SmoothBoost

SmoothBoost is a high-performance, cross-browser, and cross-platform web acceleration extension. It intelligently eliminates background rendering overhead, throttles offscreen canvases and media, and accelerates page scrolling—keeping web browsing buttery-smooth while protecting interactive productivity tools, games, and active media.

Supported across Chrome & Helium Desktop, Titanium Browser on Android, Firefox Desktop, and Firefox for Android.

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Browser & Platform Compatibility Matrix

Platform / Browser	Engine / Manifest	Minimum Version	Battery Saver	Tab Discard	Keyboard Shortcut	Touch-Friendly UI
Chrome / Chromium	Chromium MV3	Chrome 116+	✓	✓	✓ (Alt+Shift+S)	✓
Helium Browser	Chromium MV3	Current	✓	✓	✓ (Alt+Shift+S)	✓
Titanium Browser (Android)	Chromium MV3 (Vanadium)	Current	✓	Guarded (OS LMK)	Touch UI	✓ (>=44px targets)
Firefox Desktop	Gecko MV3 Event Pages	Firefox 109+ (128+ recommended)	✓	✓	✓ (Alt+Shift+S)	✓
Firefox for Android	Gecko MV3 Mobile	Firefox 120+	✓	Guarded (OS LMK)	Touch UI	✓ (>=44px targets)
iOS / Safari	WebKit	Unsupported	—	—	—	WebKit engine restriction

Note

On Android (Titanium Browser and Firefox for Android), operating system Low Memory Killer (LMK) manages application memory natively. SmoothBoost automatically detects mobile environments and guards unsupported desktop APIs (tabs.discard, physical keyboard shortcuts) to prevent crashes and unwanted wakeups.

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Core Features & What's New in v2.2.0

• Contrast Safety for Glassmorphic Elements: Guards translucent light cards with light text (such as link-in-bio profiles like Taplink) from being forced to opaque white.
• Backdrop Blur Scan Optimization: Eliminated forced reflow lag by targeting stylesheet rules and glass classes directly instead of scanning the full DOM tree.
• Background & Particle Canvas Protection: Ambient background canvases (such as rain or snow animations) with fixed positioning stay active without false-positive draw skips.
• Live WebRTC Stream Protection: Live webcam and screen-sharing video elements on Google Meet, Discord, Zoom, and Teams are never throttled.
• Cross-Browser & Mobile Architecture: Universal compat.js abstraction normalizing Chromium (chrome.*) and Gecko (browser.*) runtimes across desktop and mobile.
• Titanium Browser for Android Support: Dedicated titanium-android release target for Titanium Browser users on Google Play. Features responsive fluid layout (320px–420px), large touch targets (>= 44px), and background efficiency.
• Firefox MV3 Event Page Support: Tailored Gecko Manifest V3 with event page background scripts, Firefox 128+ world: "MAIN" content scripts, and CSP-aware inline injection fallback.
• Battery Saver Profile (battery): High-efficiency profile cutting power consumption on mobile devices and laptops. Enables aggressive offscreen DOM content-visibility: auto, suspends background media and canvases, and throttles non-interactive animations while preserving touch responsiveness. Displays an amber BATT badge.
• Interactive App Safeguards: Classifies pages into 5 archetypes (interactive-canvas, media-stream, infinite-feed, game-canvas, standard). Automatically disables canvas and animation throttling on Figma, Google Docs, Canva, Monaco/Ace code editors, and WebGL games.
• Hardware-Composited Scrolling: Upgrades scroll and touch listeners to passive: true, unblocking 60/120 FPS compositor scrolling while preserving preventDefault on maps (Google Maps, Leaflet) and sliders.
• Settings Backup & Restore: Export settings to JSON and import them with schema validation and parameter clamping across all your devices and browsers.
• Site Recovery System: Instant "Site looks broken" one-click override that disables optimizations for the current hostname, purges cached archetypes, and reloads the tab.
• 100% Vector Dark UI: Premium SVG vector icons, live verified optimizer counters (zero fake percentages), and complete elimination of emoji icons.

