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TenFourFox

Name: TenFourFox
Rating: 3.75 (23 reviews)

45.25.0

03 September 2019

Harness the power of Firefox 45 on your PowerPC Mac.

Overview

TenFourFox is a fast, efficient Web browser always based on the current version of Firefox, but unlike the main distribution TenFourFox is compatible with OS X 10.4 and 10.5 running on PowerPC processors. It comes in different tuned versions for specific PowerPC processor families:

If you feel unsure what type of PowerPC processor your Mac has, go to the Apple menu and choose "About this Mac" and check the processor field. On the G4 Mac open the Terminal app (in Applications -> Utilities) and type the command machine.

TenFourFox no longer supports plugins or Flash - As of the previous TenFourFox 6.0, for the following reasons plugin support ships disabled. Sites will now act as if no plugins were installed at all. Plugins on PowerPC are of special concern because Mozilla is making updates to their plugin architecture which may require the plugins themselves to be updated, and there are certain difficult-to-correct bugs with them already on Tiger. Most importantly, Adobe Flash for PowerPC is no longer maintained and has known security risks that can crash or leak data, some sites require versions not available on the PowerPC, and QuickTime for Leopard will lose its own support with the release of OS X Lion. For these and other reasons, TenFourFox does not run plugins, and they cannot be enabled.

What's new in TenFourFox

Version 45.25.0:

New:

Improvements to HTML5 and URL parsing performance
Updated support for same-site cookies

Fixed:

All relevant security and stability fixes from Firefox ESR 60.9.0 and ESR 68.1
An issue where SVG image backgrounds would not appear under certain circumstances has been corrected
Asynchronous JavaScript functions now have a more useful error message for problem determination, and certain erroneous edge cases in the JavaScript parser have been corrected. Asynchronous functions are not currently supported by the browser.
Access to Firefox Sync has been restored. Remember: Sync support is "best effort." Access to Firefox Sync may break at any time, and may not be repaired in a timely fashion, if at all.
The font blacklist has been updated
A correctness fix in the AltiVec text scanning code has been implemented
Additional hosts have been added to the built-in adblock

TenFourFox Screenshots

93 TenFourFox Reviews

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I'm not running any PPC machines. However, the dev here deserves 5 Stars all the way around for doing this in the first place. WTG!

Like (7)

Version 4.0.1

My FPR15 review will be more of a "best practices with TFF and any Firefox based browser":
• Thanks to TFF's dev, I've learned that those browsers enumerate the available fonts in your system, so minimizing their number will gain a considerable amount of time, especially for slow machines.
• my second point is about extensions: most of you already know it, but keep them as few as possible
• final point: built-in basic adblock of TFF. My little G4 mini was lacking RAM until today, so it was faster filtering heavy pages with uBlock +uMatrix +Decentraleyes (as calculations were made in virtual memory i.e. on disk). Now, with its RAM maxed out, TFF's built-in basic adblock alone is the overall best choice — if you don't mind trackers, etc.
Before applying those advices, TFF ate CPU for 50s at launch before calming down, then nearly the same time for loading very heavy sites: now I've achieved 20s launch time and even the heaviest site takes less than 20s to display ("normal" pages load between 4s and 8s).
I've also applied the fonts advice on my Intel Macs with Waterfox and Firefox. ;-)

Version 45.24.0

rardin

24 March 2019

The developer announced that an "urgent security [FPR13 SPR1] update" will be coming soon to patch a vulnerability in the Firefox code revealed during Pwn2Own that is closed in releases Firefox 66.0.1 and Firefox ESR 60.6.1

Version 45.22.0

A little review to say that TenFourFox is still actively supported: next FPR13 (should be 45.22, if I'm not mistaking) will be out later this month. Being a "Feature Parity Release", you can expect it to work quite like Firefox, except for some "hard to port" feature. Current news are that there's a new Intel port (versions for MacOS 10.4 to 10.6), not supported by TFF's dev but mentioned in their blog — see one of my comments below.

