
Firefox Product Roadmap - nachtigall
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Roadmap
======
abhiminator
As a recent Firefox user, I'm super excited about the future evolution of the
browser. I switched to Firefox Quantum after using Chrome as mainstay for over
9 years and I was absolutely BLOWN AWAY by the under-the-hood refinements and
UX enhancements in v57.0 -- could clearly observe the impact of Gecko's
upgraded Servo/Rust components at work.

Noticeable visible differences included page-load performance as well as a
smaller memory footprint relative to Chrome.

Faster WebAssembly[0] starting from v58.0 made the speed optimization more
visible -- it was at this point when I truly fell in love with the browser --
Firefox dethroned Chrome as my default. Add to this the hardened tracking
protection, Greasemonkey's super massive stash of user scripts and values of
the non-profit organization that supports the browser -- Chrome felt so old-
school.

[0] [https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/01/making-webassembly-even-
fa...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/01/making-webassembly-even-faster-
firefoxs-new-streaming-and-tiering-compiler/)

~~~
cptskippy
As someone who has used Firefox as my default browser since it was called
Phoenix, I can tell you that Quantum was a big step backward in terms of
memory consumption and CPU utilization for Firefox.

On a Lenovo T450s sitting idle with 14 tabs across 4 windows, FF is now using
25-100% of the CPU and over 4GB of RAM. When I resume from Hibernation (on
Windows) it can take up to 10 minutes for FF to settle down and for the system
mouse to respond.

If that's an improvement from Chrome, then OMG you poor bastards who use
Chrome as your daily.

FF seems to be fine on more powerful systems but on my lower spec'd laptops
it's just a battery sucking lap warmer.

~~~
Certhas
If you experience a bug like that, report it!

People's mental model (Chrome fast, lean; Firefox slow, bloated) seem to
really not update quickly. When Chrome hangs it's "That's weird, something
must be broken, the website sucks" when it's Firefox "Well further proof the
Firefox is terrible".

For the record, my 2012 MBA, which is probably weaker than your Lenovo, has no
issues with Firefox at all.

~~~
cptskippy
I generally do report it and the bugs are generally addressed in followup
releases of Firefox.

My remarks were not strikes against Firefox's performance, it's stellar, just
that since Quantum it has become a resource hog to achieve that high
performance.

------
TheCoreh
I really like the goals they picked, but wish "Native Look and feel" was also
in there. I use Firefox as my primary browser on Windows, but on the Mac it
still feels significantly non-native. For instance, we're still missing
rubber-band scrolling, Firefox still doesn't set the file attribute that
causes the progress bars to be displayed on the Finder for each file and on
the Downloads stack on the dock, on full screen the toolbar doesn't 'move
down' along with the menu bar when I move my cursor to the top of the screen,
there is still no pinch to zoom, the back/forward trackpad gestures and
checkboxes/radio buttons are not animated, etc.

~~~
robin_reala
If anyone wants to help out with any of those issues the respective bugs are:

Rubber band scrolling:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1124108](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1124108)

Downloads in Finder:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=909760](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=909760)

Toolbar movement in full screen:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=738335](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=738335)

Pinch to zoom:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990)

Animate back gesture: doesn’t seem to be a bug for this.

Animated checkboxes: can’t find a bug for this either.

~~~
ascom
There actually is an animated back gesture, but E10s sort of broke it:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1170032](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1170032)

------
maeln
> Breach Alerts: Breach alerts will inform a user if a site they've visited
> has been breached and will ask if the user wants to have their account
> checked to determine if it was compromised. If it was compromised, some
> helpful information will be presented to the user. (October)

This is very interesting. If Chrome decide to follow the same path it could
give a serious incentive to some website to be more careful about there
security.

The whole "display a warning when login are passed via HTTP" already managed
to create some reaction. It probably won't be a revolution but it might be a
good first step.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
And of course we should be ready for the slew of sites complaining about how
terrible and irresponsible it is to tell users that they've been compromised:)

~~~
ksk
The last thing a business wants is a browser scaring customers away without
cause. But I think they would be OK as long as the list is maintained and is
accurate. Certainly, we should do more to penalize hackers, and not blame the
victims of cyber attacks (as is sometimes the case).

