MachFox v3.4 — Baseline JIT for web content

Download

MachFox-v3.4.dmg — drag to /Applications to install.

G5 only — this release is tested on iMac G5 (PowerMac8,2). G3/G4 users should use v3.1.

Changes

Baseline JIT for all web content (~5-10x faster)

• All web page JavaScript now gets Baseline JIT compiled — previously ran in the slow interpreter due to a PPC-specific guard that blocked all web URLs from JIT
• This is the single biggest performance improvement since v3.0
• YouTube, Google, Wikipedia, GitHub all significantly faster

Ion improvements

• Ion optimizing compiler enabled for internal browser scripts
• Ion for web content disabled pending bailout trampoline fix
• Overflow bailout loop prevention added

Recommended user.js

user_pref("javascript.options.baselinejit", true);
user_pref("javascript.options.ion", true);
user_pref("javascript.options.native_regexp", true);
user_pref("javascript.options.main_thread_stack_quota_cap", 8388608);

Platform

• Built with PPC Tiger Cross-Compiler v1.3 (GCC 15.2.0 + ld64)
• Platform changes: tiger-ppc-v3.4

MachFox v3.3 — Full Ion JIT + Native Regexp

MachFox v3.3 for Mac OS X Tiger (PowerPC G5)

This release is G5 only. It is built with -mcpu=G5 (ppc970) and uses G5-specific instructions (fcfid, AltiVec). A G3/G4 build will follow in a future release.

What's New

• Full Ion JIT — all optimizations enabled (GVN, inlining, PGO, range analysis, OSR)
• Native regexp — JIT-compiled regular expressions with big-endian fix
• r28 register clobber fix — root cause of systemic Ion crashes on PPC
• H.264 video decode via ffvpx with PPC AltiVec SIMD — 720p playback on iMac G5
• YouTube fully working — homepage loads with thumbnails, videos play

Key Fixes Since v3.1

• Ion JIT: 20+ PPC-specific fixes (icache flush, ShadowStackSpace, VMWrapper, MoveEmitter, visitBox BE, nursery barrier BE, shared stub popReturnAddress, etc.)
• Native regexp: fixed big-endian multi-character load bug (CanReadUnaligned was incorrectly returning true on PPC)
• Baseline JIT: stable with 15+ fixes
• r28 added to NonAllocatableMask — was root cause of systemic Ion crash

Requirements

• Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger
• PowerPC G5 only (iMac G5, Power Mac G5, or similar ppc970-based Mac)
• G3/G4 Macs are NOT supported by this build

Recommended user.js settings

Place in your profile directory (~/Library/Application Support/MachFox/Profiles/<profile>/user.js):

user_pref("javascript.options.baselinejit", true);
user_pref("javascript.options.ion", true);
user_pref("javascript.options.native_regexp", true);
user_pref("javascript.options.main_thread_stack_quota_cap", 8388608);

Installation

1. Mount the DMG
2. Drag MachFox.app to /Applications
3. Double-click to launch

MachFox v3.1 — G3/G4/G5 Compatible

THIS BUILD IS BROKEN DO NOT USE

Changes from v3.0

Fixed G5-only instructions in runtime libraries. MachFox v3.0 crashed on G4/G3 Macs with EXC_BAD_INSTRUCTION because the statically-linked runtime libraries (libgcc.a, libstdc++.a) contained G5-only instructions like fcfid.

What was fixed

• Rebuilt libstdc++.a from GCC 15.2.0 source with -mcpu=G3 — proper Mach-O archive format via cctools ar
• Replaced libgcc.a with G3-safe version from gcc15-cross build
• Re-linked XUL with clean libraries — zero G5 instructions across all 316 objects in 5 runtime libraries
• Fixed About dialog — now shows "MachFox" instead of "PowerFox"
• Fixed application.ini — Vendor and Name now reflect MachFox branding
• See cross-compiler v1.3 for the permanent toolchain fix

Compatibility

• G3: Should work (untested — no hardware available)
• G4: Should work (untested — no hardware available)
• G5: Tested and working on iMac G5 (PowerMac8,2)
• Requires: Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger

Downloads

• MachFox-v3.1.dmg — Disk image (65 MB)
• MachFox-v3.1-ppc-tiger.tar.gz — Tarball (65 MB)

MachFox v3.0 — Tiger PPC Browser

MachFox v3.0

THIS IS A G5 ONLY BUILD

Rebranded to MachFox. Cross-compiled from Linux using GCC 15.2.0 + ld64.

Changes

• MachFox branding with OpenMoji globe icon
• Smooth scrolling disabled — better scrolling performance on slow hardware
• Fixed window frame — no traffic light button issues on Tiger
• GPU-accelerated compositing enabled by default

Installation

tar xzf MachFox-v3.0-tiger-ppc.tar.gz -C /Applications/

Tested on iMac G5 (PowerMac8,2), PPC G5 2GHz, 1GB RAM, Tiger 10.4.11.