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Profiles

• Smart Auto (Default): Runs lightweight idle heuristics (requestIdleCallback) to detect page structure. Pauses offscreen media, accelerates compositor scrolling, bypasses blur filters, and dynamically disables canvas throttling on interactive tools.
• Turbo (Maximum): Full acceleration profile for high-power web browsing. Pauses offscreen ambient media, suspends offscreen canvas rendering, enforces compositor scrolling, decodes images asynchronously, and bypasses heavy backdrop blur filters.
• Balanced: Subtle optimizations that preserve page visuals and media behavior without heavy intervention.
• Battery Saver: Aggressive power savings for mobile devices and laptops on battery power. Applies offscreen DOM content-visibility, suspends background canvas updates, pauses offscreen videos, and throttles canvas frames outside interactive editors.
• Custom: Granular tuning drawer providing individual toggles for passive scrolling, offscreen canvas throttling, CSS animations, blur filters, lazy image decoding, and adaptive 30 FPS limits.

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Installation Guides

For detailed, platform-specific walkthroughs with screenshots and troubleshooting steps, read the Device Setup Tutorial.

1. Chrome & Helium Desktop

1. Download SmoothBoost-Chrome-2.2.0.zip from Releases and unzip it.
2. Navigate to chrome://extensions and toggle Developer mode in the top right.
3. Click Load unpacked and select the extracted folder.
4. Pin SmoothBoost to the toolbar for quick access.

2. Titanium Browser on Android (Google Play)

1. Download SmoothBoost-Titanium-Android-2.2.0.zip on your Android device.
2. In Titanium Browser, navigate to chrome://extensions (or open the Extensions menu).
3. Enable Developer Mode and install the extension via Load unpacked or via the Titanium Extension Manager.
4. SmoothBoost opens in mobile-optimized portrait mode with large touch targets.

3. Firefox Desktop

1. Download SmoothBoost-Firefox-2.2.0.zip from Releases and unzip it.
2. Navigate to about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox.
3. Click Load Temporary Add-on… and select manifest.json from the unzipped directory.
4. SmoothBoost will appear in the Firefox extension toolbar.

4. Firefox for Android

1. In Firefox Nightly / Developer Edition for Android, enable the Debug menu in Settings.
2. Install via web-ext or load via your Custom Add-on Collection using ID smoothboost@binifn.github.io.

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Building Release Packages

SmoothBoost includes a multi-target build script that validates manifests, checks required assets, and packages clean distribution ZIPs into dist/:

# Build all release packages (Chrome, Titanium Android, Firefox, Firefox Android)
python3 scripts/package_extension.py --target all

# Or build a specific target:
python3 scripts/package_extension.py --target chrome
python3 scripts/package_extension.py --target titanium-android
python3 scripts/package_extension.py --target firefox
python3 scripts/package_extension.py --target firefox-android

Generated packages:

• dist/SmoothBoost-Chrome-2.2.0.zip (and backwards-compatible SmoothBoost-2.2.0.zip)
• dist/SmoothBoost-Titanium-Android-2.2.0.zip
• dist/SmoothBoost-Firefox-2.2.0.zip
• dist/SmoothBoost-Firefox-Android-2.2.0.zip

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Automated Test Suite

SmoothBoost has 61 automated regression and compatibility tests covering cross-browser adapters, manifest validation, settings persistence, battery mode, tab discarding, and packaging:

node --test tests/*.test.js

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Project Structure

├── manifest.json                  # Chromium MV3 manifest (Chrome, Titanium Android)
├── manifest.firefox.json          # Gecko MV3 manifest (Firefox Desktop & Android)
├── popup/
│   ├── popup.html                 # Responsive dark glass UI (320px–420px fluid)
│   ├── popup.css                  # Responsive styles & coarse pointer touch targets
│   ├── popup.js                   # Popup controller with settings import/export
│   └── update-check.js            # GitHub release update checker
├── scripts/
│   ├── compat.js                  # Cross-browser runtime adapter & capability guard
│   ├── background.js              # MV3 service worker / event page controller
│   ├── content.js                 # Isolated content script with archetype classifier
│   ├── page-hook.js               # Main-world passive listener & canvas guard
│   └── package_extension.py       # Multi-target release packager
├── data/
│   └── site-rules.json            # Dynamic site optimization rules
├── icons/                         # 16px, 48px, 128px high-DPI icons
├── tests/                         # 59 automated node:test suites
└── test-fixtures/                 # Real DOM & canvas smoke test pages