Native Cocoa browser for Mac OS X Tiger/Leopard with built-in TLS 1.2
PocketFox is a lightweight web browser that brings modern HTTPS to PowerPC Macs. Instead of relying on Tiger's broken OpenSSL, it embeds mbedTLS 2.28 LTS directly.
- Native Cocoa UI (Objective-C)
- TLS 1.2 with ChaCha20-Poly1305
- HTTP and HTTPS support
- Works on Tiger (10.4) and Leopard (10.5)
- PowerPC G4/G5 optimized
Coming soon!
- Xcode 2.5 (Tiger) or Xcode 3.1 (Leopard)
- mbedTLS 2.28 compiled for PowerPC
# Download mbedTLS 2.28 LTS
# (use wget_tiger if you have it, or curl from another machine)
tar xzf mbedtls-2.28.8.tar.gz
cd mbedtls-2.28.8/library
# Compile for PowerPC
gcc -arch ppc -std=c99 -O2 -mcpu=7450 -I../include \
-DMBEDTLS_NO_PLATFORM_ENTROPY -c *.c
# Create libraries
ar rcs libmbedcrypto.a aes.o arc4.o aria.o asn1parse.o asn1write.o \
base64.o bignum.o camellia.o ccm.o chacha20.o chachapoly.o \
cipher.o cipher_wrap.o ctr_drbg.o des.o dhm.o ecdh.o ecdsa.o \
ecjpake.o ecp.o ecp_curves.o entropy.o entropy_poll.o error.o \
gcm.o havege.o hkdf.o hmac_drbg.o md.o md5.o memory_buffer_alloc.o \
nist_kw.o oid.o padlock.o pem.o pk.o pk_wrap.o pkcs12.o pkcs5.o \
pkparse.o pkwrite.o platform.o platform_util.o poly1305.o \
ripemd160.o rsa.o rsa_internal.o sha1.o sha256.o sha512.o \
threading.o timing.o version.o version_features.o xtea.o
ar rcs libmbedx509.a certs.o pkcs11.o x509.o x509_create.o x509_crl.o \
x509_crt.o x509_csr.o x509write_crt.o x509write_csr.o
ar rcs libmbedtls.a debug.o net_sockets.o ssl_cache.o ssl_ciphersuites.o \
ssl_cli.o ssl_cookie.o ssl_msg.o ssl_srv.o ssl_ticket.o ssl_tls.o# Build SSL library first
gcc -arch ppc -std=c99 -O2 -mcpu=7450 -DHAVE_MBEDTLS \
-I./mbedtls-2.28.8/include -c pocketfox_ssl_tiger.c -o pocketfox_ssl.o
# Build PocketFox app
gcc -arch ppc -O2 -mcpu=7450 -DHAVE_MBEDTLS -framework Cocoa \
-I./mbedtls-2.28.8/include -o PocketFox \
pocketfox_tiger_gui.m pocketfox_ssl.o \
-L./mbedtls-2.28.8/library -lmbedtls -lmbedx509 -lmbedcrypto
# Create app bundle
mkdir -p PocketFox.app/Contents/MacOS
cp PocketFox PocketFox.app/Contents/MacOS/Or use the build script:
./build_pocketfox.sh mbedtls # Build mbedTLS
./build_pocketfox.sh browser # Build PocketFox
./build_pocketfox.sh package # Create .app bundle| File | Description |
|---|---|
pocketfox_tiger_gui.m |
Main Cocoa browser UI |
pocketfox_ssl_tiger.c |
mbedTLS integration layer |
pocketfox_ssl.h |
SSL header file |
pocketfox_browser.m |
Alternative browser implementation |
wget_tiger.c |
Standalone wget with TLS 1.2 |
build_pocketfox.sh |
Build automation script |
Also included is a standalone wget implementation with HTTPS:
# Build
gcc -arch ppc -std=c99 -O2 -DHAVE_MBEDTLS \
-I./mbedtls-2.28.8/include -o wget \
wget_tiger.c pocketfox_ssl_tiger.c \
-L./mbedtls-2.28.8/library -lmbedtls -lmbedx509 -lmbedcrypto
# Usage
./wget https://example.com/file.tar.gz
./wget -O output.txt https://site.com/pageFeatures:
- TLS 1.2 with modern ciphers
- HTTP 301/302 redirect following
- Chunked transfer encoding support
- Progress bar with percentage
- Downloads from GitHub!
Tiger's built-in OpenSSL (0.9.7) and Safari can't connect to modern HTTPS sites. Rather than trying to patch the system, PocketFox embeds modern TLS directly.
- Mac OS X Tiger (10.4) - PowerPC G4/G5
- Mac OS X Leopard (10.5) - PowerPC G4/G5 and Intel
- rust-ppc-tiger - Rust compiler for PowerPC
- ppc-tiger-tools - Tools for Tiger/Leopard
- macosx-security-patches - CVE patches
- Scott (Scottcjn) - Creator, architect, hardware lab, testing
- Claude (Opus 4.1/4.5) - Implementation assistance
Designed by Scott, coded with Claude
MIT License - Free to use, please keep attribution.
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"Modern web on your 2005 Power Mac."