Like (1)

Version 45.20.0

2 answer(s)

rardin

15 March 2019

A beta of FPR13 is available now for those who want to test it. See the aforementioned development blog at http://tenfourfox.blogspot.com for more info. Besides the recent builds of TFF for 10.4, 10.5 and 10.6 (based on TFF 45.9 rather than the latest FPR release) Aargl references above, an unsupported FPR10 build for OS X 10.5.8-10.8.x is also available. Again, check the TFF dev blog for the latest info.

rardin

17 March 2019

No need to use the FPR13 beta now that the final version is out: https://sourceforge.net/projects/tenfourfox/files/fpr13/

This version (also called FPR7) is a clear improvement with its "basic adblock" feature, undeniably speeding your browsing! (you have to enable it in the dedicated TFF prefs)
You can use it now without any adblocker, although you still have more precise filtering power with the usual extensions.
For the rest, it's FF45 with latest 52ESR fixes on PPC machines.

Version 45.16.0

1 answer(s)

Aargl

20 June 2018

It's noticeable that TFF behaves decently on my G4+SSD under Tiger while it is really resource hungry on my iMac G5+HD under Leopard! I bet the SSD is making a huge difference — and Leopard has probably its guilt too... :-/

Thinking-Differently

22 March 2018

Would it be possible to make a Universal Binary version of TenFourFox, so we could also run it on old Intel Macs without having to do emulation? I think it is really great that this project exists. I volunteer for a group that refurbishes donated computers for benevolent causes around the world. TenFourFox allows us to make use of computers that would otherwise end up in landfills. Great Job

Like (1)

Version 45.15.1

9 answer(s)

rardin

27 March 2018

This is a frequent request (see the blog I referenced previously), but the developer has no personal need for it. Unless someone else steps up to the plate to build a version of TFF for Intel-based Macs running legacy versions of OS X, it's unlikely to happen.

Aargl

27 March 2018

If your quest is a relatively recent browser for a 32 bit Intel Mac running Snow Leopard, the most recently updated is Firefox 45.9 ESR (12/04/2017), but it's awfully slow on really old machines!
Then you have Leopard WebKit r171822 (10/08/2015) that you can find here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/leopard-webkit/files/537/%28Snow%29%20Leopard/
And finally Chromium 32 bits: https://sourceforge.net/projects/osxportableapps/files/Chromium/ChromiumOSX_38.0.2125.122.dmg/download that includes Flash15.0.0.223.
The last 32 bits build of Chromium is 41.0.2226.0 (19/08/2014) but has no codecs (you should find it, following indications there: https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium)
My advice: use Leopard WebKit as long as possible and Firefox when some website behaves weirdly — I haven't used much Chromium on that platform.

Aargl

24 October 2018

The return of the Intel version of TFF!
(if you're still interested...)
http://tenfourfox.blogspot.com/2018/10/its-baaaaa-aaack-tenfourfox-intel.html
No, don't thank me. ;-)

rardin

24 October 2018

Thanks, Aargl! I should have thought to post something myself. I've been using the new Intel TFF build on an old Mac mini running 10.7.5 for a week now and it's working great.

Aargl

24 October 2018

Hi! It was more an answer to the OP ("Thinking-Differently"), but I'm glad to see that it's working! ;-)
I've got a Dell Mini 9 hackintoshed where I had to back down to Firefox ESR 31.8 because 45.x was putting it on its knees (that little beast gets paralyzed when it gets hot — and it gets hot easily...), I doubt that TFF would be better, but I'll definitely try it! :-)
Maybe yourself compared FF45 against TFF-Intel?

rardin

25 October 2018

Sorry. I haven't had time to do any side-by-side comparisons with Firefox. Firefox 45.9.0esr actually runs ok on my slightly hopped up Mac mini (I swapped in a Core 2 Duo CPU)

Aargl

04 March 2019

Hi rardin! I bet you've heard about this new port of TenFourFox for Intel, but just in case. ;-)
https://github.com/OlgaTPark/tenfourfox/releases/
I've just tested it on my 32 bit 10.6 and it works perfectly! — and hopefully might get more frequent updates than the one we mentioned last year.