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
> we should do more to penalize hackers

Malicious hacking is already illegal with significant penalties.

> not blame the victims

If the victims failed even basic security measures, I'm quite happy to give
them their share of blame. There have been plenty of reports of exposed
databases with no password protection, places that stored passwords in plain
text, folks running unpatched OSs... You can't just ignore security and
pretend that you're not at fault.

~~~
ksk
>Malicious hacking is already illegal with significant penalties.

Yes, more people should end up in jail.

>If the victims failed even basic security measures, I'm quite happy to give
them their share of blame.

Please detail how you have established that the victims themselves personally
ignored security practices.

>There have been plenty of reports of exposed databases with no password
protection, places that stored passwords in plain text, folks running
unpatched OSs... You can't just ignore security and pretend that you're not at
fault.

You are making broad claims. Remember that the non-technical business
owners/managers/CEOs etc need our help, and they don't need people shaming
them for using vendors or consultants who might have made made mistakes.

------
trzmiel4
I've always loved Firefox. Had to switch to Chrome for stability and resource
consumption, but I did not enjoy being all Google and I did miss numerous
awesome features of Firefox. The awesomebar and dev tools to just name a few.

Went back to Firefox Quantum for a few months. Now I'm back on Chrome for
exactly the same reasons. After hours of active use, Firefox is eating a ton
of RAM and consuming way too much CPU, while also struggling to open any pages
(let alone more complex apps) or downright crashing the apps that were already
running.

Plus, it does not seem to support web calls at all (Google Meet, BlueJeans,
GoToMeeting you name it).

I hate being on Chrome again, and I miss those Firefox features. But I have
work to do, and I just can't have my tools grind to a halt all the time.

~~~
Zardoz84
I'm using all day Firefox for front develop, an I have multiple tabs open. I
don't have any issue of excessive RAM or CPU usage. Even I noticed that Chrome
uses more RAM that FF . The actual instance that I have open to write it, with
16 tabs open, it's using around 300-400MiB and ~5% of CPU.

Also, FireFox for Android runs faster that Chrome (not because FireFox is
faster that Chrome on Android, but because the ad-blocker does a nice work
avoiding to load garbage), and the RAM usage it's keep at bay. I have like ten
tabs on FF for Android and keeps working like if I had one open.

On any case, on Chrome and Firefox you can install a add-on called "Tab
suspender". It allows to save ram, literally suspending tabs that has not been
accesses on some time. Try it.

*edit : grammar

~~~
ilitirit
> Even I noticed that Chrome uses more RAM that FF

Reflects my experience. I use Firefox at work, Chrome at home. Chrome RAM
usage is much higher than FF. Not that I really mind - I have more than enough
RAM to support it. But it often leaves me wondering if some
tab/plugin/extension is misbehaving, which in turn forces me to close all my
tabs only to find that the memory use stays high and the number of Chrome
processes doesn't decrease as expected. I'm considering switching back to
Firefox at home now.

EDIT: OK, tested with Firefox now. Number of process doesn't decrease as I
close tabs either, but memory use is still considerably higher than Chrome.

~~~
sohkamyung
In Firefox, entering about:performance in the URL bar will give you some
statistics on how much memory or CPU each tab is using.

Entering about:about in the URL bar gives you a short list of interesting
about:* links that you can play around.

~~~
Zardoz84
I just saw that I'm using more RAM that I thought, but Tab suspender really
works fine to keep ram usage at bay.

------
pixard
My one issue with Firefox right now is CPU use. On my iMac or on desktop it
doesn't truly matter. But on a MBP no matter how many tabs I have or what I'm
doing the fans never turn on with Chrome. On Firefox they turn on regularly.

I've tested while looking at the activity monitor a bit. Loading random sites
like HN show Firefox spiking to 80-90% CPU while Chrome spikes to 20-30%.

