45.3 beta 1 available

For better or worse, I bring you fire TenFourFox 45.3 beta 1 (downloads, hashes, release notes).

Like pretty much every major ESR jump from before, some sites will be faster and some sites will be slower. The biggest new change is that we are now building the full Intl API with ICU support (issue 304). We were able to get away without it in 31 and 38 due to various hacked-in stubs but now too much in the browser (let alone add-ons) requires it. To avoid issue 266 we build a shared ICU and shared data file which will degrade startup time while they get searched and loaded along with all the others. There are also new UI features in the browser such as search suggestions (which you can disable) that add overhead, and certain layout and rendering operations are more heavyweight than they were in earlier releases. I've tried to load in some later performance updates to counter this last issue, but they don't erase the delta completely. On the plus side, however, as mentioned previously JavaScript JIT performance jumped 20% between 38 and 45, and low-level graphics performance and software pixel pushing is faster which manifests in better animation performance and smoother scrolling.

Remaining issues include Amazon Music failing to advance tracks in playlists (the JIT has been exonerated, so I'm still spinning my wheels here), disabling the last remnants of signed extensions (which I philosophically disagree with) and changing the update notification source. Otherwise it seems to function very well once it's loaded everything and got most of the browser chrome in the JIT. The browser is tested on my usual lab machines, the 16GB monster Quad G5, a 1.5GB 1.33GHz iBook G4, a 1.25GB 1GHz iMac G4 15" and a 2GB 450MHz Sawtooth G4, all running Tiger. TenFourFoxBox appears to work with no changes needed but you may want to keep 38.10 around for right now if you are using foxboxes heavily, just in case (please report issues as you find them).

On the build side, pretty much the process is the same as 38 except that gcc 4.8 is now required. The MacPorts build of gcc is what I use, and I'd like to hear if other builds from our other unofficial package maintainers also work. The hacked strip7 unfortunately is still needed for stripping release binaries to handle the variant N_SECTs in the object files. One irregularity is that gcc 4.8 can't distinguish Objective-C messages from C++11 lambdas, or rather, that Objective-C++ has priority over lambdas, so that you can't reliably use both language features in the same file. This occurs in exactly one place in the entire code base, in code we don't support anyway, so it's #ifdefed off. If your local changes run afoul of this, try adding #define GCC_SUCKS_MOOSE_WANG (yes, really, I was a bit peeved that day) and see if it builds with that, or put the C++11 lambdas into another file and have your Objective-C++ call it instead. The build instructions are updated and available now, and with luck our esteemed colleague in the Land of the Rising Sun will be able to build Tenfourbird on the 45 base as well. Also, as you will see, the G3 version built just fine and will still be supported in 45 and thereafter.

Localizers should be aware of two new files, TenFourFox.dtd and TenFourFox.properties, which will be the locale basis for features I am considering or planning to release. I'd rather have translations for features I decide against implementing than not having strings for features I do implement, so almost nothing in those two files (which are roughly the same strings in different places) is being used right this second; that said, however, the idea is to roll out features using these strings during 45's lifetime as we move from source parity to feature parity and this will enable me to do so more quickly. If you would like to contribute to the localization effort (we really appreciate it), Chris T wrangles the cats in issue 42. The aim is to have substantially the same languages available for 38 available for 45 at or near the time of release in about six weeks. Your help is invaluable in this effort.

Finally, let's give 38 a rousing round of applause for being a solid, long lived branch release as it rides off into the ESR sunset. Its end also means the end of one of the oddest chapters in Firefox history, Debian Iceweasel, which has now reverted to being "just" Firefox as of 45ESR. Although both we and they rebranded ourselves because of various changes to Firefox we were making, we'll still be keeping our name because we really do change the feature set and make various platform-specific changes Mozilla would probably find unacceptable otherwise. Plus it gives you guys something to still complain about, along with the icon. :)

Don't file Github tickets on beta issues; post them in the comments. Please be kind. This was literally months of work. Thanks and let's start banging the bugs out.

38.10.0 available

TenFourFox 38.10.0 is now available for testing (downloads, hashes, release notes). This brings TenFourFox 38.x to security parity with 45.3; again, if you are using our patches downstream, keep in mind I only backport the security fixes relevant to our standard configuration. As always, it becomes the release version Monday evening Pacific.

