DSL Ideas and Suggestions :: Moz size-reduction

Official Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.8: firefox-2.0.0.8.tar.gz
Size: 9464K
Uncompressed: 25180K

i. 'sstrip': sstrip.c
ii. 'advzip' is part of AdvanceCOMP - Source: advancecomp-1.15.tar.gz
iii. 'upx' binary: upx-3.01-i386_linux.tar.bz2

1.

Code Sample

find ./ -name "*.so" | while read i; do sstrip "$i"; done

Size: 25180K -> 25104K

Code Sample

sstrip firefox-bin updater xpicleanup

Size:25104K -> 25004K
2. Delete following files:

Code Sample

browserconfig.properties
chrome/reporter.jar
chrome/reporter.manifest
components/libjsd.so
components/libmozgnome.so
components/libmyspell.so
components/libnkgnomevfs.so
components/libspellchecker.so
components/nsDictionary.js
dictionaries/
extensions/inspector@mozilla.org/
extensions/talkback@mozilla.org/
icons/
mozilla-xremote-client
old-homepage-default.properties
readme.txt

Size: 25004K -> 21308K
3. Some libraries can be made external:

Code Sample

Libs: libfreebl3.so libmozjs.so libnspr4.so libnss3.so libnssckbi.so libplc4.so libplds4.so libsmime3.so libsoftokn3.so libssl3.so libxpcom.so libxpcom_compat.so libxpcom_core.so libxpistub.so

Code Sample

Move into '/usr/lib/':
libmozjs-dev - libmozjs.so
libnspr4-dev - libnspr4.so, libplc4.so, libplds4.so
libnss3-dev - libnss3.so, libsmime3.so, libsoftokn3.so, libssl3.so
libxul0-dev - libxpcom.so, libxpcom_compat.so, libxpcom_core.so

These are left:

Code Sample

libfreebl3.so [228K]
libxpistub.so [8K]

Size: 21308K -> 18420K
4. Strip comments from .js, .css, and .properties files:

Code Sample

find ./ -name "*.js" | \
while read i; \
do cpp -P "$i" > "$i".tmp \
&& mv "$i".tmp "$i"; \
done
find ./ -name "*.css" | \
while read i; \
do cpp -P "$i" > "$i".tmp \
&& mv "$i".tmp "$i"; \
done
* cpp cannot cope with lines that begin with '#'. It will give errors with a few files:
"./defaults/profile/prefs.js:1:3: error: invalid preprocessing directive #Mozilla"
- 'prefs.js' can be deleted.
"./res/EditorOverride.css:121:2: error: invalid preprocessing directive #mozToc
./res/viewsource.css:44:2: error: invalid preprocessing directive #viewsource
./res/viewsource.css:50:2: error: invalid preprocessing directive #viewsource"
- Remove '#', re-run 'cpp -P', reinsert '#'.

find ./ -name "*.properties" | while read i; do \
sed '/^#/d' "$i" > "$i".tmp && mv "$i".tmp "$i" && \
sed '/^$/d' "$i" > "$i".tmp && mv "$i".tmp "$i"; done

Size: 18420K -> 17740K
5. Optimize the .jar archives in 'chrome/':

Code Sample

advzip -z4 *.jar

Size: 17740K -> 14724K
6. Compress 'firefox-bin' with 'upx':

Code Sample

upx --best firefox-bin

Size: 14724K -> 8596K
7. Make tarball:

Code Sample

tar -zcf firefox.tar.gz --numeric-owner firefox/

Size: 8596K -> 6356K

Or, using lzma algorithm of upx:
6. Compress 'firefox-bin' with 'upx --lzma':

Code Sample

upx --lzma --best firefox-bin

Size: 14724K -> 8124K
7. Make tarball:

Code Sample

tar -zcf firefox.tar.gz --numeric-owner firefox/

Size: 8124K -> 5932K

So the idea is: Do the same for all current Mozilla extensions; and centralize these libraries in one extension:

Code Sample

libmozjs.so, libnspr4.so, libplc4.so, libplds4.so, libnss3.so, libsmime3.so, libsoftokn3.so, libssl3.so, libxpcom.so, libxpcom_compat.so, libxpcom_core.so

A tarball is approximately 1.2M; about:buildconfig lists "--enable-optimize=-Os", so this is seemingly the smallest possible.

Combined with a stripped-down gtk2 extension [~1.7M-2.0M], we could get a usable gtk2 Mozilla [Firefox/Thunderbird/etc] in a download size of <10M.

Very impressive - people are bound to ask though, would flash-9 work with this version?

Hopefully yes. The files I deleted seem in no way connected to the working of plug-ins. I am only remotely concerned about these two:

Code Sample

components/libmozgnome.so
components/libnkgnomevfs.so

Flash probably does not need gnome support. Many people compile without gnome support, Flash should be expected to still work in such cases.

Some points:

- you have way too much time

- if you compiled FF yourself:
1) the swiftfox way: drop pango support; some size decrease
2) with gtk1; more size decrease
3) with Xlib; most size decrease & most speed increase
4) when I compiled FF shared, instead of the 11mb half-static official binary, firefox-bin was 74k, loading times dropped, and the total dir size was ~400k smaller than the official..

While the sizes you listed look good, what happened to speed?
How much did loading times grow on a P1? Or is general browsing on low comps slower?
The .jar's were packed without compression to archieve speed.
If all Mozilla extensions were slowed down, how would that affect those without too much processing power?

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