~~~
1k2ka
I have the same issue on my Linux laptop. It seems like Firefox always maxes
out at least one core when loading pages or rendering pages with certain video
codecs. I'm guessing Chrome throttles its performance or maybe it's just more
performant.

------
yagodragon
How much worse than chrome is firefox actually? I use firefox beta on a 500$
laptop with ubuntu mate and i'm more than satisfied with the speed and general
performance. Privacy has been a very hot topic on HN lately (or has always
been) and now i see people complaining over silly little things on firefox
than make them go back to Chrome. How can we complain for the monopoly of
Google Facebook etc, when we can't stand using a very good, competent and open
source product that respects our privacy despite some minor bugs? Is firefox
really so bad that you're willing to give everything to Google?

~~~
Timshel
Sadly not many mentions of privacy in their roadmap (outside of grouping
controls). Things like "container tab" could allow them to really
differentiate from Chrome ...

~~~
mintplant
Did you skim and miss how they plan on blocking intrusive ads and cross-domain
tracking/retargeting by default, and improving the existing tracking
protection functionality? There are certainly more mentions of privacy than
you cite.

~~~
Timshel
Guilty, thank you :). I was hoping to see it higher.

------
childintime
This feature already out (v59) caught my eye: "When we detect that disk IO may
be slow, we send a network request in parallel, and we use the first response
that comes back. For users with slow spinning disks and a low latency network,
the result would be faster loads".

Wow, the browser is giving up on the OS. What madness given that typical W10
PC's with 2GB RAM (with the disk spinning in vain) have only two apps open:
the browser and its adversary, the AV. Heck 4GB isn't comfortable anymore with
several tabs open.

------
maufl
Can we maybe instead of/additional to a new Mozilla password manager get an
API with which existing password managers can integrate with Firefox?

~~~
luhn
Doesn't that exist already? I'm happily using 1Password with Firefox.

~~~
logic
The hoops a password manager has to jump through to get halfway decent
integration into a browser is basically begging for security vulnerabilities.
Seriously, just look at how much JavaScript is riding behind webextensions
like LastPass, KeePassRPC, Bitwarden, etc. It's staggering.

I dont have any interest in using Lockbox; I already have a self-hosted open-
source password management solution (Bitwarden, in my case, but that's just an
implementation detail) that works for much more than just my web browser,
which means I'm way more interested in hearing how Mozilla plans to make this
kind of integration smoother and less error-prone.

I need to sync passwords for apps on my phone, for desktop apps that aren't
web browsers (and for multiple browsers on several platforms), and Mozilla's
one-off reinvention of existing software and protocols for their singular use
cases is just xkcd'ing the problem, sadly.

------
alinhan
For Firefox to gain market share, it needs to target the average Joe, which I
think they are trying. But in order to do that, it's not enough to make it
work better than Chrome when you have 40 tabs open (less memory and CPU
usage), they should also try to have the clean interface that Chrome has, or
even cleaner, right after the installation.

Take the toolbar, for example: After installation it has all that unused space
on the left and right sides of the address bar. This is probably to encourage
customizations to it, but Joe doesn't care about that.

And then there are so many things on the toolbar that shouldn't be there. I
think they should be hidden behind the sandwich menu, as the power users will
know to add to the toolbar the ones that they need, and Joe wouldn't be
overwhelmed by them.

Only these things should be present on the toolbar: back button, forward
button, reload button (maybe), a home button - only if a home page was set, a
clean omnibar, and the sandwich button.

Instead, even after trying to remove as much as I can from the toolbar, I
still have: a non clean omnibar (two icons on its left end that seem to come
from different universes, and too many things on it's right end - there should
only be a dropdown button for the history at this end) and a more tools
button. I counted and in total on the omnibar and the toolbar I have 4 buttons
for "more stuff", instead of two (one dropdown for the history and the
sandwich menu).

But I do think they are on the right track. I personally switched to Firefox
from Chrome less than a year ago, and I'm not going back. Thank you, Mozilla,
for all the good work that you did on Firefox!

------
k__
I switched to Firefox recently (with v57 or something) and I'm impressed, it
really feels much faster than Chrome.

But they need to get all videos working. It feels to me that it's a 50:50
chance to play a video.

On Android the startup is faster than with Chrome too, but the scrolling feels
rather sluggish, so I still prefer Chrome here.

