HitChrome

When it comes to browsers, I’ve tried them all and was really disappointed when Google released their Chrome for Windows only. I regularly switch between Firefox and the latest nightly build from Webkit (essentially Safari) right now. Firefox has the extensibility I rely on. I had hoped that Chrome would magically become my new go-to browser. Unfortunately, Chrome is not yet nearly as extensible as Firefox, and isn’t available for Mac (yet).

So imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon the latest experimental Firefox build from Mozilla, called Minefield. This Minefield should not be confused with the unofficial optimized builds of Firefox, which are also referred to as Minefield. Minefield is Mozilla’s code-name for this generation of Firefox, and the code name is used for unofficial builds to avoid infringing upon the Firefox name.

Now, what’s so special about the Mozilla Minefield build? It’s fast… smokin’ fast. This is essentially a version of Firefox with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine under the hood, and as Ars Technica reports, it tests even faster than Google’s V8 JavaScript engine.

As most Mac users have noted, Firefox is kind of pokey on the Mac platform, particularly compared with WebKit or even Safari, and even when compared with Firefox on a similarly spec’d Windows machine. Version 3 of Firefox was supposed to fix the performance problem, and while it’s somewhat better, it’s still not great. Read the rest of this entry »