  The properties of strange quark matter and the structures of (proto-)strange
stars are studied within the framework of an equivparticle model, where a new
quark mass scaling and self-consistent thermodynamic treatment are adopted. Our
results show that the perturbative interaction has a strong impact on the
properties of strange quark matter. It is found that the energy per baryon
increases with temperature, while the free energy decreases and eventually
becomes negative. At fixed temperatures, the pressure at the minimum free
energy per baryon is zero, suggesting that the thermodynamic self-consistency
is preserved. Additionally, the sound velocity v in quark matter approaches to
the extreme relativistic limit (c/sqrt(3)) as the density increases. By
increasing the strengths of confinement parameter D and perturbation parameter
C, the tendency for v to approach the extreme relativistic limit at high
density is slightly weakened. For (proto-)strange stars, in contrast to the
quark mass scalings adopted in previous publications, the new quark mass
scaling can accommodate massive proto-strange stars with their maximum mass
surpassing twice the solar mass at T = 50 MeV.