~~~
clouddrover
> _But they need to get all videos working. It feels to me that it 's a 50:50
> chance to play a video._

Videos generally work for me in Firefox. The only videos that don't work for
me are from sites that are still (and only) using Flash because I don't have
Flash installed.

What's an example of a video that doesn't work for you?

~~~
k__
Flash videos work. FF asks me if it should start Flash for it.

Some "html5" videos on Facebook and Twitter don't work.

~~~
clouddrover
I rarely look at videos on Facebook but all the Twitter videos (or GIFs which
they convert to H.264 video) I've seen have worked in Firefox. Do you have a
link to a Twitter video that doesn't work for you in Firefox? If these videos
are somehow different from normal then I'd find it a useful test case for an
application I wrote which makes use of Twitter video.

------
majewsky
Does anyone know if WebRender will become available as a crate for other Rust
applications to use? I will be working on a text-heavy GUI application later
this year and WebRender looks like a good fit feature-wise.

~~~
dochtman
You can probably just pull it from GitHub:

[https://github.com/servo/webrender](https://github.com/servo/webrender)

(Cargo lets you specify Git repos for dependencies.)

~~~
majewsky
Sure, but an unreleased crate is not likely to make any commitments wrt API
stability etc.

~~~
zaarn
The Github Repo contains 3 releases as of now.

Just because it has no release on crates.io doesn't mean it's unreleased or
unstable. Crates.io is just one way to get your crates.

------
mkj
Boo, looks like osx keychain integration will still languish
([https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=106400](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=106400)
Reported 17 years ago).

I'm puzzled what Lockbox is mean to do. [https://mozilla-
lockbox.github.io/lockbox-extension/faqs/](https://mozilla-
lockbox.github.io/lockbox-extension/faqs/)

    
    
      What’s the difference between Lockbox and the Firefox password manager?
      newer encryption than what is offered with password manager
    

AES256-GCM, HMAC SHA-256, eh, sounds fairly run of the mill?

~~~
gruez
>Boo, looks like osx keychain integration will still languish

probably because it wouldn't work with sync on linux/windows/android

> eh, sounds fairly run of the mill?

would you have preferred them to use some cutting edge cipher instead?

~~~
mkj
I can't see why they couldn't sync with linux/windows/android as well as
storing the entries in OSX keychain.

"run of the mill" is me taking a lazy jab at their description of advantages
of Lockbox - they need to make a whole new product just to use the standard
cipher/auth you'd expect them to be using anyway? I assume there might be more
to it, but their product page doesn't really explain much.

------
Vinnl
What's interesting is that the Mobile section doesn't mention Firefox for
Android at all? Given that both Firefox Klar and Firefox Focus are mentioned,
which I thought were different names for the same product, I'm probably
misunderstanding something. Anyone who can clear that up for me?

~~~
opencl
Klar and Focus are indeed the same thing, something about a trademark dispute
in Germany over the name Focus. Whoever wrote the article seems to have been
slightly confused about this.

I think Firefox for Android didn't get mentioned just because most of the
desktop improvements apply equally to the Android version and they don't have
much mobile-specific stuff planned. Meanwhile Focus/Klar is an entirely
different codebase that is getting some new features.

~~~
Fej
But Quantum still hasn't come to Android?

