Firefox Is Now Built With Clang+LTO Everywhere, Sizable Performance Wins For Linux

[gQuigs]

As far as I understand it the snap version of Firefox is published by Mozilla - https://snapcraft.io/firefox. It's just stable, ESR, and beta though (no nightly..)

I also happened to have just blogged about it - https://bryanquigley.com/posts/minds...x-initial.html

[smartalgorithm]

So what? We get packages from distributions... and they compile it with their own compiler tools and version and sometimes change compile flags..?

[Flaburgan]

Firefox android nightly is built with clang, I'm using it to write this comment available on mozilla's ftp

[ssokolow]

Oh yikes, that was true at one point?

I haven't tried it in ages, but I remember noticing that back in the Firefox 2/3 era.

[xorbe]

I am wondering what distros like openSUSE Tumbleweed, Gentoo, and Arch will use to build Firefox though. As far as I know, usually source code doesn't pick and choose which compiler.

[pirx]

I am wondering what distros like openSUSE Tumbleweed, Gentoo, and Arch will use to build Firefox though. As far as I know, usually source code doesn't pick and choose which compiler.

Should we expect various distros to pick that?
I mean, at least Arch uses to be as mainstream as possible, will it pick the way to build the executables too from upstream?

Arch uses clang for a long time

[Candy]

you could use the official flatpak builds of firefox.

Don't forget to mention the ~600mb extra overhead for the flatpak runtime that get's downloaded.

[oleid]

Don't forget to mention the ~600mb extra overhead for the flatpak runtime that get's downloaded.

Maybe, but you'll download that only once. And when using more flatpak stuff (i.e. inkscape, gimp (since it's more recent than what you get from your distribution ( I look at you, debian!)) and friends or games) 600 MiB are not that important anymore. Since you pay that price only once.

[oleid]

Are there official Flatpak builds of Firefox? I only know of these and they are not official. I also found this bug report that says it's still work in progress.

My bad, I mixed that up. But it would seem, that an official build is in reach. ( #1441922 )

[TemplarGR]

Don't forget to mention the ~600mb extra overhead for the flatpak runtime that get's downloaded.

600mb used to be ~1/3 of my hdd back when i had a windows 95 pc 2 decades ago... Today, 2 and 3 terrabyte hdds are so cheap that getting bothered by 600mb lost space seems pointless to me. Even ssds have become large and cheap these days. My Arch installation barely uses around 65-70 gigs and i have installed almost everything, including the kitchen sink! Space is plentiful today.