Got an Intel Mac?
Bored of Firefox running really slowly? I am. The same flash application on a PC on IE7, Firefox and even in Apple’s Safari browser runs twice as quickly.
It’s probably because I’m a flash developer, building and testing heavy flash applications, but Firefox 2’s slowness has been bothering me for a while. But even if you’re not a geek you might get frustrated looking at videos on Youtube in Firefox, or waiting for new tabs to open and sort themselves out. If so, I have something that’ll make your day.
Why is it slow? Because the official releases of Firefox for OSX are not yet optimised for the Intel based systems. They will be soon no doubt, but for the moment there is another solution…. A very nice ubergeek called Neil Bruce Lee, who obviously knows what he’s doing, has created an unofficial release of Firefox called BonEcho which IS optimised for Intel machines and can be downloaded from here.
It’s brilliant - it’s just the same as your other Firefox (with the exception of the icons etc because although Firefox is open source, the official branding can’t be used on un-official releases) - you’ll still have your favourites/plug-ins/whatever else you use, it’s just that your Internet browser will be twice as quick! Brilliant!