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Goal

The goal of this project is to provide builds of current WebKit sources for Mac OS X 10.5 (PowerPC G4, PowerPC G5, Intel) and 10.6 (Intel 32 Bit, Intel 64 Bit, PowerPC).

The patches necessary for building are available for download as well.

You are free to report bugs in the Tickets tab but please understand that real end user support cannot be provided.

Feedback

Please leave feedback as comments in the forum discussion [feedback].

Release Notes

• 604.5.6_2:
  • minor stability improvements (relinked iTunes does work now)
  • relinking droplet improved to not time out that fast
  • lowered priority of plain RSA key exchange algorithm for HTTPS/TLS as it's considered weak now
  • added QuickTime 7.7.0 download link to the dmg image
• 604.5.6:
  • bug and security fixes from Safari 11.0.3 (one of Apple's Spectre mitigations, namely pointer poisoning, doesn't apply to Leopard WebKit because it requires a 64 bit application)
  • fixed some web font handling bugs and updated OpenTypeSanitizer to 6.1.1
  • fixed support for Safari Top Sites rendering
  • added basic support for Web Performance API
  • Safari user agent list (developer menu) updated to the list from Safari 11.0.3
• 604.4.5:
  • up to date with Safari 11, but lacking some features (more and more)
  • Safari user agent list (developer menu) updated to the list from Safari 11
  • made 3DES ciphers lowest priority for HTTPS/TLS, since those are considered weak now
• 603.3.3:
  • bug and security fixes from Apple
  • Safari user agent list (developer menu) updated to the list from Safari 10.1.1
  • fixed a bug that made WebKit crash when using XSLT
• 603.3.1:
  • bug and security fixes from Apple
  • fixed a bug that caused JavaScript garbage collection to crash on multiprocessor machines when trying to collect HTML5 media objects that are backed by QTKit (like embedded youtube videos on facebook for example)
• 603.2.5_2:
  • JavaScript interpreter not crashing anymore on G5 CPUs
  • OpenType Sanitizer updated to 5.2.0
• 603.2.5:
  • up to date with Safari 10.1.1, but lacking some features
  • now using bmalloc, extended for OSes like OS X 10.5 that don't support freeing memory wihout as well freeing the corresponding address range,
    resulting in more efficient memory management in terms of space and speed
  • Safari user agent list (developer menu) updated to the list from Safari 10.1
• 602.4.8_3:
  • Fixes for frequent crashes when using relinked Roccat
  • now shipping with updated security certificates from OS X 10.12
  • limited support for Web Crypto API; just enough to support WhatsApp Web
  • updated user agent (applied when running "enabled advanced features" script") so that facebook doesn't redirect to the mobile web site
  • Safari user agent list (developer menu) updated to the list from Safari 10.0.3
• 602.4.8_2:
  • relinked applications now do work; previously they would only work if an earlier version of Leopard WebKit was installed system wide
  • now shipping with updated SQLite3, ICU, libxml2 and libxslt libraries (fixing bugs and security issues)
  • support for JavaScript internationalization API (by means of the updated ICU library)
• 602.4.8:
  • bug and security fixes from Apple's Safari 602 release branch
  • yet another stability fix for web font support (WebKit could crash when opening a popup menu that was rendered using a web font)
  • better performance on G5 CPUs; by accident 64 bit instructions haven't been used any more since the compiler switch to GCC 6.
• 602.4.3:
  • bug and security fixes from Apple's Safari 602 release branch
  • another stability fix for web font support (WebKit would occasionally crash when the same web font was downloaded and activated several times)
• 602.4.2:
  • bug and security fixes from Apple's Safari 602 release branch
  • stability fix for web font support (WebKit could crash when opening PDF files in DropBox's own JavaScript PDF viewer)
  • WebKit's integrated QTKit media player will now register video, audio and text tracks in a similar way as the AVFoundation and GStreamer players (the fullscreen button and subtitles/captions embedded into the media file are now selectable)
• 602.3.12:
  • bug and security fixes from Apple's Safari 602 release branch
  • bug and stability fixes for web font support (with the help of OpenType Sanitizer)
  • JavaScript typed array views emulate little endian byte order (needed for WhatsApp Web for example)
  • further scrolling perfomance improvements for larger web sites
• 602.3.11:
  • bug and security fixes from Apple's Safari 602 release branch
  • fix for layer rendering bug causing content to be rendered in the wrong place
  • scrolling perfomance improvements for larger web sites
  • support for web (a.k.a. desktop) notifications with the help of Growl
  • support for WOFF2 web font format
• 602.3.8:
  • bug and security fixes from Apple's Safari 602 release branch
  • web font related bug fixes and general font handling memory leak fixes (OS bug workarounds)
  • layer rendering improvements
• 602.3.6:
  • bug and security fixes from Apple's Safari 602 release branch
  • small memory leak fixes
  • speculative fix for a common crash
  • reduced resource usage for animated GIFs
• 602.3.3:
  • YouTube flash content will automatically be replaced with HTML5 content, the same way as is done in iOS
    (will also work in all relinked applications without the need for any extension like ClickToFlash).
    ClickToFlash/ClickToPlugin should be disabled for www.youtube.com in order for this automatic replacement to work properly
• 602.3.2:
  • IndexedDB support
  • "Relink against Leopard WebKit" now also working with Stainless
• 602.3.1:
  • source code up to date with Safari 10, but lacking some features
  • "Relink against Leopard WebKit" now works with many applications like Roccat, Mail and Safari and for the first time does also provide the relinked application with udpated HTTPS/TLS support by means of the updated OS X Security framework
• 601.7.5:
  • source code up to date with Safari 9.1, but lacking some features
  • built against and shipping with libgcc and libstdc++ from GCC 6.1
  • system root certificates downgraded to the ones from OS X 10.9, as the ones from 10.10 seemed to cause more and more issues
  • installing as system default version is not available because of at least the following known issues:
    • completely untested
    • no 64 bit PowerPC build yet
    • Objective-C garbage collection compatibility is broken
• 600.8.10:
  • bug and security fixes from Safari 6.2.8 / 7.1.8 / 8.0.8
  • system root certificates updated from OS X 10.10.3, but retaining the Equifax root certificate which has been removed by Apple causing security warnings when connecting to various major web sites
• 600.7.12:
  • Logjam vulnerability fixed in Security framework
  • Some memory leaks fixed
  • other security fixes
• 600.7.7:
  • Software Update will no longer propose to update Safari when installed in place of the system frameworks
  • iTunes Store will open again when installed in place of the system frameworks
  • Xcode (and other applications relying on ObjC-GC) will work in 32 and 64 bit mode (on G5s) when installed in place of the system frameworks
  • Relinking droplet now able to relink Roccat (tested with 4.9)
  • animated GIF playback faster but much more memory consuming when "advanced features" are enabled
• 600.7.5:
  • replacing the system version of the frameworks (WebKit and JavaScriptCore) shouldn't potentially destabilize the system anymore - only minor issues like rendering artifacts in the Dictionary application are to be expected
• 600.5.17:
  • an updated version of the OS X Security framework is included, providing the following important security features:
    • TLS 1.2 supported and preferred
    • HMAC-SHA256/384 supported and preferred
    • thus up to date with OS X 10.10 (additionally DHE-DSS is supported for key exchange)
• 600.5.7:
  • an updated version of the OS X Security framework was included, providing the following important security features:
    • TLS 1.1 supported and preferred
    • fixes or workarounds for known vulnerabilities (FREAK attack fixed since 600.5.8_2)
    • elliptic curve ciphers supported
    • weak ciphers not available for use with TLS
    • SSL 3.0 and earlier completely disabled

