance and issues specific builds tuned for specific processor families.[31] However, it also includes custom new features, in particular its JavaScript just-in-time compilation backend and AltiVec acceleration, and adds glue code to enable interface features from Firefox 4 and later to still work on Mac OS X Tiger. This has led to favorable reviews on its speed and performance on older Macintosh computers.[32][33][34][35][36]

Due to its compatibility with the older operating system, the browser lacks some of the features of current Firefox versions. In particular, it does not fully support Core Text, so it does not understand Apple Advanced Typography features in certain international fonts; it does not support graphics acceleration for compositing; and it does not support WebGL (because PowerPC Tiger does not support OpenGL 2[37]).[38] Furthermore, for security and maintainability reasons, NPAPI plugins support is deprecated,[39] and has been subsequently removed.[40]

See also

References
  1. "TenFourFox FPR30 available". TenFourFox Development. 2020-05-30. Retrieved 2020-06-24.
  2. "TenFourFox FPR24b1 available". TenFourFox Development. 2020-06-18. Retrieved 2020-06-24.
  3. "TenFourFox Wiki, Technical Differences". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  4. "TenFourFox Final vs Beta 12". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  5. "TenFourFox is Firefox 4 for your 10.4 PPC Mac". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  6. "TenFourFox Wiki, Which Version". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  7. "TenFourFox: The Best Browser for PowerPC Macs Running Tiger?". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  8. "Issue 28: Install AltiVec libvpx and modify build system (G4, G5 only)". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  9. "Issue 51: AltiVec libjpeg-turbo". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  10. "Google Groups, Do we do any testing on Mac/PPC? Possible blocker for Firefox 4.0 beta 4". 2010. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  11. "Google Groups, Dropping Mac OS X 10.4 support in Gecko 1.9.3". 2010. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  12. "Releases/Firefox 4.0b7/BuildNotes". 2010. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  13. "The view from Cameron Kaiser's iPhone". 2010. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  14. "Downloads, tenfourfox, Mozilla for Power Macintosh". 2010. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  15. "ReleaseNotesBeta7, tenfourfox, Archived release notes for 10.4Fx beta 7". 2010. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  16. "Firefox 4 on Tiger PPC, 68K Macintosh Liberation Army". 2010. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  17. "Downloads, tenfourfox, Mozilla for Power Macintosh". 2010. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  18. "TenFourFox Development: Beta 8 now available". 2010. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  19. "ReleaseNotesBeta8, tenfourfox, Archived release notes for 10.4Fx beta 8". 2010. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  20. "Downloads, tenfourfox, Mozilla for Power Macintosh". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  21. "ReleaseNotesBeta8, tenfourfox, Archived release notes for 10.4Fx beta 9". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  22. "Downloads, tenfourfox, Mozilla for Power Macintosh". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  23. "ReleaseNotesBeta8, tenfourfox, Archived release notes for 10.4Fx beta 11". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  24. "ReleaseNotes40, tenfourfox, Archived release notes for 10.4Fx 4.0 final". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  25. "Downloads, tenfourfox, Mozilla for Power Macintosh". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  26. "TenFourFox 5 beta 2 released". 2011. Retrieved 2011-07-18.
  27. "Downloads, tenfourfox, Mozilla for Power Macintosh". 2011. Retrieved 2011-07-18.
  28. "TenFourFox Development: Two forks diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one that had free beer". 2011. Retrieved 2012-01-31.
  29. "TenFourFox Development: 38.5.0 available, and maybe 45 as the swan song, in not too long". 2015. Retrieved 2018-06-29.
  30. "TenFourFox Development: TenFourFox FPR1 available". 2017. Retrieved 2018-06-29.
  31. "TenFourFox Development: Beta 8 now available". 2010. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  32. "TenFourFox: Firefox 4 non e solo per Mac Intel". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  33. "Install Firefox 4.0 on a PowerPC Mac with TenFourFox, Appleaddiction". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  34. "Foxvideo Productions: TenFourFox browser". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  35. "TenFourFox Final vs Beta 12". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  36. "TenFourFox is Firefox 4 for your 10.4 PPC Mac". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  37. "Mac OS X 10.4.11 (PPC) OpenGL Info". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  38. "TenFourFox Wiki, Technical Differences". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  39. "TenFourFox Development: Plugins unplugged". 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  40. "TenFourFox Development: 17 beta released; more dark clouds of Judgment Day". 2012. Retrieved 2013-02-15.
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