Restricted Notes by a Geek

Some of you might know that Mozilla’s license state if you compile their browser from source code, you are not allowed to use the official branding name in case of you changing something in the source. Henceforth having the “Grandparidiso” browser in Archlinux as opposed the official Firefox 3.0 browser.

It is possible to change it back without re-compiling firefox manually after fixing it in the source code with a usefull little utility called Firebrand.

Step 1: Add the “Archlinuxfr” repository if you don’t have it yet.
nano /etc/pacman.conf

[archlinuxfr]
Server = http://repo.archlinux.fr/x86_64

Note. I am using Arch x64, if you are still on 32bit replace x86_64 with i686

Step 2: Install Firebrand
pacman -Sy firebrand

This reposititory also have “yaourt” (french for yoghurt) which is a frontend to pacman and add easy access to install packages from the AUR (Archlinux User Repository)

Step 3: Rebrand firefox with the following command.
firebrand
or
sudo firebrand

spike tinuva # firebrand
This script must be launched as root to work.
Please select the branding you want to apply (Official Firefox: 1, Iceweasel: 2, Swiftweasel: 3)
1
RE-BRANDING chrome/en-US.jar
- Unzipping en-US.jar to /tmp/firebrand-VyhyfSI6… Done.
- Successfully edited /tmp/firebrand-VyhyfSI6/locale/branding/brand.dtd
- Successfully edited /tmp/firebrand-VyhyfSI6/locale/branding/brand.properties
- Replacing branding files in en-US.jar
RE-BRANDING chrome/browser.jar
- Replacing branded icons in browser.jar
RE-BRANDING defaults/preferences/firefox.js
- Successfully edited /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.3/defaults/preferences/firefox.js.
Replacing icons…
spike tinuva #

That is it!

Found this on another blog originally but still found it good to post. For someone that visit a website where Javascript is used a lot I find any browser that improve on that performance a huge bonus.

http://eu.wowarmory.com can get really slow at times especially when you have a game open on your pc and browsing this.

Mozilla is now at the point where they realize, the browser is fully feature packed but will need something else to have a edge over browsers like Opera 9.5 which improved javascript performance as well as the new Internet Explorer 7.

With the nightly builds of Firefox beta 3 they also have a PGO version (Profile-Guided Optimization) which takes the performance even further.

Original post is here

1. Firefox 3 Nightly (PGO Optimized): 7263.8ms
2. Firefox 3 Nightly (02/25/2008 build): 8219.4ms
3. Opera 9.5.9807 Beta: 10824.0ms
4. Firefox 3 Beta 3: 16080.6ms
5. Safari 3.0.4 Beta: 18012.6ms
6. Firefox 2.0.0.12: 29376.4ms
7. Internet Explorer 7: 72375.0ms

Firefox 3 Beta 4 is expected to be released in the next few weeks, and you can expect to see these (and many more) improvements shining through!