Like (1)

rardin

04 March 2019

I saw Cameron's post about this on http://tenfourfox.blogspot.com, but certainly appreciate the heads up, Aargl. Thanks!

Aargl

04 March 2019

While I was trying TenSixFox, I finally also tried Arctic Fox (not available at MU) and was properly amazed of its speed! :-o
Of course: it's based on Firefox 27 — and follows now its own road.
It's definitely the fastest I could find on a 32 bit Mac.

Looks like I am the only user of TFF left at MU? :-o Well, TFF FPR6.1 is still working ok. I added Decentraleyes extension, which accelerates a bit the commonly used websites. I unchecked uBlock and uMatrix lists auto-updates (which I suppose were happening at launch). Now, all in all, I'm quite close to the speed I had with v31.8 (with more extensions) and in the end it's quite a miracle to still be able to surf the Internet on a 1st gen Mini G4, 13 years later!

Like (2)

Version 45.15.1

8 answer(s)

rardin

21 March 2018

If you haven't already, consider trying TFF's new, built-in basic adblock in lieu of other adblockers. This feature won't be exposed in the standard preference panes until release FPR7, but it can be enabled manually in FPR6.x. See the TFF development blog (http://tenfourfox.blogspot.com/) for details.

Like (1)

Aargl

21 March 2018

Great! Thanks! I had read it in the blog some time ago but didn't remember it was not enabled by default... I will dig again in the blog. ;-)

rardin

21 March 2018

Performance testing can be tricky, but very rough results indicated that I'm getting a significant gain over Adblock Plus (admittedly not a great performer) during TFF startup and when visiting some sites.

Aargl

21 March 2018

I've just tested it on my G5 and I'm sorry to say it doesn't beat my "Three Musketeers" (Decentraleyes, uBlock Origin and uMatrix) on complex pages, it even adds 1s if used together with them.
Of course, it's a nice move and it performs better than without any adblockers.
After many years with Ghostery and Adblock Plus, I abandoned them immediately after I've tried uBlock Origin, way much faster!
The right versions, if you want to try them:
- uBlock (1.13.8)
- uMatrix (1.0)
- Decentraleyes (1.3.10) : the last versions installs but doesn't work — you'll have also to add some rules to uMatrix for it to work (see Decentraleyes website).

Macfool

21 March 2018

Aargl - Not the last TFF user, here. Our insurance form audit enterprize employs three(3) air-cooled G5 workstations all running FPR6 Security Parity Release 1. We have successfully employed TFF since July 2015 on a daily basis starting with v.31.8.

Aargl

21 March 2018

:-D Great!

rardin

27 March 2018

For those interested in trying the new basic adblock feature, TFF version FPR7b1 exposes it in the TFF preference pane, as promised. FPR7 will go final in early May. See the development blog for more info.

rardin

28 March 2018

I neglected to mention yesterday that a new 1.1 version of TenFourFoxBox, which generates site-specific browser applications based on TenFourFox, is also available for testing. It includes support for the new basic adblock feature. Like TFF FPR7, this will go final in early May. See the TFF development blog for more details.

I was forced to update to the last version because my insurance company's website stopped working with v31.8... :-( Now the launch time is 33s (compared to 19s previously...) but once running there's not too much a difference, provided you get rid of as many addons as possible. Actually, I installed only uBlock Origin and uMatrix, which help a lot filtering useless crap: certain complex websites load faster than ever (20s less, for the heaviest ones!) All in all, the Mac Mini can still access nearly all the Internet, except for one site that freezes TFF — I wonder if it's the graphic card that is not fast enough or else...

