Slightly Remarkable

I recently came across a link to an Intel-optimized version of Firefox 3.1 called Shiretoko. I tried it out this afternoon, hoping to be surprised, since Firefox has been known to run slow due to heavy extension usage. So I gave Shiretoko a shot, and my discovery was that it does indeed run faster, if only by a little (and that is probably due to the fact that it could not load any of the themes or extensions I have installed). In light of this, I am going to stick with the default Firefox builds for the time being — the difference is negligible, and while I applaud the folks who have been working on optimized versions of Firefox, I am finding my extensions far more pragmatic than saving a couple hundred milliseconds here and there.

Interesting to note, Facebook seems to think that Shiretoko is “an older browser” and tosses the chatting function into a new window for you. Looks like they do browser sniffing instead of testing for available functionality. Of course, the browser could be cloaked to report that it is Firefox, but that would only be worth it if Shiretoko provided a significant performance improvement. I do, however, like that the only browser that Facebook suggests upgrading to is Firefox — it doesn’t mention Internet Explorer, Opera, Chrome, or any other browser. Facebook likes Firefox.