Software designed for specific architectures. Funny, it used to be something that never really crossed minds of the average end user. Today however, this has drastically changed. Considering most Windows users are still living in 32bit land, you are fortunate that you have not likely come across the burden of software not working because your PC’s architecture. For those of use running Linux however, it is a very serious consideration when deciding which ISO file to to download.
Let’s take Ubuntu for example. If I download and install the 64bit edition of Dapper, I will not find be able to run Flash no matter how I cut it. It simply does not exist for 64bit Linux. Now take my browser of choice, Swiftfox. Unlike its cousin Firefox, it is actually built around the specific architecture that my PC happens to be running on.
It’s actually rather exciting! Swiftfox has managed to take something that otherwise might be a headache and turning those lemons into lemonade. And considering the obvious speed advantages for software designed to run on a specific architecture, I would not be surprised if this ends up becoming a software trend within the Linux world.
So now the question that I am sure that many of you are wondering: is Swiftfox faster than Firefox? The short answer is yes, yes it is the faster browser that I have ever used on any operating system in my life – hands down. When I run it on my AMD 64 desktop system on the other hand, it’s speed is so fast that you have to make sure that you are not blinking if you’d like to see pages load. No kidding, it’s just that quick. Server load and connectivty considered, of course.
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