~~~
NoGravitas
Firefox for Android has been using Quantum for some time. It's just that they
haven't switched Focus over to using it (it currently uses an Android
WebView).

------
gkya
> Global permissions management: Permission prompts, especially for
> notifications, have gotten out of control and users must deny them
> individually at every site that offers them. Firefox will provide users with
> a way to disable permission prompts globally for Location, Camera,
> Microphone, and Notifications. (Firefox 59)

THANK YOU! I hope this will stop the notification boxes implemented in JS too.
Using the web has become a whack-a-mole game with each website requiring me to
tell it off ten times unitl I can get to the content.

~~~
mikelward
I would gladly disable notification prompts. A number of sites I rarely visit
show them. There's a reason I visit them rarely, and it's not because I forget
to!

But camera and microphone? They seem useful for Skype, Hangouts, and other
opt-in use cases. Are people seeing those prompts so much they're annoyed by
them? What's the mechanism to opt back in for selected sites?

~~~
gkya
Notifications are the most frequent offenders, in my experience, and it's
followed by the Location one. It seems to me that they'll provide four
individual settings one for each permission in order to optionally globally
disable the relative one. I don't think it's going to be one button to kill
them all though. I'll disable cam, mic and notifications, but I do share my
location to some websites very occasionally.

~~~
mikelward
Yeah. But it looks like the way it works is you say "Don't ask again" on e.g.
microphone, then there's no good way to deal with some new site where you
actually want to use your mic.

I guess the site can detect the permission denial. But making the website show
browser-specific instructions for how to disable the global opt-out seems
really suboptimal. The browser is where browser-specific specific UI belongs!

~~~
gkya
Well I hope they'll add a way to whitelist for that. It's unfortunate that we
need whitelists and blacklists for everything. As an irrelevant rant, I can
say that I miss xombrero so much. It was so nice being able to have all your
browser config in a couple files, in plain text. These days I'm waiting to see
if the Next browser will become a viable option.

------
kibwen
For those curious about the progress of Pathfinder (WebRender's GPU-based font
and vector graphics rasterizer), this month's Bay Area Rust meetup featured a
talk and live demo from pcwalton: [https://air.mozilla.org/rust-bay-area-meet-
up-march-2018/](https://air.mozilla.org/rust-bay-area-meet-up-march-2018/)

------
megous
I'm excited for WebAuthentication. That's probably the only thing that will
push me to implement something new and significantly valuable for my apps this
year based on web platform improvements.

------
dark_ph0enix
No mention of u2f. Is it because it's already available on the build (via
about:config) or because they are not focusing on it at all this year?

~~~
dochtman
I think it is effectively part of/superseded by Web Authentication, which is
mentioned and links to:

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/mozilla.dev.platform/t...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/mozilla.dev.platform/tsevyqfBHLE/lccldWNNBwAJ)

First sentence in that thread is "Web Authentication is backward compatible
with FIDO U2F second-factor tokens, and also supports more advanced
capabilities in future FIDO 2.0 devices."

