UglifyJS2 VS terser-webpack-plugin

Minification involves removing unnecessary characters, whitespace, and comments from code files. It helps reduce HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc., file sizes without compromising functionality. Removing redundant elements makes these HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files smaller. Since smaller code files need less internet traffic to transfer, they load faster. Utilizing tools like UglifyJS, Clean-CSS, and HTMLMinifier enhances this process of code reduction. They analyze the code, remove redundant code, and generate optimized files for deployment.

Example: You've got a main.js file that's as long as a Tolstoy novel. Fix: Use tools like UglifyJS or Terser to minify your code. They'll squeeze out all the unnecessary bits and give you a sleeker, faster-loading file.

Minification: UglifyJS, Terser

There are a bunch of libraries that do this, but my current go to is Uglify: https://www.npmjs.com/package/uglify-js

There are many minifiers such as terser and uglify. But, because minifying also require to parse the JS, it is actually possible to use esbuild and SWC to minify the code. Here's a benchmark of the main minifiers.

In my understanding, UglifyJS 3 is the most popular JavaScript minifier tool presently -- it has a very high weekly download too. And as per the official documentation, it supports ES6.

I'm thinking reverse-engineered uglified js code (https://github.com/mishoo/UglifyJS) is not as impenetrable as code from reversed engineered wasm binaries? The element of plausible deniability is much more potent though, for the nefarious actor on the other side.

Program: uglifyjs Arguments: $FileName$ -c -m -o $FileNameWithoutExtension$.min.js

Apart from terser, you can also use uglify-js to compress or minify javascript.

Uglify

const path = require('path'); const MiniCssExtractPlugin = require("mini-css-extract-plugin"); const CssMinimizerPlugin = require("css-minimizer-webpack-plugin"); const HtmlWebpackPlugin = require('html-webpack-plugin'); const { CleanWebpackPlugin } = require('clean-webpack-plugin'); const TerserPlugin = require("terser-webpack-plugin"); module.exports = { // watch: true, mode: "production", entry: "./src/index.tsx", output: { filename: 'main.js', path: path.resolve(__dirname, 'build') }, optimization: { chunkIds: 'named', minimizer: [ new TerserPlugin({ parallel: true, terserOptions: { // https://github.com/webpack-contrib/terser-webpack-plugin#terseroptions }, }), new CssMinimizerPlugin(), ], }, plugins: [ new MiniCssExtractPlugin(), new HtmlWebpackPlugin({ template: path.resolve(__dirname, './public/index.html'), // template file filename: 'index.html', // output file }), new CleanWebpackPlugin(), ], module: { rules: [ { test: /\.(js|jsx)$/, exclude: /(node_modules|bower_components)/, use: { loader: 'babel-loader', options: { presets: ['@babel/preset-env', "@babel/preset-react"] } } }, { test: /\.css$/i, use: [ MiniCssExtractPlugin.loader, { loader: 'css-loader', options: { importLoaders: 1 } }, { loader: 'postcss-loader', options: { postcssOptions: { plugins: [ [ 'autoprefixer', { overrideBrowserslist: ['last 3 versions', 'ie >9'] }, ], ], }, }, }, ], }, { test: /\.scss$/i, use: [ MiniCssExtractPlugin.loader, { loader: 'css-loader', options: { importLoaders: 1 } }, { loader: "postcss-loader", options: { postcssOptions: { plugins: [ [ "autoprefixer", { overrideBrowserslist: ['last 3 versions', 'ie >9'] }, ], ], }, }, }, 'sass-loader' ], }, { test: /\.(svg|eot|woff|woff2|ttf)$/, use: ['file-loader'] }, { test: /\.tsx?$/, loader: "ts-loader", exclude: /node_modules/, options: { allowTsInNodeModules: true } } ] }, resolve: { extensions: ["*",".ts", ".tsx", ".js", "jsx"] }, }

There are lots of options available with this plugin which you can check here.

Make sure Webpack is in production mode on release! Webpack applies a number of optimizations to your bundle, including minification with TerserWebpackPlugin if you’re using Webpack v4 or above. If not, you’ll have to install and add it manually. Other optimizations include omitting development-only code and using optimized assets.

Specifically quote_mode in terser-webpack-plugin

terser-webpack-plugin - Optimize and minimize JavaScript