Firefox Optimized for your CPU -can it get faster?

[TrevorCollins]

Anyone know of a place to pick up versions of Firefox browser that are optimized for specific CPU architectures? It is a great browser, but being open-source and all, I gotta believe that someone out there is optimizing it to make it even faster and more stable. Any links or tips would be 'ppreciated.

 

[Hyperion]

Ahem ... what sense is there in optimising a browser for a specified processor
architecture? The effect of bandwidth, dwarfs the effect of micro optimizations.

So you really believe Intel when they claim that the P4 makes the web go faster?

 

[jpmkm]

First of all, optimizing code(especially cpu-specific optimizations) should have no major effect on stability. Second of all, what needs to be faster about it? Load times really would not benefit from any specific cpu optimization. Load times are mainly dependent on the size of the program and the speed of your disk, ram, processor, etc. Other than loading, there really isn't much going on in a web browser. What needs to be faster about it? I am just really having a hard time believing that any cpu-specific optimization would improve speed any humanly-noticable amount.

 

[alphaomega]

This is likely what you are looking for:

http://www.moox.ws/tech/mozilla/

I have benched these versus the official nightly builds and have seen a 30% increase in overal speed and rendering. Additionally, MOOX cuts out alot of the extra 'crap' that is in the official builds to make it as small as possible for downloading.

Highly Recommended!

 

[jpmkm]

What did you use to measure the 30% increase in speed? Are there any optimized builds that have all the crap still in them? Likewise, are there any builds that have all the crap cut out but without the optimizations? I am just curious if cutting out a lof of stuff will affect the speed more than cpu-specific optimizations will. Does anyone know if the "-march" in Gentoo provides this same type of optimization? If so, then my entire system is compiled to take advantage of AthlonXP-specific optimizations and I would not see any additional benefits from a build like this. I'm not trying to sound overly skeptical, but I am fully aware of the placebo effect and I have been victim of it on occasion.

 

[phrozenfire]

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=42

 

[vinnie]

Turn off images. Cuts down on rendering time, saves 90% of bandwidth and any site whch doesn't design to be navigateable without images on isn't worth visiting. Just because inline images can be displayed doesn't mean they need to.

I bet you three bags of cookies that that saves one heck of a lot more time than any cpu optimisation possible. Besides, if you really cared for CPU optimisations, you'd be sitting there with the source trying to compile yourself.

 

[JPS]

This is likely what you are looking for:

http://www.moox.ws/tech/mozilla/

I have benched these versus the official nightly builds and have seen a 30% increase in overal speed and rendering. Additionally, MOOX cuts out alot of the extra 'crap' that is in the official builds to make it as small as possible for downloading.

Highly Recommended!

Those are my builds - now I know why I am suddendly getting traffic from the [H]

 

[BillLeeLee]

Does anyone know if the "-march" in Gentoo provides this same type of optimization? If so, then my entire system is compiled to take advantage of AthlonXP-specific optimizations and I would not see any additional benefits from a build like this.

If you emerged the mozilla-firefox source (mozilla-firefox not mozilla-firefox-bin), then your firefox was built with your CFLAGS (mine are march=pentium4 -Os -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe) and are built with the AthXp's features (like SSE and such).

Honestly, even with a optimized build in Gentoo, Firefox is still not as fast as it is in Windows in terms of loading (where I also use a manually compiled version). I find that a little strange, but whatever, I have a few extra seconds on my hands.