I'm still trying to investigate what's wrong with Amazon Music in TenFourFox 45, but everything else appears to be working. Watch for beta 1 later this week regardless.

Also, this makes me happy. Its name is Eric.

And now for something completely different: Join me at Vintage Computer Festival XI

A programming note: My wife and I will be at the revised, resurrected Vintage Computer Festival XI August 6 and 7 in beautiful Mountain View, CA at the Computer History Museum (just down the street from the ominous godless Googleplex). I'll be demonstrating my very first home computer, the Tomy Tutor (a weird partial clone of the Texas Instruments 99/4A), and its Japanese relatives. Come by, enjoy the other less interesting exhibits, and bask in the nostalgic glow when 64K RAM was enough and cassette tape was king.

I'm typing this in a G5-optimized build of 45 and it seems to perform pretty well. JavaScript benches over 20% faster than 38 due to improvements in the JIT (and possibly some marginal improvement from gcc 4.8), and this is before I start doing further work on PowerPC-specific improvements which will be rolled out during 45's lifetime. Plus, the AltiVec code survived without bustage in our custom VP8, UTF-8 and JPEG backends, and I backported some graphics performance patches from Firefox 48 that improve throughput further. There's still a few glitches to be investigated; I spent most of tonight figuring out why I got a big black window when going to fullscreen mode (it turned out to be several code regressions introduced by Mozilla removing old APIs), and Amazon Music still has some weirdness moving from track to track. It's very likely there will be other such issues lurking next week when you get to play with it, but that's what a beta cycle is for.

38.10 will be built over the weekend after I'm done doing the backports from 45.3. Stay tuned for that.

TenFourFox 45 is more of a thing

Since the initial liftoff of TenFourFox 45 earlier this week, much progress has been made and this blog post, ceremonially, is being typed in it. I ticked off most of the basic tests including printing, YouTube, social media will eat itself, webcam support, HTML5 audio/video, canvas animations, font support, forums, maps, Gmail, blogging and the major UI components and fixed a number of critical bugs and assertions, and now the browser is basically usable and able to function usefully. Still left to do is collecting the TenFourFox-specific strings into their own DTD for the localizers to translate (which will include the future features I intend to add during the feature parity phase) and porting our MP3 audio support forward, and then once that's working compiling some opt builds and testing the G5 JavaScript JIT pathways and the AltiVec acceleration code. After that it'll finally be time for the first beta once I'm confident enough to start dogfooding it myself. We're a little behind on the beta cycle, but I'm hoping to have 45 beta 1 ready shortly after the release of 38.10 on August 2nd (the final 38 release, barring a serious showstopper with 45), a second beta around the three week mark, and 45 final ready for general use by the next scheduled release on September 13th.

A couple folks have asked if there will still be a G3 version and I am pleased to announce the answer will very likely be yes; the JavaScript JIT in 45 does not mandate SIMD features in the host CPU, so I don't see any technical reason why not (for that matter, the debug build I'm typing this on isn't AltiVec accelerated either). Still, if you're bravely rocking a Yosemite in 2016 you might want to think about a G4 for that ZIF socket.

I've been slack on some other general interest posts such as the Power Mac security rollup and the state of the user base, but I intend to write them when 45 gets a little more stabilized since there have been some recurring requests from a few of you. Watch for those soon also.

TenFourFox 45 is a thing

The browser starts. Lots of problems but it boots. More later.

Did Juno is a PowerPC?

Congratulations to NASA's Juno space probe team, which is now successfully in orbit around Jupiter. When you want radiation-hardened CPU designs (to guard against naughty things like cosmic rays flipping bits and zapping traces), you want BAE's RAD series, and that means you want ... PowerPC. Yes, Juno's brain is a lowly RAD750 running at 200MHz, essentially a beige Power Mac G3 with cojones of pure lead. It has 128MB of the baddest, meanest, toughest DRAM there is and 256MB of flash on board with a system bus providing 100Mbps of instrument bandwidth for pure awesome. The radiation around Jupiter, due largely to its intense magnetic fields acting essentially like gigantic particle accelerators, will expose the probe to the equivalent of a human getting 100 million dental X-rays in the course of a year (for me, that year was 6th grade); to enable it to survive its two year mission, NASA has encased the CPU and other critical components in a titanium box a third of an inch thick.

