I've just glossed over this thread. But isn't is it possible that Pat is just providing -current with the ESR until he figures out an elegant way to include Rust + new Firefox releases? Sorry if someone already mentioned this.

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That is my guess, between rust and other firefox changes updating firefox would be undesirable for some while there aren't really any alternatives to choose from. For example Palemoon doesn't remotely compile with gcc7 or clang4 and their upstream is not the least bit interested in fixing it... So what is there to do, but wait and see hoping for something to change?

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Yes that works fine (running current) and seems a bit less ram-hungry than vivaldi.

PS:

most of my add-ons now have the label "legacy"; this relates to a change in the way add-ons are functioning in firefox firefox-add-technology-modernizing

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i rebuild ff to use jemalloc which fixes a buttload of the leaking. mozilla knows
about it but why they dont use it i have no idea

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i dont understand peoples avoidance of building their own firefox. its certainly not hard.
it doesnt involve any crying. some notes on mem usage and statistics

When you malloc() memory, you're stating your intent to consume memory. h/top doesnt show memory being used it shows a prediction of what is likely to be accessed in the near future.

a better way of viewing actual memory used atm is pmap or even better yet valgrind but valgrind can be rather intensive for most users

Why??? Cause I am not willing to let my computer go on for 24+ hours just to build a freaking web browser. And on top of that it seems to require several gigabytes of ram to build - wtf. That's why I don't waste time building this myself!

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Why??? Where have you been living? In a dreamworld? Developers nowadays do not like to fix bugs. They rather work on new stuff.

Another example of that: Vim adds terminal (Comment by -romainl-):
And - just in case you're wondering. I actually fixed two bugs I ran into that were actually mentioned in vim's todo list. And it didn't take all that long to actually fix it.

Am I gonna tell the vim developers about it? Probably not.

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What kind of cpu do you have? Takes 30 minutes here with my amd fx-6350 using --jobs=6.

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Of a course a distro (ANY distro) should include a web browser in the base packages. And an ETHICAL distro would seek to only include stable, secure software. In the case of web browswers, ethicaly the choice would be the "Lesser of Evils". Firefox has ceased to be the 'Lesser'...

To illustrate a4z's point on Mozilla's bizarre notions of "development" see Tor at the Heart: Firefox. Granted the bounty of security patches from Tor, you'd think Mozilla would make this pearl a new DEFAULT! And then leave the option to disable the new security in the hands of whatever "Re-branders" followed. Instead they chose to deliver the naieve end user what will most readily serve content and (FOLLOW THE MONEY) ADs. This is not the benign advertising of a billboard or an Analog TV commercial.

Since the "Advent of Chrome" the entire internet/browsing experience has suffered gravely. Never mind that Chrome resides on ANDROID -- an even more cancerous assault. That PRIVACY has become SUSPICIOUS, rather than respectable, is not a coincidence.

Like the nations of Europe between the 2nd through 8th centuries, most of the major powers are "Converting to the Way of Google". Mozilla quietly agreed a few years back. Now, Firefox is no longer an exception. There might be improvements to "Media Delivery" (a spoon full of sugar helps the Heroin go down...) or memory foot print, but the underlying framework is now borked.

For my purposes, I found v. 52 ESR of Firefox un-usable, and stayed with 45.9 ESR. That is, until I learned recent versions of Palemoon crash less than FF!

By itself, un-modified, even Firefox negated Privacy. But at least it was FIXABLE. The more recent versions with the "Web Extensions" trust entirely to much to server side code. Ad blocking, and most importantly, the underlying spyware -- is no longer possible. Because of this perversion, the security enhancements that once worked are now void.

One Distro that I know of omits Firefox, probably there are others. For Slackware, the "Rust" issue makes it doubly justifiable to do so. Rust itself is essentially benign -- it's first release was in 2015, and suddenly swept to the head of the pack? How'd that happen?

Follow the money: SAMSUNG Android hardware -- the very paper on those counterfeit ad-bucks are printed on!. It isn't the delivery of the ad's that's problematic. It's the inability to prevent thier extraction of info.

Considering the above, for what earthly reason should we follow the Lemmings on this matter? Is there not a package over in builds? There is one for Rust, which is useful for good things in spite of it's dubious heritage.

Please forgive the rant, but I used to love Firefox. Have used it since release .09, and took it for granted I guess. What's become of it really bothers me -- like so many things that happen while I'm thinking of something else.

Ooops.

S.

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now youre just being silly

@wigums: orbea's answer to the same statement was constructive. Not yours.

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There's also the fact that many do not want to stray away from official Slackware packages for alternatives. There's a number of reasons someone may not want to switch to the latest browser, and compile times are certainly a valid one. Especially since mine was hit or miss. I couldn't get mine to complete with multiple jobs, so I had to change it to one job. Eventually the compile completed, but I did it overnight, so I didn't know how long it took. I tried to recompile it last night to get the time it took but it errored out after 5+ hours of compile time (some libxul.so error). I'm too lazy to tinker with the SlackBuild to try and get it to compile again so I can time it.

That's not to mention the additional time it took to compile rust and cargo (which I don't remember how long that took).

NOTE: This compiling is occuring on my super low-powered AMD APU on my htpc, so it can take quite some time. I can't do it on my desktop yet, since I haven't upgraded to 14.2 (and you can't compile it on 14.1 due to the requirement of gcc-4.9).

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bassmadrigal that's fair but you dont have to change versions. you can simply add a few tweaks to patricks slackbuild.

madmaverick9 saying it takes 24+ hours and eats all his ram just isn't true. as we all know compilation is handle by the processor
and even my intel atom proc @ 1.5ghz can compile ff in a few hours. but that's personal choice for personal reasons and we all have a different set of circumstances.

btw rust and co. are very easy builds and are available on SBo

this thread seems to be full of anger, untruths and exaggerations. I'm just trying to dispel some of that

as for Didier Spaier saying my post about being silly isnt constructive.... have you even read this thread?
all the people crying and exaggerating are the ones not being constructive. that behavior is simply uncalled for from adults

has anyone even asked pat why he does what he does? e.g. firefox? im sure if anyone asked theyd get a satisfactory answer and then see that if they want something different than what he provides they are perfectly capable of making those changes to THEIR boxen that THEY admin

Well, I am French and there can exist cultural differences but...

Here at least, telling someone "You are silly" is a personal attack. How does that help anyone?

seriously? if you think being called as acting silly is an attack i wonder how you manage in the real world

just an idea but maybe grow some seriously thicker skin.

now YOU'RE acting silly