Mozilla wants to remove some functionality from Firefox to make the browser leaner and faster. The first features that are planned to be removed are 'Tab Groups' and 'Complete' or 'Heavyweight' Themes.
The decision is part of Mozilla's 'Go Faster' initiative which should improve the performance of the Firefox browser. By removing 'Tab Groups' and 'Complete Themes' the first steps are made, according to Venturebeat. The website found out about the changes in Mozilla's bug tracker, Bugzilla. In ticket 122250 the Firefox developers report that the Tab Groups feature will be removed. The feature allowed multiple tabs to be visually summarized and allowed users to switch between multiple groups.
"Tab Groups was an experiment to help users deal with large numbers of tabs", according to Firefox lead developer Dave Camp in a statement against Venturebeat. The feature costs too much development time and only a limited number of users actually use it.
Ticket 1222546 reveals that Mozilla will also remove 'Complete Themes' from the browser. Mozilla plans to completely abolish the heavy themes which rely on the company's proprietary description language XUL. "We are exploring ways to enhance theme support in Firefox so that we provide the functionality of complete themes our users want in a way that is simpler to develop and maintain", according to Camp.
