xabbott.blg

B-Con posted a thread on the Arch Linux forums asking which Arch packages users rebuild. Firefox comes up a few times because users rebuild it for official branding. Allan then posted a link to a nifty script to automatically rebuild Firefox with official branding. I’ll post it here as well and hope that WordPress won’t mess it up.
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SwiftFox is an optimized build of Firefox. It uses a few methods to do this, most notably the compile options. I don’t use Swiftfox but I had to compile Firefox in Arch. I figured I would apply some of Swift’s optimizations to my own build. If you need a crash course in rebuilding Firefox in Arch Linux read the Arch Wiki for Firefox recompile. If you want more details of SwiftFox’s optimizations check out it’s source code page and Wikipedia entry.

Here are the following changes I made to the mozconfig file:
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I am writing this post from Midori. Currently described as a lightweight web browser. Which I don’t even get at this point, hasn’t every browser since Internet Explorer been a “lightweight.”

In any case, what I feel really makes this different is the fact that unlike most GTK2 browsers, Midori uses Webkit to render web pages. Firefox and Epiphany, the default Gnome browser among many others use the Gecko engine.

Webkit is a fork of KHTML, which powers KDE’s default web browser Konqueror. Webkit itself is probably most well known for powering the default Mac OSX browser Safari.

As far as Gecko vs Webkit. I haven’t used Webkit/KHTML based browsers enough to really say what makes them different. On both Windows and Linux I use Firefox, on OS X I use Camino. Using Midori I didn’t really run into any noticeable rendering issues. Things like GMail and Google reader worked fine. I checked various sites I visit and it rendered them all without any snags. I did notice however that pages with text entry dialogs are a little buggy. Oh and for those that care, it does render the acid test correctly. Although I did noticed when I scrolled up or down it distorted it. Normally the page in question doesn’t allow you to scroll. So that could be an issue with Midori not Webkit.

I should mention before I get into the more Midori specific aspects of this post. I am using version 0.0.17, a self described “early alpha.” At this point it’s far from daily use ready.

Working right now is the basics. You can bring up pages, search from the search entry box, reload pages, move back for forth, go to a homepage, create new windows and tabs. You can create bookmarks but you create them from scratch. Then they are only accessible in the panel not from the bookmarks menu.

What isn’t working yet? Unable to tab through fields on a page, no support for secure http, no font configuration, the preferences in general is mostly a place holder at the moment, unable to save files, binary files just open in a page, no controls/menus for tabs aside from close, bookmarks very limited.

It’s an interesting project that I’ll have my eye on. While I really like Firefox, I love choices so hopefully this florishes. I also have my eye on Kazehakase, which also plans on letting you choose between Gecko and Webkit.

Split Browser, situational but nifty. Let’s you view multiple web pages split up in one window. I personally like using it while writing blog or wiki entries.

Microsoft Firefox! They are so innovative.

Just so I actually post something… Here are my favorite Firefox extensions.

1.Adblock Plus
2.Download Statusbar
3.del.icio.us Bookmarks
4.CustomizeGoogle
5.Menu Editor

Most of these are self explanatory. I love menu editor for maximizing my space. Here is what the menu bar of my Firefox looks like.