Firefox 3.1 Intel Optimized Build

This post was written by Chris Latko on March 13, 2009
Posted Under: Firefox
Shiretoko

Shiretoko

Update: Shiretoko 3.1b4pre is now available, some new numbers and a slightly updated FAQ.

BeatnikPad has been offering G4/G5/Intel optimized builds of Firefox 3.0.x and earlier for a number of years now and I’ve grown somewhat reliant on them. This has been a great service to the Mac community and I really appreciate all of Neil’s efforts. He is not only timely with the builds, but is very good with user support as you can see in his comments.

I’ve been using WebKit, Minefield, and increasingly Opera as my main browsers for a while now (and Bon Echo (Firefox 2)) and have recently been running Shiretoko (Firefox 3.1) to take advantage of TraceMonkey. But I’ve been longing for an Intel optimized build and haven’t found one, so I’ve made one.

Shiretoko 3.1b3pre had a SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark of 1333 and Shiretoko 3.1b4pre clocks in at 1449. The regex engine is vastly improved, while 3d/access/math took a hit. I think I can optimize further with the browser config, but don’t have time at the moment.

I’ve also made a few adjustments to the default config, namely turning on TraceMonkey and other minor tweaks to eek some additional speed out.

Go To Downloads Page

Mini FAQ

What’s the deal with all these weird names?
Non-official builds cannot use Firefox branding. I guess I could call it something else, but everyone in the dev community knows this particular version as Shiretoko.

Is Shiretoko Japanese for something?
Yes. Since dev builds are named after parks and this one is named after the Shiretoko National Park in northern Japan. (thanks Mike).

Is this going to break my existing Firefox?
No. You just cannot run them simultaneously.

Will my add-ons work?
Maybe. Firebug works and that’s all that matters to me.

Will you be doing nightly builds?
Yes. Since there is the demand for it, I will start nightlies once my current data crunching project is finished (I cannot interrupt this project every night). I expect to have this done by the end of March.

Will you build for different architectures?
No. Intel is where it’s at.

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Comments RSSComments

Thanks for the optimized build. Any chance of dropping the Dreaming Of Beetles off the title in browser? I do a lot of SEO and this is easy to forget about when your working and can be distracting.

Regards,
Eric

#1 
Written By Eric Caldwell on February 5th, 2009 @ 5:08 pm

DOH! I should have changed tabs. You did remove that. Sorry..

Regards,
Eric

#2 
Written By Eric Caldwell on February 5th, 2009 @ 5:10 pm

One of the mods I made was to change the default home page to this site (if you do not have one set). You can go into preferences and under the main tab, change the default home page.

If this is an issue for others, I can easily change it.

#3 
Written By Chris Latko on February 5th, 2009 @ 5:36 pm

Actually, that’s a GREAT idea having the home page of where the build came from. Thanks for doing that…

And thanks for making this build!

#4 
Written By Leo of BORG on February 6th, 2009 @ 9:37 am

Thanks, a generally speedy improvement on Firefox 3.1b3. But the following site shows very poor scrolling performance, but NOT with Firefox or WebKit:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10158016-93.html

Wonder what makes this site so lethargic. (2008 Mac Pro, OSX 10.5.6, ATI 3870 video card.)

#5 
Written By Ken Peterson on February 6th, 2009 @ 6:57 pm

How often will you update this? Would like at least once a week update from you or at least provide the instructions on how we can optimize our own builds.

Thanks for posting this.

#6 
Written By MikhailT on February 7th, 2009 @ 1:37 am

@ken
I noticed the scrolling issue as well on that page. I think it is due to those ads on the right. If I scroll beyond them, everything is smooth. Not sure why it is specific to this build though.

@mikhailt
I’m not building nightlies at the moment, only the officially tagged releases in the Mozilla repository. I will keep on top of that and build new releases as Mozilla comes out with them. If there is enough demand for the nightlies, I’ll whip together a script. I’ll take your comment as a vote for nightlies.

#7 
Written By Chris Latko on February 7th, 2009 @ 7:52 am

FYI - Another jerky-scrolling page in Shiretoko:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2006/02/cablecard.ars/2

#8 
Written By Ken Peterson on February 7th, 2009 @ 7:59 pm

seconded nightlies script.

#9 
Written By Disco Smurf on February 8th, 2009 @ 11:46 am

Thank you for this nice build!