~~~
dark_ph0enix
Yup, just came to edit my comment after reading the Web Authentication bit,
guess will leave it if anyone has the same question.

~~~
Shoothe
Yes, WebAuthentication will supersede U2F and it's backward compatible
(meaning you can use your Yubikeys, but the API is different).

------
AnarchistNode7
To what for a price..

The new Firefox mainly caters to simple users. Mozilla has abandoned their
feature rich concept to appeal only to Chrome users.

Mozilla's only goal today is becoming number one in marketshare and beat
Google no matter what. Even if that means they alienate every single power
user.

I do not at all agree with that. That is a pure simple betrayal - exchanging
their origin user base against Chrome users. Opera did that too.

The issue is, there is already an over-simplistic browser - Chrome. And only a
minority of Chrome users will switch over to Firefox - the hope to absorb the
majority of the Chrome user base will not work out for Mozilla.

They should have kept the features for the nerds and geeks inside. You know,
there is something which is called honesty and dignity. This is for what we
from Anonymous are standing for and what we are valuing.

And it is disgusting to see that an Open Source organization throws all of
that over board just to become mainstream compatible.

------
rsuelzer
I have tried to use Firefox but I keep ending up back on Chrome. It's because
I am lazy and I have been sucked into the convience of Google's password
manager. Also because many of the developer extensions I use aren't on Firefox
(Apollo Dev tools). I think Firefox is great, I should make the switch.

------
ergo14
I can't wait for webcomponents to land in stable.

------
adambware
Biggest issue for me switching to Firefox is the DevTools. "Undo" does not
work for CSS changes in DevTools! Tried to submit a bug for this but it was
misunderstood and dismissed. Hoping this might be fixed by the 3-Panel
Inspector...

------
sv12l
great choices, but I'm little disappointed seeing 0 results while searching
for 'battery' as my Mac-book battery last longer on Safari than Firefox.

~~~
muizelaar
Fixing
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1429522](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1429522)
should bring a noticeable improvement here and should happen in 2018.

~~~
sv12l
Sorry, how does "Avoid using a transparent window by using CoreAnimation"
improves battery life?

~~~
yoklov
Less compositing necessary, among other things

------
Spiritus
I don’t care about any of that. Just add swipe animations when moving
forward/backward in history already!

------
ksec
Most of these features started in 2016 / 2017\. So 2018 really is shipping
those stable.

But what about Servo? As in the parsing and layering part? Last time the test
we had 10x speed difference compared to Gecko.

WebRendr is GPU / Nvidia limited? I though PCwalton said it will also be a
Software Render too.

~~~
sp332
Servo is a rendering engine and Firefox has no plans to include it.

~~~
forapurpose
AFAIK: Servo is an experimental browser with many components, including a web
rendering engine. Some parts of Servo already are migrated to Firefox, mostly
in the Quantum release last fall.

~~~
sp332
Hey, sorry about the nonsensical comment yesterday. I was pretty much asleep
and didn't really need to start an argument over nothing.

~~~
forapurpose
Thanks for being so thoughtful, but no problem. I honestly didn't realize I
was involved in an argument.

------
roryisok
> by blocking the worst content and more clearly communicating the privacy and
> other protections the browser offers.

I really hope this includes the likes of outbrain, taboola and similar
clickbait garbage that pollutes far too many blogs these days

------
knodi
I recently moved from Chrome to Firefox 57 on both Mobile and Desktop. The
only grip i have with it is that i hope it can get a good with device battery
as safari is.

------
cesnja
I'm just sad that proper keyboard API for a better Vimperator/Pentadactyl
successor seems to have been silently dropped.

~~~
CorpusCalcium
Isn't that what this bug is mostly about?
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215061](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215061)

~~~
cesnja
Seems like it. But just compare how vocal the "we intend to support
vimperator-like functionality" message used to be before version 57, and how
silent everything has been since.

~~~
CorpusCalcium
I honestly don't remember the actual message from Mozilla varying much over
the past two years when it comes to Vimperator-needed APIs. But then I don't
remember _anyone_ doing much to get things figured out on that front, so a
lack of progress is hardly surprising to me.

------
wst_
Video auto play blocking! I can't wait to have that feature. I hope it'll be
there on mobile version as well.

~~~
Lev1a
You're able to activate that feature right now.

\- open about:config.

\- type "autoplay" into the search bar at the top of the page.

There should be two options there:

"media.autoplay.enabled" and "media.block-autoplay-until-in-foreground"

What these options do _should_ be rather self-explanatory.

EDIT: damn markdown formatting

------
anameaname
> QUIC (aka HTTP/3)

Why focus on QUIC when the JS APIs to use it aren't available? Numerous of the
features of HTTP/2 aren't usable (i.e. trailers, flow control, security
sensitive headers, priority, etc.).

