Swiftfox

The Swiftfox build is optimized using the following methods:

Binary code optimization

• Compiled with the highest level of compiler optimization, rather than optimization for binary size.
• Swiftfox is compiled -O3,{{cite web | url=http://forums.getswiftfox.com/viewtopic.php?t=44 | title=Swiftfox Forum | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070319030233/http://forums.getswiftfox.com/viewtopic.php?t=44 | archive-date=2007-03-19 }}Using url of about:buildconfig to check the details of the 2.0 builds (the highest level)
• The resulting Swiftfox binary is larger than Firefox. (-O3 is not necessarily faster than -O2, or -Os. -O3 introduces two more options on top of -O2: -finline-functions and -frename-registers. The latter is good for CPUs with many registers but may actually be slower on other CPUs.{{cite web | url=https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.1.1/gcc/Optimize-Options.html#Optimize-Options | title=Optimize Options - Using the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC)}})
• Firefox is compiled -Os. (-Os is the same as -O2 but removes optimizations which would increase the binary size.)
• Binaries incorporate additional instruction sets.{{cite web | url=http://getswiftfox.com/builds/mozilla_1_8_branch/changelog | title=Swiftfox 2.0pre changelog}}
• Intel and AMD: MMX, SSE, SSE2, (not generally SSE3{{cite web | url=http://forums.getswiftfox.com/viewtopic.php?t=11&highlight=sse3 | title=Swiftfox Forum | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070321050416/http://forums.getswiftfox.com/viewtopic.php?t=11&highlight=sse3 | archive-date=2007-03-21 }}).
• AMD only: 3DNow!
• Optimization specific to the build microprocessor architecture.
• Intel: Pentium 4, Pentium 3, Pentium M, Pentium III, Pentium II, Pentium 4 (Prescott).
• AMD64: Athlon64 (32bit binary).
• AMD: Athlon XP, Athlon, K6-2.
• Compiled with newer version of GCC (Firefox 2.0 uses 3.3.2, Swiftfox 2.0 uses 4.0.4).

Increased security

• Better protection from buffer overflow attacks{{cite web | url=http://www.redhat.com/magazine/009jul05/features/execshield/#checks | publisher=redhat.com | title=Limiting buffer overflows with ExecShield | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070208094418/http://www.redhat.com/magazine/009jul05/features/execshield/#checks | archive-date=2007-02-08 }} (Swiftfox 2.0 uses -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2; Firefox 2.0 uses gcc 3.x, which does not support this).

Simplify

• Pango is not included in the build {{Citation needed|date=April 2007}}. This means that Unicode fonts remain supported (see Unicode and HTML), but without certain extra features{{cite web | url=http://www.pango.org/ScriptGallery | title=Script Gallery - Pango }} provided by Pango. This simplification reduces the binary size, and reduces rendering.

Changed default preference values

• IPv6 DNS lookups are disabled.{{cite web | url=http://getswiftfox.com/builds/releases/changelog | title=Swiftfox 1.5.0.7 changelog}} preventing slowdowns experienced{{cite web | url=http://forums.getswiftfox.com/viewtopic.php?p=12&sid=f37125f87effd7be076c6c748cdde960 | title=Swiftfox Forum | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928044502/http://forums.getswiftfox.com/viewtopic.php?p=12&sid=f37125f87effd7be076c6c748cdde960 | archive-date=2007-09-28 }}
• HTTP pipelining is enabled by default. Fasterfox provides a GUI to adjust these settings.
• For full details, see [http://getswiftfox.com/source/swiftfox-1.8branch.patch].

No definitive benchmarking has been reported, but a quicker startup time and a 1.7% webpage rendering speedup has been reported on version 1.5.0.6.{{cite web | url=http://www.apcstart.com/node/3097 | title=APC Magazine: What's The Worlds Fastest Browser| access-date = 2006-10-30}} There are no benchmarks for the different processors builds.

Swiftfox is bundled with the following freely available Firefox plugins and extensions:

• XForms extension is installed and enabled
• libunixprintplugin.so plugin is installed

The same as Firefox, the Swiftfox source code is open-source, with the source code under MPL 1.1 except for parts relating to branding.

Unlike Firefox, the Swiftfox binaries have a proprietary license{{cite web | url=http://getswiftfox.com/LICENSE | title=Swiftfox license}} which does not allow redistribution. According to the author, this is to prevent the possibility of any confusion with tainted versions (see the Firefox branding argument Mozilla Firefox#Trademark and logo). The name Swiftfox is trademarked by Jason Halme, and accordingly cannot be used on other third party Firefox builds without his permission.

Swiftfox binaries are available as Debian packages from [http://getswiftfox.com/debian.htm official site]. The proprietary binary license prevents Debian and other Linux distributions from having Swiftfox available as part of a distribution, so to redistribute Swiftfox one would have to change the name and icons.

• Firefox
• Swiftweasel

{{Reflist|30em}}

• {{official website|http://getswiftfox.com/}} ([https://web.archive.org/web/20160912115922/http://getswiftfox.com:80/ archived])

{{Web browsers}}

{{Mozilla}}

Category:POSIX web browsers

Category:Web browsers based on Firefox

Category:Software that uses XUL

Category:Discontinued web browsers