I mirrored the file: http://blog.jbbr.net/files/mirrors/latko.org/shiretoko-3.1b3pre.dmg
You can use it to reduce the traffic on the latko server ;)

#10 
Written By foxx on February 8th, 2009 @ 12:55 pm

Great stuff, thank you! It’s incredibly fast.

Is there any way to change the language of Shiretoko? I’d be so happy if I could get the UI in Norwegian.

#11 
Written By Even on February 8th, 2009 @ 2:04 pm

@foxx
I appreciate the mirror. I’ll update this post to reflect the additional download location.

@even
I’ll see what I can do for a multilingual build. I’ve also had several requests for a Japanese version.

#12 
Written By Chris Latko on February 8th, 2009 @ 3:52 pm

Would you consider posting your mozconfig file and prefs tweaks? I’ve been running nightly builds of FF for a while, but I’m unsure of the best way to performance-tune them. The benchmark scores of my build aren’t quite as good as yours: 1800ms and change….

#13 
Written By aarone on February 8th, 2009 @ 6:44 pm

Another vote here to remove the “Dreaming of Beetles” from the title bar. Pretty lame… I won’t use this build because of that.

#14 
Written By Mike on February 8th, 2009 @ 11:01 pm

Mike,

You can change this in your preferences by either having a default home page or setting it to a blank page. I have just overwritten the _default_ preferences so you will only see this if you have not changed the default.

Point taken though.

#15 
Written By Chris Latko on February 9th, 2009 @ 7:52 pm

All of the unofficial builds are named after famous parks. This version is indeed named after the Shiretoko National Park in Japan. The word “Shiretoko” is an Ainu (Ainu are the indigenous people of the region) word meaning “end of the earth”.

#16 
Written By Mike on February 13th, 2009 @ 8:32 pm

I vote for nightlies, and instructions on how to roll our own. I bought a mac to learn mac programming. So any help I can get would be awesome.

#17 
Written By Ben on February 16th, 2009 @ 10:38 pm

A problem: After running Shiretoko and using it for my ordinary browsing (nice!), which includes access to my local library, Firefox now will now not auto-insert my library-card number and password. Nor does it ask to do so. Siretoko does this just fine, seemingly having inherited the form-fill stuff from Firefox, but now Firefox won’t do it.

Any suggestions? Where is this stored, or where is any “belonging” information stored relative to these online names and passwords? (Has “Shiretoko” now been substituted for “Firefox” somewhere where I can change it back?)

#18 
Written By Ken Peterson on February 18th, 2009 @ 12:48 pm

beta 3 is out now - maybe you could update your optimized build? thanks in advance!

#19 
Written By foxx on March 12th, 2009 @ 5:31 pm

I know beta 3 is out. I will get to it tonight, and have it posted on Friday US time (I’m still in Japan). I figured out further optimizations for building so hopefully we’ll see this next version a bit faster.

#20 
Written By Chris Latko on March 12th, 2009 @ 9:55 pm

Hey, Chris, I can mirror files on http://technocrank.com too if you’d like.

#21 
Written By Crankie Tech on March 13th, 2009 @ 4:49 am

Thanks so much for the update. The 3.1 betas are so much quicker than 3.0.x

#22 
Written By Addison on March 13th, 2009 @ 12:43 pm

Anxiously awaiting the 3.1b3 builds. :)

#23 
Written By zain on March 15th, 2009 @ 1:15 am

thanks Chris, your latest 3.1b4pre runs great on 10.5.6!

#24 
Written By Disco Smurf on March 15th, 2009 @ 9:42 am

Thank you for the update!
I mirrored the new file too: http://blog.jbbr.net/files/mirrors/latko.org/shiretoko-3.1b4pre.dmg

#25 
Written By foxx on March 15th, 2009 @ 1:23 pm

Hey im wondering, even tho this is Firefox and everyone knows it, web sites don’t think so(eg facebook chat) and i know it is compatible with Firefox and it says “please use Firefox for facebook chat. so is there a way to have it still tell web sites its the same as firefox, or at least an ad don?
thanks,
david

#26 
Written By David on March 16th, 2009 @ 9:46 pm

I also would love to see a .mozconfig So I can build my own, when needed.