I don't understand how the web is supposed to flourish without giving web
developers _some_ kind of access to these tools. Meanwhile, app developers are
showered with such goodies.

~~~
dochtman
I'm not sure how you come to this conclusion, or what you mean? As I
understand it, QUIC is a transport layer for the HTTP application-level
protocol, so I would guess that pretty much all of the JS-exposed APIs are
equally applicable.

~~~
Shoothe
I guess they mean _extra_ API that utilize stuff that's in HTTP/2 but not in
HTTP/1.1.

------
pjmlp
Looking forward to web components, ES6 modules and shapes path editor.

------
markdog12
Anyone know if/when WebRender will be testable on Android?

------
throwaway84742
No easily switchable, fully isolated profiles a-la Chrome, no default zoom
support without installing an add on (handy on 4K displays). Epic fail. Better
luck next year, Mozilla.

------
fwgwgwgch
Given how neutral Firefox is I wish they didn't create new stuff when good
open community developed alternatives are available. I'm referring to lockbox.
It would be better id this was an extension to keepass or a fork that read the
same file format

------
Grue3
>Ctrl+F "tab groups"

>Phrase not found

Guess I'm still staying on v56...

~~~
oblio
Tab Groups isn't in v56 either. What you're looking for is actually there, at
least most of it:

> More Extension APIs: Firefox extensions will become more capable with
> additional features for tab management and organization, including a full
> implementation of Tab Hiding (61)

Once you can hide tabs, you can basically have tab groups.

~~~
mintplant
This is in fact the explicit motivator for the addition of this API.

------
a_imho
_Filter certain types of ads by default: Firefox will offer users a simple ad
filtering option. We 're in the early stages still, researching types of
advertisements that should be blocked by default. (Q3)_

Come on, do the right thing for once and put the user first.

~~~
Lev1a
There ARE some types of non-intrusive ads (read: unnoticed unless specifically
searched for) like little ribbons with text and maybe a link, like on [Troy
Hunts blog]([https://www.troyhunt.com/](https://www.troyhunt.com/)) or small
non-animated banners like the ones on StackOverflow.

The ones everyone (except the ad networks) wants blocked by default are the
intrusive ones, like video ads auto-playing loud BS or the ones where you
scroll or move the cursor and some <div> or something pops up, darkens the
rest of the site and annoys the reader with some pathetic bid to "subscribe to
our page" etc.

~~~
a_imho
I completely disagree, non-intrusive ('acceptable' etc) ads don't exist, no
matter how hard this concept is pushed, period.

Nevertheless, pretending Mozilla is not receiving funds from Google (who is
already trying to force their standards through Chrome / Coalition for Better
Ads) is intellectually dishonest.

Block all ads, let the user white list, that is the pro user approach. Should
have been done years ago.

------
thriftwy
It's sad that browser UI improvements came to an end.

A number of innovative browsers never gained traction, and when mainstream
ones try to improve UI it gets considerably worse.

Every new browser has a short runway of new awesome ideas and then it's
stagnant for decades.

~~~
realusername
The UI of Firefox improved greatly, just remember how the old preferences
screen looked like before.

~~~
einr
I remember when it used to look like a nice, compact native dialog box*
instead of a full-screen, space-wasting abomination that follows no standards
for anything.

But consistency, visual coherency, discoverability and predictability are
apparently all outmoded concepts in UI design, so opinions like mine -- that
native applications should look and feel like native applications -- don't
seem to be worth much among the cool crowd nowadays.

* [https://winaero.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/firefox-...](https://winaero.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/firefox-38-restore-old-preferences.png)

~~~
jakecopp
I disagree with you on this particular point, but in a wider scope I think
you're spot on - it seems so little thought is given to the very basics of UI
design.

iTunes is the classic example!

