[vaadu]

Shoving more bloated code into my browser is hardly a good thing. Firefox needs to stay focused on 4 things: speed, security, standards, stability

Chrome has done this and thrived. I still use Firefox for the extensions and the fact that Google can not be trusted.

[reubenmorais]

That's a very conflicting message. You don't want "bloated code", but you use Firefox for its extensions. You think browsers should focus on 4 things, but one of the main factors keeping you away from Chrome is not in that list.

[HelloMcFly]

I prefer to pick and choose which code to add to the "bloat" rather than having all of it prepackaged for me.

[Zoomla]

Chrome also thrives because so many people use Google's search engine and they keep telling you to install Chrome...

[OvidNaso]

I do wonder, in the early days of Chrome, how many people downloaded Firefox, did their first search with the default search engine, then downloaded Chrome.

[Zoomla]

This is an interesting question that Google can probably answer, but I would guess that most people don't download it on the first ad impression.

[tuxracer]

People are forgetting Firefox's roots. Mozilla's original browser included an XMPP IM client, IRC client, email client, and (oh yeah) browser. It was a slow bloated mess. The whole point of Firefox was to be a lean single-purpose app and let add-ons fill other needs on a case-by-case basis. People like the author of this article are basically asking Firefox to coalesce back into what it was split off from in the first place.

[emn13]

Do you believe the old mozilla suite had more code than FF does today?

Complexity isn't easy, but it's not that black and white. Just because the first time round it didn't work out so well doesn't mean it won't this time; especially since the circumstances are so very different.

In any case, things like personas are supported, but most of the complexity isn't in the browser; new functionality doesn't need to be tightly coupled to the browser - just exposed.

I actually think the problem isn't so much on the software side, it's organizational: trying to do too many things at once means making sacrifices.

[forteller]

As the author I have to disagree. All I'm asking is that they make the Free/Open Atom and RSS feeds work at least as good as the streams in Facebook does, and that they implement chat.

First one: That only needs to switch the Feed button to a "Like" button that subscribes you to the feed in one click. Then it needs to change the "new tab" page from a speed dial to a stream of those feeds. This stream could be hosted in the cloud (probably it should, to be available anywhere), and so would not add any bloat.

The chat I understand can be seen as bloat. But still, it's just one function, not those hoards of functions that the original Mozilla suite had.

And the point here is that it's really important to make people less dependent on Facebook, to pave the way for other initiatives and efforts to create another chip in the Facebook wall, and then some others another chip, etc. until the wall finally comes crashing down. IMO that's so important that one extra function, adding a little bloat, is well worth it.