Swiftweasel

As of the 3.0.3 release, Swiftweasel has shifted its primary optimization from processor specific to profile-guided optimization (PGO).[1] It is a two step building process. The application is compiled one time and then run to produce a profile. The profile is then used to guide a second compilation of the application. Some of the older optimizations are still used, but there are now only Intel and AMD versions of each build. It is released compiled in a tar.gz package. There are also separate installers for Ubuntu and Arch linux available through their communities.

• Swiftweasel is compiled with options that optimize for speed rather than binary size.
  • Compiled with the -O3 compile flag[2] (the highest level),
    with the resulting Swiftweasel binary being larger than that of Firefox.
  • Firefox is compiled with the -Os compile flag,[3] which is for binary size.[4]
• Binaries incorporate additional instruction sets:[5]
  • Intel and AMD: SSE, SSE2, SSE3, and MMX.
  • AMD only: 3DNow!
• Optimization specific to the build microprocessor architecture.[5]
  • Intel 32bit: Pentium 4 (Prescott), Pentium 4, Pentium M, Pentium III, Pentium II;
  • Intel 64bit: Nocona;
  • AMD: Athlon XP, Athlon, K6-2, Athlon;
  • AMD64: Athlon64, Opteron.
• Compiled with newer versions of GCC (Firefox 2.0 uses 3.3.2, Swiftweasel 2.0 uses 4.0.3, and Swiftweasel 3.0.3 uses 4.2.3).[5]

Increased Security

• Better protection from Buffer overflow attacks[6] (Swiftweasel 2.0 uses -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2; Firefox 2.0 uses gcc 3.x, which does not support this).[5]

Simplify

• IPv6 DNS lookups are disabled, preventing slowdowns;[5]
• HTTP pipelining is enabled by default.[5] Note that Fasterfox provides a GUI to adjust these settings.
• For full details, users can download source packages with all changes listed.

As of the current version 2.0.0.21, Swiftdove is also PGO optimized.

The 2.0.0.21 builds of Swiftdove include the 0.9 Lightning calendar plugin installed by default.