Dactyloidae Browser (yet another UXP, what a surprise)

Post by **OwnedByWuigi** » 28 Feb 2026, 19:20

Demo image: https://github.com/OwnedByWuigi/UXP/raw/custom-browser/readme/newtab.png

This is just a UXP fork with a better theme and hopefully better JavaScript support, x64 only.

GitHub: https://github.com/OwnedByWuigi/UXP/releases/

Post by **OwnedByWuigi** » 28 Feb 2026, 19:21

This also forks Lun3r (a fork of the RT1 Serpent release), so what is in there is also in here.

Post by **OwnedByWuigi** » 28 Feb 2026, 19:22

KNOWN ISSUES:

YouTube Desktop bitches about "a new browser", YT Mobile works fine however.

Post by **OwnedByWuigi** » 01 Mar 2026, 17:16

New Release!

YT Desktop finally renders properly!

https://github.com/OwnedByWuigi/UXP/releases/tag/v1.3.26

Post by **OwnedByWuigi** » 06 Mar 2026, 16:33

new release soon, (some) upstream firefox extensions now work!

Post by **OwnedByWuigi** » 15 Mar 2026, 23:35

Working on a SSE only release, for i686+, aswell as experimental Win2k support.
Abandoning GitHub too, new commits will be at https://repo.dactyloidae.xyz/dactyloidae/uxp

Post by **OwnedByWuigi** » 29 Mar 2026, 12:14

OFFICIALLY THE FASTEST XUL BROWSER
DACTYLOIDAE 13 "WARP" OUT NOW
https://repo.dactyloidae.xyz/Dactyloidae/UXP/releases/tag/13.0

The-10-Pen · Post by **The-10-Pen** » 29 Mar 2026, 17:01

OwnedByWuigi wrote: ↑29 Mar 2026, 12:14 OFFICIALLY THE FASTEST XUL BROWSER

Please post a screencap or two that backs up this. Thanks.

ie, I **AA BB AA NN DD OO NN EE DD** XUL a year or two ago because of how DAMN SLOW they are/were.

I kinda have no plans to even try another XUL without some sort of "reason" and speed would be a reason.

The-10-Pen · Post by **The-10-Pen** » 29 Mar 2026, 22:03

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Post by **OwnedByWuigi** » 29 Mar 2026, 22:50

The-10-Pen wrote: ↑29 Mar 2026, 17:01
OwnedByWuigi wrote: ↑29 Mar 2026, 12:14 OFFICIALLY THE FASTEST XUL BROWSER
Please post a screencap or two that backs up this. Thanks.

I kinda have no plans to even try another XUL without some sort of "reason" and speed would be a reason.

SPEEDOMETER 2.1
Pale Moon 34.1.0 AVX2 - 22.3
Dactyloidae 13.0-pre1.1 SSE2 - 33.7

This is also the first XUL browser to get e10s stable and enabled *by default*, which is also another major pain point, so now one page freezes instead of the whole browser.

YT Polymer loads 3x faster, crashes are less common, etc. Most of these changes will be backported to Eclipse Hydra/Lun3r first, then upstream UXP.

The-10-Pen · Post by **The-10-Pen** » 30 Mar 2026, 08:53

OwnedByWuigi wrote: ↑29 Mar 2026, 22:50 SPEEDOMETER 2.1
Pale Moon 34.1.0 AVX2 - 22.3
Dactyloidae 13.0-pre1.1 SSE2 - 33.7

Thanks !!!

Can you also please share the CPU and RAM of the test PC?
And were these tests performed on true hardware? Or a VM?

Post by **OwnedByWuigi** » 30 Mar 2026, 10:01

The-10-Pen wrote: ↑30 Mar 2026, 08:53
OwnedByWuigi wrote: ↑29 Mar 2026, 22:50 SPEEDOMETER 2.1
Pale Moon 34.1.0 AVX2 - 22.3
Dactyloidae 13.0-pre1.1 SSE2 - 33.7
Thanks !!!

