Word is out that Firefox 4, when it ships at the end of October or thereabouts, will probably not include support for older, non-Intel Macs.
Mozilla's director of Firefox Mike Beltzner hinted at the change on a Mozilla developer mailing list last week: "I am gathering data on the number of PPC users we have, but the likely outcome is that we will not be supporting PPC for Firefox 4. More on that as I get the data."
PowerPC Mac users have precious few options for modern web browsers these days. Firefox 3.6 will likely be the last Firefox option for PowerPC Macs, and Google Chrome only runs on Intel machines. Apple is still supporting PowerPC Macs with Safari releases, but the latest version, Safari 5, requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later – users still running 10.4 (Tiger) can only run Safari 4.1, which has many of the features found in Safari 5, but is likely the end of the line. Opera 10 runs on older PowerPC Macs, but it struggles. Opera 9 is more reliable, but has fewer features. Slim pickings, and getting slimmer.
Of course, the problem could be solved by upgrading. And we have – most of us already have second or third machines at this point.
Our aging computers, especially laptops, are often put into service as dedicated devices for streaming music, checking e-mail or browsing recipes in the kitchen. In today's cloud-based world, you need a good web browser to do most of those tasks.
An old machine that still runs but doesn't have a decent browser is basically worthless.
I have one such old Mac – a G3 iBook – and my personal savior has been Camino. It's a fantastic browser built on Firefox code. It can handle all the necessary music streaming and Gmail duties, and it's lightweight enough to do so without beachballing. I don't need all my add-ons and doo-dads, just Flash Player and a reasonable level of stability. I've been using it for years.
Charles Moore over at GigaOM has been experimenting with other choices on his old Macs, trying SeaMonkey, iCab and an old build of Opera, all with varying levels of success.
What's your favorite browser for your aging Mac? What web tools do you use to keep those old boxen cranking past their prime? Let us know in the comments.
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