[jwells89]

Usually when people call a feature bloat it’s because its presence, resource consumption, etc is too great relative to its value and utility to users or it’s not particularly relevant.

I’d hesitate to call something like optional compact UI metrics “bloat”. To me the term is better applied to e.g. features associated with only tangentially related services or something running in the background sucking up CPU cycles for little user benefit… basically the modern Microsoft playbook.

[stevage]

For Firefox the classic example is Pocket.

[arboles]

Code bloat is not that obscure of a thing. I think a decent portion of people realize that a program with features upon features is stretched too thin to meet users' needs in high quality, or in a timely fashion, especially if they paid $0 for it.

Don't get me wrong. When Firefox removes a feature, often it's not out the concern of bloat to be able to serve existing users better, but to shift resources for the next revamp that will make the browser ever more "modern", to claw for a new userbase.

[asadotzler]

All features require maintenance as code around them and through them changes with time. Feature bloat is very often code bloat and maintaining code costs money, especially 20 million lines of it. When a module owner sees an opportunity to improve their module by removing low-use features that are built on code that's a challenge to maintain, that's a good thing for the long term health of the code base and the features it provides and the app they make up.

[account42]

And that's why all backup software should remove the restore feature, right?

[asadotzler]

no.