#27 
Written By BigB on March 19th, 2009 @ 1:22 pm

+1 for mozconfig files and prefs. I’ve been interested in learning how to compile my own version for a while now, and it’s always nice to have a starting point.

#28 
Written By Aktariel on March 20th, 2009 @ 2:27 pm

I made a portable version including your build - good for simple testing without touching the existing firefox profile.
Everyone who want’s to test can download it from http://blog.jbbr.net/download/3/

#29 
Written By foxx on March 24th, 2009 @ 6:20 am

I updated the portable version. Now as DMG image and only one single app bundle included and necessary.

http://blog.jbbr.net/download/4/

#30 
Written By foxx on March 24th, 2009 @ 1:13 pm

Okay, sorry, I’m confused. Is Tracemonkey part of Shiretoko now or do I need to go add it on myself?

#31 
Written By Whitson on March 26th, 2009 @ 7:23 am

@WHITSON

TraceMonkey has almost always been a part of 3.1, it just is not enabled by default. If you want to enable it on a regular FF download, search for “jit” in the about:config and set both options to true. Restart.

#32 
Written By Chris Latko on March 26th, 2009 @ 8:02 am

Hey, I love your optimized builds. They would wonderful on my computer and are super fast. I just wanted to let you know that the official 3.5 beta 4 was released recently. I tried to do a little research to figure out how to build it myself with your mozconfig file but it looked like it was going to take a lot more work than I thought or maybe I just read wrong lol

#33 
Written By Addison on April 28th, 2009 @ 1:10 am

how about beta4?

#34 
Written By david on May 1st, 2009 @ 9:29 pm

Hi, just got the shiretoko-3.5b5pre build. Thanks.

Two issues I’ve noticed - sometimes you can’t click to change a tab. You click on a tab that’s not in front but nothing happens. Also, in the search field at the top right, I can enter text but the return key doesn’t do anything.

Is this a result of the optimized build? Or something wrong with Shiretoko?

Thanks!

#35 
Written By josh on May 3rd, 2009 @ 12:06 am

@david - the 5pre is the beta 4 build.

@josh - Honestly, I’m not sure. I used the same build steps I’ve used in all previous releases available on this site. So I’m pretty sure it is not the optimization. You can also check the .mozconfig file on the downloads page.

#36 
Written By Chris Latko on May 3rd, 2009 @ 7:09 am

I know it’s not the fault of the optimizations but wow it’s this build is buggy.

#37 
Written By Adam on May 12th, 2009 @ 5:18 pm

im using osx tiger 10.4.11 and it’s not working good, firefox also want to start up when i click the icon

A copy of Firefox is already open. Only one copy of Firefox can be open at a time.

#38 
Written By dennis on May 13th, 2009 @ 12:04 am

Just FYI, your mozconfig contains a lot of cruft. For example:
ac_add_options --enable-reorder
This isn’t a valid option to configure.

ac_add_options --disable-debug
ac_add_options --disable-shared
ac_add_options --enable-strip
ac_add_options --enable-pthreads
ac_add_options --enable-svg
ac_add_options --enable-canvas
ac_add_options --enable-extensions=default,spellcheck
ac_add_options --without-system-png
ac_add_options --without-system-mng
ac_add_options --without-system-nspr
ac_add_options --without-system-zlib
ac_add_options --without-system-jpeg
These are all the default settings.

ac_add_options --enable-prebinding
I’m told this option hasn’t done anything useful since OS X 10.3 or so. (See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=407399)

#39 
Written By Ted Mielczarek on May 13th, 2009 @ 7:26 am

@ted thanks for the tip. Will update shortly…

#40 
Written By Chris Latko on May 21st, 2009 @ 6:06 pm

Been using your 3.5b5pre for a few weeks, and it's been fantastically stable and flawless for me. Honestly, I haven't experienced a single crash, whereas with with the last Firefox 3.x stable build I'd have a crash a day or so. Pleasantly surprised, stable, and fast. Thank you!!!

Oh, I'm running OSX 10.4.11, MBP w/ 2GB RAM & 120GB HDD.

#41 
Written By Danny Ruiz on June 9th, 2009 @ 4:24 am

Shiretoko-optimized Firefox 3.5 build for OSX really is worth the download. Much faster and I’ve had no stability issues http://bit.ly/lovrH

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

#42 
Written By BlueBoxTraveler on May 27th, 2009 @ 12:52 pm

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