[Bug 1908082] Re: Ubuntu Firefox is 15% slower than Flatpak Firefox for speedometer benchmark

[Vincent Chernin]

Sorry this is a bit late, but here once again are the speedometer
benchmarks. This time I made sure to include the package version.

I used a different computer than my first test but the conclusion is
still the same: Firefox deb is beaten by alternative packages of firefox
(in this case snap).

Speedometer score (https://browserbench.org/Speedometer2.0/):
Tested on Ubuntu 20.04.2 (ISO: ubuntu-20.04.2.0-desktop-amd64.iso)

Firefox Snap: 
Score: 36.6±2.0 
Package: 86.0-3

Firefox Deb: 
Score: 28.89±0.18 
Package: 86.0+build3-0ubuntu0.20.04.1

For further research it may be useful to benchmark firefox deb vs
firefox snap/flatpak in various tests, similarly to how phoronix
compares chrome and firefox on linux
(https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Chrome-89-Firefox-86).

However, even though the speedometer score is evidently lower on the deb
that doesn't mean it is necessarily an real-world issue. As noted by
google when they retired octane as a recommended benchmark (tests
javascript), web benchmarks can be misleading and can poorly represent
real-world performance (https://v8.dev/blog/retiring-octane). The lower
score on firefox deb may not correlated with a perceiveable performance
difference.

My opinion is that a fix for this issue is not worth putting
considerable time into if we cannot demonstrate clear real-world
performance deficiencies in firefox deb.

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Title:
  Ubuntu Firefox is 15% slower than Flatpak Firefox for speedometer
  benchmark

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