this post was submitted on 23 May 2024

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Mozilla is adding tab grouping, vertical tabs, profile management, and local AI features to Firefox (connect.mozilla.org)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (22 children)

That's all fine and good but Firefox on Android is currently in a sorry state. No per-site process isolation, buggy, can't keep tabs open, slow, choppy, drains battery. Had to uninstall it on my brand new Galaxy S24+ and my Pixel 6 Pro because it was draining so much battery. When are you going to finally stop ignoring Firefox Android, Mozilla?

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 5 months ago (4 children)

One of these things is not like the other

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago (5 children)

"AI", more like A-eyeroll 🙄

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (6 children)

I want fewer built-in features, not more of them. All of these things should be extensions, not built into the browser core.

I mean, I'd be perfectly happy for said extensions and more to be shipped by default -- it would be good for Firefox to come "batteries included" even with adblocking and such, and that's most likely the way I would use it. But I just want it to be modular and removable as a matter of principle.

I remember how monolithic Mozilla SeaMonkey got too top-heavy and forced Mozilla to start over more-or-less from scratch with ~~Phoenix~~ ~~Firebird~~ Firefox, and I want it to stick close to those roots so they don't have to do it again.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (1 children)

We need modular browsers. It is hard for Mozilla to keep the track to the W3C and all the nonstandard stuff that Google, Microsoft and Apple add to their browsers. If those elements were modules, it would be easier for people to collaborate and for Google and Microsoft to be obligated to add support for other browsers.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

You're talking about a modular rendering engine, which is a different thing than what I'm talking about. I'm talking about stripping down the UI until it resembles XUL Runner, then adding the functionality back as extensions.

You're not wrong that it's important for the engine's code to be organized well for developers' benefit (and ideally for the engine as a whole to be self-contained -- it'd be great if Gecko were as easily-embeddable as Blink), but I'm not so sure that users need to be able to add or remove pieces of it in a way similar to what I'm talking about for UI features.

More concretely:

I think Firefox should ship by default with all the functionality it currently has, plus uBlock Origin and some other things. But I want it to be designed such that if you went into the extensions manager and disabled everything, things like tab support, bookmarks, history, and maybe even the address bar and back button would be gone. It would still be capable of fully rendering a web page, though.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

I hope it won't end up like Chrome. Suddenly my tabs were opening in different weird groups and I couldn't find anything.

[–] [email protected] 91 points 5 months ago (4 children)

This is what Mozilla should have done a LONG time ago - focussed on browser features, ease of use, compatibility and speed. Make a better browser if you want to win a browser war.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Forcing useless features or features that are useless to most users is more or less what windows is doing. Why the double standars?

Especially when Firefox could have included those features as optional modules (even as preinstalled extensions) that we could simply remove if we dont want them?

[–] [email protected] -4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

I definitely don’t believe Mozilla should continue to add features. But I like them focussing on the ones they’ve got.

Edit: Changed this comment to better reflect what I actually meant.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

It might be me and in that case i apologize

...focussed on browser features, ease of use ...

It just sounds like you think its good that they added all these featueas

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

How are they being forced upon you?

[–] [email protected] -4 points 5 months ago (3 children)

They are adding them as features to the browser, making it heavier and slower, instead of adding them as optional extensions so that they are only there for the ones who wish them.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago

How do you know the features are making the browser slower?

How are you quantifying the increase in weight?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

Just disable them. It's not like unused code paths consume resources usually.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Maybe they should, but focusing on adding new features endlessly is how we ended up with this state of internet browsers. The most complex app running on a desktop are too big, it's basically impossible to create a new one. (Yes you can fork but that's just adding toppings to ice cream). The browser war ends only one way.

If we break up the do-everything application into significant parts then a healthy "war" can exist. Why does a browser need to play video, you already have an app for that.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I definitely don’t want them to continually add more feature cruft. When I said “focussed on features” I simply meant “make sure what they’ve got is second to none”.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

Agreed, really hoping they stick to refocusing on the browser.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Tab groups how? Bunched up into 1 tab so you can't see anything or are they replacing the Simple Tab Groups extension. And what's different from the current profile manager.

Changes are all well and good until they force me to change my workflows even a little; then technology has gone too far!!!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

And what's different from the current profile manager.

From a usability standpoint, what current profile manager? Having to web search to find out how to open it puts it beyond the reach of most users.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I wish it was harder to find in Gnome, where its right below "New Private Window" in the right-click context menu. I accidentally open it almost every time I try open a private window. Thankfully I don't need private windows as much now that I use the Multi-Account Containers extension.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

wait, really? For me on Windows 11 the launcher right-click literally just has one entry: Firefox. Nothing for recent/frequent/open tabs. Nothing for opening a new tab or window. Nothing for Private. Just that one entry that does the same thing as just clicking the launcher. There's a separate start menu item for private browser window, I could pin that on the taskbar next to the regular launcher.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Here's mine

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Well color me jelly. That's like actually usable and shit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Don't feel too jelly though, the actual profile manager has been in need of some care for a while, now...

...and it's apparently getting it soon! No way they'll hide the button after they polish it up, right? Happy times to come for all, I hope :⁠^⁠)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Might be a Linux thing because I have the same function under KDE as he describes it, which I wasn't even aware of (I don't really use that right click launcher functionality, like ever). Either way, I think opening it should be part of the main menu of the browser and the actual profile manager (not the profile manager page) should also have proper functionalities.

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