diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 94f5d9e5f2..67a1e1b3c2 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
 # BREAK YOUR LOCAL DIFFS! show-diff and anything using it will likely randomly
 # break unless your underlying filesystem supports those sub-second times
 # (my ext3 doesn't).
-COPTS=
+COPTS=-O2
 CFLAGS=-g $(COPTS) -Wall
 
 prefix=$(HOME)