Status

• PowerPC MacroAssembler Nitro is available from TenFourFox
  • used since 537.52 for the YarrJIT regular expression runtime
  • used since 600.3 for the CSS selector JIT
  • in order to get the JavaScript JIT (SquirrelFish Extreme) working some glue code like for example the trampoline needs to be written.
• the updated Security framework is available when using the WebKit application bundle since 600.5.7 and for relinked applications since 602.3.1
• the WebKit2 framework is not available - backporting to 10.5 wouldn't make much sense since there aren't any browser frontends that to make use of it
• the JavaScriptGlue framework isn't updated but the last version provided by Apple will be used instead, in conjunction with its own private copy of the corresponding version of the JavaScriptCore framework
• For known bugs see the Tickets tab

Downloads

• See the Files tab for current releases.
• WebKit builds are ready to test in the same form as the official WebKit nightly builds.
• The dmg image is based on the last officially available PowerPC nightliy (r89812).
• The patches are available as patches against sources at the WebKit SVN repository.

Recommended Tools/AddOns/Extensions

• ClickToPlugin/ClickToFlash improves performance by replacing flash content with HTML5 content (for example YouTube video clips), and by inhibiting the automatic execution of content that is displayed using plugins
  not any longer recommend for use on youtube, see here (What’s up with YouTube in Safari 8+?)
• Glims for Safari can improve the browsing experience with Safari a lot.
  discontinued for PPC after 1.0.39
• Privoxy is a well performing ad blocking solution for PPC OS X.
• Roccat is an actively developed alternative browser
• iCab is another actively developed alternative browser
  discontinued for PPC after 5.1.1
• QuickTime 7.7 isn't updated automatically anymore, but here is the link to directly download it from Apple's software update server.
• Growl is a framework for desktop notifications on OS X
  last OS X 10.5 compatible version available for download here
  

Used third party software

• WiganWallgate
  used until including the 600 series
• PLBlocks
  used until including the 600 series
• Growl
• OpenType Sanitizer

Build requirements

Refer to [BuildInstructions] for the WebKit frameworks
Refer to [BuildInstructionsSecurity] for the Security framework