Version 45.13.0

Ouch! This time TFF put my G4 on its knees! :-o
"Fast and efficient" may be the case if you have a "fast and efficient" computer, say a multicore G5... :-D
It works kinda ok, though, with a clean basic profile with no extensions (21s to start, 29s to load a complex page) but updating my old profile with what I consider a basic set of extensions is way too much for a Mini G4 1.25 GHz with only 512Mb ram! (1'50" to start, 1'20" for the same complex page...)
I was hoping the new features could accelerate it in some way, but no way José.
Back to TFF 31.8. ;-)

Version 45.10.0

2 answer(s)

Aargl

09 August 2017

45.11 aka FPR2 is out! And having run the same tests I usually do (i.e. 12 actual sites I regularly use, some of them very loaded or badly written), it seems faster and more usable than FPR1.
In the meantime, I found that the best thing I can do to speed it up is removing AdBlock and Ghostery, they really eat too much cpu on the old G4, and use NoScript to filter out some useless crap on heavy pages.
That Mac Mini being used mainly with a bunch of trusted sites, there's not much to fear about security and the acceleration is noticeable, this way!

Aargl

01 October 2017

FPR3: usual tests show more or less the same results as previous 45.x versions.

Don't believe the absurd bad reviews below! :-D I've tested all recent versions on an iMac G5 2.1 GHz and a Mac Mini G4 1.25 GHz. Be careful to pick the right version for your processor and be aware that also Firefox can mess up an old profile (it happened to me in the past!), especially with some extensions) One word of warning though: Tenfourfox follows Firefox development, meaning that, as any growing software since computers exist, it gets slower across versions. The purpose of TFF is not to give you the fastest browser ever but to let you run a nearly up to date browser on your old machines. As I mentioned in a former review, if you value more speed, stick to version 31.8. I've done some tests on my G4, including html5test.com and speed-battle.com and both show v38.10 as a lot better than v31.8 (v45.7 is yet a bit better but not that much). But when it comes to real life testing, it's another story: v38 takes 6s more to launch, and every site I've tried is slower (from 1 to 10s more, depending on the site's complexity). I haven't done those tests on the latest version but I can believe it would be even slower, hence the only 4 stars I give. So, be sure to test the latest version on a fresh profile on a well maintained computer. ;-) My experience of Roccat has always been terrible — even if I helped translating its menus...) — I only can be thankful to TFF's dev as I can't see any other alternative!

Like (1)

Version 45.7.0

3 answer(s)

Aargl

10 February 2017

Out of curiosity, and to wipe out the bad reviews below, I've just done on v45.7 the same tests I made with the former versions and I am pleasantly surprised that it's faster with many websites than v38!
And sometimes even after having cleaned the cache!
My Mac Mini is 1.25 GHz/512Mb ram, so I can't believe TFF would be dead slow on a 1.42 GHz/1.5Gb ram as Snoebay pretended in his review — not to mention the Powerbook killer review. :-D

Aargl

10 February 2017

For anyone in search of an older version, run there: https://sourceforge.net/projects/tenfourfox/files/

Aargl

20 February 2017

I've recently tried Firefox (31, 38 and 45) on an old Intel Mac and it was even worse than TFF on my G4 Mac Mini! ;-)

45.6.0 DESTROYED MY POWERBOOK!!! I had some success with the earlier versions of Tenfoxfour but after installing 45.6.0 it was disastrous. After opening the updated browser my computer functions all failed -- I could move the mouse around but as soon as I clicked anywhere the spinning ball of death came on and would not go away. I tried rebooting and now my OS will not load. It gets to the Apple graphic and the load wheel just spins and spins. I've tried zapping the PRAM and starting with the shift key down with no luck. Now I need to dig out all the alternative key combos and try again... No more Tenfoxfour for me.

Version 45.6.0

Free

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