Mozilla has changed the way they compress files for installing Firefox on Linux, switching from using .tar.bz2 to .tar.xz to reduce size by up to 25%.
Xz is a compression software utilizing the LZMA algorithm which is more efficient than gz or bz2 in terms of both compressed file size and decompression speed. Recently, all Linux distributions exclusively support xz, ensuring seamless compatibility in usage.
Mozilla considered Zstandard (.zst) which offers slightly faster decompression, but ultimately chose xz for its superior compression capability, saving space and bandwidth, and wide distribution support.
Note: Earlier this year, there was a major security news in the industry that xz binary files were compromised with backdoors by malicious developers infiltrating as admins.
Source: Mozilla
TLDR: Mozilla adopts xz compression over Zstandard for Firefox installation on Linux, emphasizing efficiency and broad support despite previous security concerns.
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