SwiftWeasel – a faster optimized Firefox browser

Swiftweasel is an optimized build of the Mozilla Firefox web browser for Linux. Seperate builds are available for both AMD and Intel processors. Swiftweasel is 100% compatible with all Firefox themes, plugins, and extensions.Release cycles are based on the release of Firefox versions by Mozilla.

SwiftWeasel optimization include

1. Swiftweasel is compiled -O3
2. Multiple builds that are PGO (Profile Guided Optmization) optimized.
3. Include additional instruction sets the processors support (SSE, SSE2, SSE3, MMX, 3DNow).
4. IPv6 is disabled to prevent slowdowns caused by its present implementation.
5. HTTP pipelining is enabled by default.
6. Numerous other small changes to make Swiftweasel as responsive as possible.

Install SwiftWeasel in openSUSE

There are no 1-click installs available for SwiftWeasel. To install SwiftWeasel on openSUSE, download the arch.tar.gz files for your Intel or AMD platform here

Unzip & Untar

Unzip and untar the downloaded file

saihari@opensuse11:~/Desktop> tar -zxvf swiftweasel-3.0.10_intel-pgo_x86-arch.tar.gz

This should unzip and untar the swiftweasel directory onto your desktop.

Move this directory to /usr/local

saihari@opensuse11:~/Desktop> mv swiftweasel /usr/local/

Create Symbolic Link in /usr/bin for the swiftweasel executable.

saihari@opensuse11:~/Desktop> ln -s /usr/local/swiftweasel/swiftweasel /usr/bin/

Now, launch swiftweasel for the first time

saihari@opensuse11:~/Desktop> swiftweasel
Adblock Plus: Failed to read filters from file /root/.sw3/swiftweasel/cdfkr43d.default/adblockplus/patterns.ini: [Exception… “Component returned failure code: 0x80520012 (NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND) [nsIFileInputStream.init]”  nsresult: “0x80520012 (NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND)”  location: “JS frame :: chrome://adblockplus/content/filterStorage.js :: anonymous :: line 369”  data: no]

As you would see, Adblock is enabled by default and this straight away reduces the bandwidth utilization by not downloading the ADs which in itself improves the browser responsiveness. The errors above appear for the first time will prompt to choose an Adblock subscription. Select your nearest subscription and click OK. This should do.

You can also create a menu item for SwiftWeasel. As a root user create a new Desktop file under /usr/share/applications as follows:

opensuse11:/usr/share/applications # vi SwiftWeasel.desktop

Copy the following contents into the file:

[Desktop Entry]
X-SuSE-translate=true
Comment=Web Browser
Comment[en_US]=Web Browser
Encoding=UTF-8
Exec=/usr/local/swiftweasel/swiftweasel
GenericName=Web Browser
GenericName[en_US]=Web Browser
Icon=/usr/local/swiftweasel/icons/mozicon128.png
Name=SwiftWeasel
Name[en_US]=SwiftcwWeasel
Path=
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
TerminalOptions=
Type=Application
X-DCOP-ServiceType=
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false
X-KDE-Username=
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;X-Ximian-Main;X-Ximian-Toplevel;GTK;

This should create the menu item under “Applications – Internet – Web browser“.

Click here to visit the Project home.

Also, for SwiftFox, another Firefox optimized build for performance, click here