A modern web browser for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger on PowerPC (G3/G4/G5).
Built on the UXP/Basilisk engine, cross-compiled from Linux using GCC 15 + ld64.
- Baseline JIT for all web content — all JavaScript gets JIT-compiled with 15+ PPC-specific fixes
- Ion JIT — optimizing compiler for internal scripts (GVN, inlining, PGO, range analysis, OSR)
- Native regexp — JIT-compiled regular expressions with big-endian fix
- H.264 video playback via ffvpx with PPC AltiVec SIMD — 720p on iMac G5
- YouTube works — homepage loads fully, videos play
- GPU-accelerated compositing via CompositorOGL (OpenGL 1.5)
- OMTC (Off-Main-Thread Compositing) for smoother UI
- GLSL 1.05 compatible shaders with constant-index workarounds
- Non-NPOT GPU fixes — buffer rotation and FBO workarounds for vintage GPUs
- G5 tested — current release tested on iMac G5; G3/G4 builds available in older releases
Latest release — DMG available.
Place in your profile directory (~/Library/Application Support/MachFox/Profiles/<profile>/user.js):
user_pref("javascript.options.baselinejit", true);
user_pref("javascript.options.ion", true);
user_pref("javascript.options.native_regexp", true);
user_pref("javascript.options.main_thread_stack_quota_cap", 8388608);
| Spec | Value |
|---|---|
| Machine | iMac G5 (PowerMac8,2) |
| CPU | PowerPC G5 2.0 GHz |
| RAM | 1 GB |
| GPU | ATI Radeon 9600, 128 MB VRAM |
| Display | 1680x1050 |
| OS | Mac OS X 10.4.11 Tiger |
- Baseline JIT compiles ALL web page JavaScript (removed interpreter-only restriction)
- Ion optimizing compiler for internal browser scripts (web content Ion in progress)
- Full PPC JIT backend (Baseline + Ion) with 35+ PPC-specific fixes
- r28 register reserved for EnterJIT result pointer (NonAllocatableMask fix)
- Native regexp with big-endian multi-character load fix (CanReadUnaligned)
- outOfLineTruncateSlow implemented for PPC
- MIn VM call disabled on PPC BE (genuine value-passing bug, zero practical impact)
- H.264 decode via ffvpx with PPC AltiVec SIMD acceleration
- FFVPXRuntimeLinker fixed for XP_DARWIN (dlopen/dlsym)
- Targets
powerpc-apple-darwin8(Tiger) instead of Leopard/Snow Leopard - Cross-compiled from Linux using GCC 15.2.0 with ld64-linux linker
- GPU compositing fixes for GLSL 1.05 / OpenGL 1.5 (Radeon 9600)
- Buffer rotation disabled for non-NPOT GPUs (fixes scroll black bars)
- FBO intermediate surfaces disabled (fixes Y-flip / inverted content)
- GL context view attachment timing fix for Tiger compositor thread
- Opaque GL surface for Tiger (no rounded window corners)
- Cairo font rendering fixes for Tiger
- Smooth scrolling disabled by default (better performance on slow hardware)
- MachFox branding with OpenMoji globe icon
- 10.4 universal SDK,
-force_cpusubtype_ALLfor G3/G4/G5 compatibility
Cross-compiled from Linux — requires:
- GCC 15 + ld64 cross-compiler targeting
powerpc-apple-darwin8 - cctools-port (assembler, ar, ranlib)
- MacOSX10.4u.sdk
See mozconfig-g5 on the tiger-ppc branch for build configuration.