Swiftweasel

Iceweasel.png

Swiftweasel is a free and open source build of Mozilla Firefox. It is licensed under the MPL 1.1 and uses free graphics and logos. It is optimized for several architectures, and is available for Linux only. Mozilla Firefox plugins, extensions, and themes are fully compatible with Swiftweasel.

Optimization

Swiftweasel is optimized using the following methods:

Binary code optimization

  • Compiled with options that optimize for speed rather than binary size.
    • Swiftweasel is compiled -O3, (the highest level)
      • The resulting Swiftweasel binary is larger than Firefox.
    • Firefox is compiled -Os(which is for binary size).
  • Binaries incorporate additional instruction sets.
    • Intel and AMD: SSE2, SSE, SSE3, and MMX.
    • AMD only: 3DNow!
  • Optimization specific to the build microprocessor architecture.
    • Intel 32bit: Pentium 4, Pentium 3, Pentium M, Pentium 3M, Pentium 2, Prescott.
    • Intel 64bit: Nocona
    • AMD: Athlon XP, Athlon, K6-2.
    • AMD64: Athlon64, Opteron
  • Compiled with newer version of GCC (Firefox 2.0 uses 3.3.2, Swiftweasel 2.0 uses 4.0.3).

Increased Security

  • Better protection from Buffer overflow attacks (Swiftweasel 2.0 uses -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2; Firefox 2.0 uses gcc 3.x, which does not support this).

Simplify

  • Pango is included in the build to improve rendering.
  • IPv6 DNS lookups are disabled. preventing slowdowns
  • HTTP pipelining is enabled by default.Note that Fasterfox provides a GUI to adjust these settings.
  • For full details, users can download source packages with all changes listed.

Installed Extensions

Swiftweasel has several extensions installed by default.

See also

  • Mozilla Firefox
  • Iceweasel - Another version of Firefox which is made of entirely free, as in speech and beer, content.
  • Swiftfox - Swiftfox is a freely downloadable, but proprietary optimized version of Firefox.

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