Remember: when you absolutely have to get to Jupiter, choose PowerPC. (Heck, Mars too.)

Dr Kaiser? You've been Servoed. Good day.

TenFourFox 45 is about 30% merged so far. I've been able to streamline a few changesets and cut out some others, which is mostly a feel-good futile move since 45 is the last changeset merge I'll have to do personally, but so far it's an easier port than 43 was and I've probably just jinxed myself saying so. Nevertheless, the target for beta 1 in mid-July still stands so far and 38.10, hopefully the final release of TenFourFox 38, is scheduled for August 2. After that the target is for 45.4 to reach release in September.

Once 45 hits release and 38 is retired, we'll start the old unstable builds up again for new features (i.e., feature parity). My plan is one new functionality improvement and one new optimization each cycle, with 6-12 week cycles for baking due to our smaller user base. You'll get some clues about the user-facing features as part of tenfourfox.dtd, which will be pre-written so that localizers can have it done and features can just roll out as I complete them.

On to other things. Mozilla announced yesterday the (very preliminary) release of the Servo Developer Preview, using their next-generation Servo engine instead of the Gecko engine that presently powers Firefox (and TenFourFox). Don't get your hopes up for this one: Servo is written in Rust, Rust needs llvm (which doesn't work yet on OS X/ppc, part of the reason we're dropping source parity), and even the extant PowerPC Rust compiler on Linux may never be capable of building it. This one's strictly for the Intel Mac lulz.

So here's Servo, rendering Ars Technica:

Servo's interface is very sparse, but novel, and functional enough. I'm not going to speak further about that because it's quite obviously nowhere near finished or final. It works well enough to test and I wasn't able to make the browser crash in my brief usage. Thumbs up there.

With regard to the layout engine, though, many things don't work. You can see several rendering glitches immediately on the main page with the gradient and font block backgrounds. Comment threads in articles appear crazily spaced. Incidentally, I don't care if you can see my browser tabs or that I'm trying to figure out how to interface a joystick port to a Raspberry Pi (actually, it's for a C.H.I.P., but the Pi schematics should work for the GPIO pins, as well as whatever's needed to connect it to 5V logic).

The TenFourFox home page doesn't fare much better:

The background is missing and the top Classilla link seems to have gotten fixed to the top. On the other hand, the Help and Support Tab does load, but articles are not clickable and you can't pick anything from drop-down select form elements.

Now, I'll admit this last one is an unfair test, but Floodgap's home page is also pretty wrecked:

This is an unfair test because I intentionally wrote the Floodgap web page to be useable and "proper" as far back as Netscape Navigator 3, festooning it with lots of naughtiness like <font face> and other unmentionables that are the equivalent of HTML syphilis. Gecko handles it fine, but Servo chokes on the interlaced GIFs and just about completely ignores any of the font colour and face stuff. But I wasn't really expecting it to do otherwise at this stage; no doubt quirks mode is not currently a priority.

I think the best that can be said about this first public release of Servo, admittedly from my fairly uninformed outsider view, is that it exists and that it works. There was certainly a lot of doubt about those things not too long ago, and Mozilla has demonstrated clearly with this release that Servo is viable as a technology if not yet as a browser. What is less clear is what advantages it will ultimately offer. Though the aim with Servo is better performance on modern systems, especially systems with cores to burn, on this 2014 i7 MacBook Air Servo didn't really seem to offer any speed advantage over Gecko -- even with the understanding this version is almost certainly unoptimized, right now Gecko is rather faster, substantially less buggy and infinitely more functional. It's going to take a very long time before Servo can stand on its own, let alone become a Gecko replacement, and I think in the meantime Mozilla needs to do a better job of not alienating the users they've got or Servo-Firefox will remain a purely academic experiment.

Meanwhile, I look forward to the next version and seeing how it evolves, even though I doubt it will ever run on a Power Mac.