Can you also please share the CPU and RAM of the test PC?
And were these tests performed on true hardware? Or a VM?

ThinkPad T480 - 32GB DDR4, i5 8350U
Real hardware.

Another user tested it on a AMD Athlon 64 X2 (?) and got similar results

The-10-Pen · Post by **The-10-Pen** » 30 Mar 2026, 10:28

I'm afraid that isn't going to be "fast enough" for my usage.

My real hardware is slower and older but scores more than twice as fast on a "competing browser".
The redacted tab is just to hide my email address being shown on that tab.

Slower by 18% or 48% depending on how you count it.
On an e10s browser, it's that 48% that's technically more important, not the "single thread rating" of 18%.

: 2026-03-30_6-08-43.jpg (135.19 KiB) Viewed 3466 times

: IMG_20260330_062322.jpg (74.16 KiB) Viewed 3465 times

The-10-Pen · Post by **The-10-Pen** » 30 Mar 2026, 10:37

ps - that is not to undermine the endeavor, looks like GREAT WORK and FINALLY somebody coming along that seeks to improve true PERFORMANCE !!!
Just saying that *I* don't gain anything from it on *my* hardware and *my* OS.

Post by **OwnedByWuigi** » 30 Mar 2026, 10:40

The-10-Pen wrote: ↑30 Mar 2026, 10:28 I'm afraid that isn't going to be "fast enough" for my usage.

Slower by 18% or 48% depending on how you count it.
On an e10s browser, it's that 48% that's technically more important, not the "single thread rating" of 18%.

2026-03-30_6-08-43.jpg

IMG_20260330_062322.jpg

I'm doing more work to optimise the browser engine even further, I think the only pain points in Speedometer for me is jQuery and React

The-10-Pen · Post by **The-10-Pen** » 30 Mar 2026, 10:54

Keep up the great work!
ps - my Speedometer 2.1 score of 71.0 is *WITH* several extensions also loaded.
My "baseline" (just the browser and some flags/settings changes, no extensions) is close to FOUR-AND-A-HALF times faster.
On a laptop that is older and slower than your test machine. And also 8GB RAM to your 32GB RAM.

Again, GREAT WORK and somebody finally came along to improve PERFORMANCE.
Just that I, as the end user, really has to use what is best for me and my OS.

I was still on XP just a year or two ago.
There comes a point in time where the end user has to ADMIT that they (myself included !!!) is lying to themselves when they (myself included !!!) shout from rooftops on how much "better" (have to include "air quotes") their (myself included !!!) "legacy OS" 'is'. Not to be misread. 10 and 11 *sucks*. But they **CAN** be modified into truly awesome (but don't hold your breath expecting Microsoft to do that for you, lol).

Baseline without any extensions:

: IMG_20260330_064558.jpg (129.47 KiB) Viewed 3451 times

The-10-Pen · Post by **The-10-Pen** » 30 Mar 2026, 11:10

OwnedByWuigi wrote: ↑30 Mar 2026, 10:40 I'm doing more work to optimise the browser engine even further, I think the only pain points in Speedometer for me is jQuery and React

I can obtain Speedometer 2.1 scores on my older and slower laptop.
But at this stage, I think I'll delay until further optimizations are in place.

If I remember correctly, the "other" UXP browsers that I ran on this older-and-slower only scored in the SINGLE DIGITS.
But I'm not 100% sure on that from memory. That could be the even older and even slower computer used out in the garage.

Post by **OwnedByWuigi** » 04 Apr 2026, 22:54

HELP NEEDED!
Trying to get a macOS build going, and I am stuck.
https://repo.dactyloidae.xyz/Dactyloidae/UXP/issues/5

Post by **OwnedByWuigi** » 13 Apr 2026, 19:04

Aside from performance-wise issues (I will fix that in 13.2 trust), what else would you like to see in Dactyloidae 13.2?

The-10-Pen · Post by **The-10-Pen** » 13 Apr 2026, 19:17

OwnedByWuigi wrote: ↑13 Apr 2026, 19:04 Aside from performance-wise issues (I will fix that in 13.2 trust), what else would you like to see in Dactyloidae 13.2?

