PowerFox - new web browser for Leopard on PowerPC!

[Jazzzny]

This still has a few issues, but I've made very good progress towards getting Skia working on PPC, which results in much faster browser compositing compared to the CoreGraphics backend. For comparison, the cross dissolve on the main image of https://powerfox.jazzzny.me/ finishes around twice as fast! Hopefully this will be functional on 10.4 too, but it seems like the next release is shaping up to be a very nice one.

 

[Jazzzny]

I'm happy to say that, despite 10.4's incredibly limited and rather broken CoreText, I was able to get Skia up here too!

 

[Jazzzny]

Hello everyone,

I'm happy to announce the release of PowerFox 26.3.0! This release includes the IonPower JIT for substantial JavaScript improvements, and many new features, improvements, bug fixes, and security fixes:

• Implemented IonPower JavaScript JIT compiler for significant performance improvements on PowerPC builds
• Enabled Skia graphics backend for improved rendering performance on all builds
• Enabled WebRTC support for 10.5+
• Implemented automatic update notifications for all builds
• Implemented AltiVec optimizations in VP9 decoder for PowerPC builds
• Added PowerFox settings tab
• Fixed WebGL support for 10.5 Intel builds
• Fixed Cloudflare Turnstile issues
• Fixed various crashes on 10.6 builds
• Fixed keyboard shortcuts and other input issues on 10.4 builds
• PDF viewer improvements and bug fixes
• Stability improvements on 10.4/10.5 Intel builds
• Updated NSS security library to 3.90.12 (UXP)
• Synced with UXP@ddf5d6256e for HTML, CSS, JavaScript engine improvements and security fixes
• Addressed security vulnerabilities: CVE-2026-12318 (CWE-125), CVE-2026-12322, CVE-2026-12292, CVE-2026-4707, CVE-2026-4690, CVE-2026-4727, CVE-2026-2806, CVE-2026-2758, CVE-2026-2804, CVE-2026-2787, CVE-2026-2757, CVE-2026-2773, CVE-2026-2779, CVE-2026-2775, and several others that do not have a CVE designation.

If you would like to help the continued development of PowerFox, please consider supporting the project, which lets me acquire hardware for testing and research further improvements. Thank you to everyone who has supported the project so far!

As always, you can download the latest release from powerfox.jazzzny.me or the GitHub. Enjoy!

 

[Chris Trusch]

Excellent work, the PPC JIT works nicely. I see one minor font rendering issue on 10.5 – is there a place to report/track this?

 

[Jazzzny]

Excellent work, the PPC JIT works nicely. I see one minor font rendering issue on 10.5 – is there a place to report/track this?

On GitHub: https://github.com/Jazzzny/powerfox-browser/issues

 

[Jazzzny]

This is going to need a lot more work, but I'm happy to say that PowerFox will support 10.3!

 

[ClassicHasClass]

I'm impressed. How are you getting around the CoreText requirement?

 

[Jazzzny]

I don't think I really ran into anything too CoreText-specific, most of the 10.4 code was already implemented using CGFont and I was able to replace the remaining CTFont references with ATSFont.

 

[Jazzzny]

Looking a lot better!

 

[Jazzzny]

I had to do quite of reversing in CoreGraphics, but after shimming a few functions and writing what I think is a pretty clever replacement for CGContextClipToMask using CGContextSetCompositeOperation(cg, kPrivateCGCompositeSourceIn), I'm happy to say that the 10.3 build is now rendering perfectly!

Not too sure about the 10.2 traffic lights though, seems like it may be a HIThemeDrawTitleBarWidget limitation on 10.3. @ClassicHasClass Do you happen to have any ideas?

 

[ClassicHasClass]

Could be a bug, but unfortunately I didn't do much with HITheme on 10.3. It looks like it isn't properly recognizing the brushed metal theme.

However, great work.

 

[Jazzzny]

Another nice thing for the next release:

I've been able to implement a fallback for when ATS/CoreGraphics fails to load a font by using FreeType, meaning that all web fonts will now render correctly:

 

[ClassicHasClass]

Very good. This was a real problem in TenFourFox that I really needed to revise the font code for and never got to. I'll be interested to look at your solution.

 

[Jazzzny]

I worked on this some more and I believe I've come up with a much nicer solution.

After comparing several different problematic fonts, I've determined that ATS will reject a font if:
1. The font name in the CFF table's name index and SFNT postscript name in the name table under Name ID 6 are mismatched
2. A CFF font lacks the Macintosh-platform Name ID 6 (Platform 1)

By manually modifying problematic fonts to correct these issues, I am able to get them to load, and by adding these issues to otherwise working font files, I am able to get ATS to reject them.

As such, after implementing a sanitizer to repair any bad fonts and giving them unique names to prevent bad pulls from the cache, I am now able to natively load all web fonts through ATS without any fallback whatsoever.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

Excellent!

 

[Jazzzny]

Hello all, I'm happy to announce the release of PowerFox 26.4.0! This release includes security and bug fixes, performance improvements, web compatibility enhancements, and new features, notably 10.3 Panther support.

* Implemented support for Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. Builds are available for PowerPC G3, G4 7400, G4 7450, and G5 processors
* Implemented performance enhancements, correctness improvements, and crash fixes in the IonPower JavaScript JIT
* Implemented OpenGL acceleration on 10.4 builds. Acceleration is available on GeForce FX series or newer and Radeon 9500 series or newer
* Implemented 40+ AltiVec optimizations across the browser for improved performance on PowerPC builds
* Implemented GPU accelerated H264 decoding on 10.6 builds
* Implemented further SSE and AltiVec optimizations in H264, VP8, and VP9 decoders on all builds
* Implemented font sanitizer in 10.4 and 10.5 builds to load previously unsupported fonts and prevent crashes
* Implemented built-in uBlock Origin and h264ify extensions. Thank you to UCyborg, uBlock Origin developers, WindClan, and h264ify developers for their contributions
* Implemented refreshed browser about page
* Implemented KaiOS user agent option in PowerFox settings tab
* Fixed OpenGL acceleration for GeForce FX series GPUs
* Fixed various OpenGL rendering issues on 10.4 and 10.5 builds
* Fixed keyboard shortcuts and other input issues on 10.4 builds
* Fixed WebRTC issues on 10.5 builds
* Fixed video playback issues on 10.4 builds
* Fixed video playback issues on machines that do not support browser OpenGL acceleration
* Fixed WebGL issues on 10.5 and 10.6 Intel builds
* Fixed GitHub website issues through built-in Private Elements extension. Thank you to Private Elements developers for their contributions
* Fixed various browser UI issues
* Updated FFmpeg library to 7.1.5
* Updated NSS security library to 3.90.13 (UXP)
* Synced with UXP@ca36b1f452 for HTML, CSS, JavaScript engine improvements and security fixes
* Addressed security vulnerabilities: CVE-2026-16353, CVE-2026-16408, CVE-2026-16389 and many others that do not have a CVE designation.


Thank you to everyone who has supported PowerFox's development! This browser would not have been possible without your help. If you would like to help with continued development, please consider supporting PowerFox, which lets me acquire hardware for development, research further improvements for the browser, and work on future projects.

You can download the latest release from powerfox.org or the GitHub. Enjoy!