Is Widevine L1 support possible?

Post by **OwnedByWuigi** » 13 Apr 2026, 22:54

The-10-Pen wrote: ↑13 Apr 2026, 19:17
OwnedByWuigi wrote: ↑13 Apr 2026, 19:04 Aside from performance-wise issues (I will fix that in 13.2 trust), what else would you like to see in Dactyloidae 13.2?
Is Widevine L1 support possible?

That'll be expensive as fuck, I wish I could add Winevine support fr

Iffy-chan · Post by **Iffy-chan** » 14 Apr 2026, 05:34

Windows XP x64 SP2
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ with 4GB RAM/1TB HGST SSD on nForce 630a

My benchmark scores are awful especially compared to what I saw above... Tested with a default profile. Chrome 49 scored more than twice as well, which is from over a decade ago at this point. The actual processor is from December 2006, so pretty much time-relevant to XP itself, I suppose.

I'll be honest, even the latest Firefox versions are not great to use on modern OSes, purely because SpiderMonkey is just not suited for the modern web's 'run everything as a JavaScript app and reimplement everything in it' philosophy (and for other reasons, like the fact Firefox is Chrome for people who think they're fighting The System, but it's actually funded by The System). (Interestingly, the author of that particular page I linked uses Pale Moon on Slackware, which amuses me considering Moonchild is actively hostile to Slackware users...)

For older, pre-2015 websites that didn't decide to jump on this bandwagon (yet), I guess I can see this being useful, but then again, literally any browser would do for those sites as long as it supports the relevant certificates. Not to mention that the amount of UXP forks is beginning to make the whole Pale Moon scenario look like this... actually, isn't that just the Windows Legacy communities in general?

The Edge-mimic theme is actually quite nice and really close to how I remember the original MS Edge looking, which IMO was a pretty underappreciated browser back then, however, though the menu bar being enabled by default on XP is probably not a good idea (and it shouldn't overlap the top bar like that, either).

Also, I'm really struggling to pronounce the name consistently. Maybe it's just me.

Don't let any of this put you off, however. It's not my fault web developers have an intellect that would make Nep look like a genius.

Post by **OwnedByWuigi** » 14 Apr 2026, 07:48

Iffy-chan wrote: ↑14 Apr 2026, 05:34 Windows XP x64 SP2
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ with 4GB RAM/1TB HGST SSD on nForce 630a

My benchmark scores are awful especially compared to what I saw above... Tested with a default profile. Chrome 49 scored more than twice as well, which is from over a decade ago at this point. The actual processor is from December 2006, so pretty much time-relevant to XP itself, I suppose.

I'll be honest, even the latest Firefox versions are not great to use on modern OSes, purely because SpiderMonkey is just not suited for the modern web's 'run everything as a JavaScript app and reimplement everything in it' philosophy (and for other reasons, like the fact Firefox is Chrome for people who think they're fighting The System, but it's actually funded by The System). (Interestingly, the author of that particular page I linked uses Pale Moon on Slackware, which amuses me considering Moonchild is actively hostile to Slackware users...)

For older, pre-2015 websites that didn't decide to jump on this bandwagon (yet), I guess I can see this being useful, but then again, literally any browser would do for those sites as long as it supports the relevant certificates. Not to mention that the amount of UXP forks is beginning to make the whole Pale Moon scenario look like this... actually, isn't that just the Windows Legacy communities in general?

The Edge-mimic theme is actually quite nice and really close to how I remember the original MS Edge looking, which IMO was a pretty underappreciated browser back then, however, though the menu bar being enabled by default on XP is probably not a good idea (and it shouldn't overlap the top bar like that, either).

Also, I'm really struggling to pronounce the name consistently. Maybe it's just me.

Don't let any of this put you off, however. It's not my fault web developers have an intellect that would make Nep look like a genius.

I will fix all these issues (except for the name considering I already bought the damn domain lol). The menu-bar being enabled by default on XP was probably a leftover from when I forked Eclipse Hydra (which itself is a fork of Serpent, which ITSELF is a fork of Basilisk).

I want to attempt to try and get the JS engine and other noticable nit-picks of UXP optimised, and I've already did the first half of that with adding e10s for realsies (I think I am the only UXP browser to have such enabled by default)

The-10-Pen · Post by **The-10-Pen** » 14 Apr 2026, 10:37

I feel that ICECAT was the BEST 'fox-based browser out there. BY FAR !!!

It is the ONLY (and I do mean ***OONNLLYY***) 'fox-based I've ever seen without all of the DAMN BACKGROUND CONNECTION B&LLSH#T.

Any way to bring in that LACK OF BACKGROUND CONNECTION B&LLSH#T to Dact-Ae ???

Also, I really really REALLY HATE that uBO is "included by default" !!!

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Iffy-chan · Post by **Iffy-chan** » 14 Apr 2026, 11:45

OwnedByWuigi wrote: ↑14 Apr 2026, 07:48

It seems to be a bug in almost every Firefox-based browser for many, many years. It's even worse in Vista/7 where the text is usually unreadable, the only one who ever fixed this issue was K4sum1 and even he had to basically brute force the fix through his custom theming engine...

Good luck, you're looking at a 10+ year old codebase that was already insanely outdated and falling over a year behind Chrome at the time it was relevant. This is in part due to Mozilla forcing the rapid release schedule and a business-like attitude on a codebase that was never intended to be developed in that way, which broke add-on development. (Who can guess why, it's related to the link I posted earlier.)

The-10-Pen wrote: ↑14 Apr 2026, 10:37

LibreWolf?

On a note, read this page. OCSP queries and captive portals aren't blocked by IceCat, though a few other things are.

The-10-Pen · Post by **The-10-Pen** » 14 Apr 2026, 11:54

Iffy-chan wrote: ↑14 Apr 2026, 11:45 LibreWolf?

H#LL NO !!!

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Iffy-chan · Post by **Iffy-chan** » 14 Apr 2026, 12:01

There was no need for the big capital letters, I wasn't being snappy towards you. I've not kept up with recent affairs so I don't know what is current.

That screenshot is disappointing, though reading the digdeeper page a little more thoroughly this time, somehow not surprising. There doesn't really seem to be an option outside grabbing a custom user.js file.

The-10-Pen · Post by **The-10-Pen** » 14 Apr 2026, 12:23

That screenshot actually GREW when I clicked the refresh button a few minutes after screencapping.
LibreWolf (to me!) has always been somewhat of a MISGUIDED FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY to those that "believe their HYPE".
No browser is perfect. NONE!

Don't misread, I'm not one of those overly-paranoid folks.
But come on, 20+ connections each and every time you open your browser?
Icecat has ZERO. Ungoogled Chromium has ZERO. But I can't Netflix in either of them!

I used to publicly tweak/modify a browser called 360Chrome and it too had ZERO (I actually still use it, but only for email and SMS).
But don't ever use the untweaked/unmodified !!! I never allowed it any internet connection !!!
But I also didn't "need to" be able to run Netflix back in the day and age I used 360Chrome.
Did it work with Netflix? Don't know, to be honest. I was also on XP at that time and my life has changed since.

Post by **OwnedByWuigi** » 14 Apr 2026, 15:58

The-10-Pen wrote: ↑14 Apr 2026, 10:37 I feel that ICECAT was the BEST 'fox-based browser out there. BY FAR !!!

It is the ONLY (and I do mean ***OONNLLYY***) 'fox-based I've ever seen without all of the DAMN BACKGROUND CONNECTION B&LLSH#T.

Any way to bring in that LACK OF BACKGROUND CONNECTION B&LLSH#T to Dact-Ae ???

I’ll see what IceCat does to stop background connection and add it as a preference in Dactyloidae. I feel like it’ll break some stuff though with extensions such as SponsorBlock which genuinely needs background connections.

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