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Firefox 45 Will Remove Tab Groups Today, Get This Add-on To Replace It (softpedia.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Firefox 45, set to be released today, will remove the Tab Groups feature, a feature that many people used, but Mozilla decided to ask due to buggy code. The good news is that a developer created a perfect replacement for this feature as an add-on. Users that use Tab Groups on a daily basis are urged to install the add-on before upgrading to Firefox 45. The add-on will take over from the browser's Tab Groups feature without any complex configuration. Users that update to Firefox 45 will have their tab groups moved to their Bookmarks as folders, which may be difficult to move back into the Tab Groups add-on later on, especially if some people have hundreds of URLs.
As someone who's used Firefox since way back when it was named "Phoenix," I say that removing anything and everything that isn't strictly necessary (except tabs themselves and support for extensions) is a good thing!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
They promised to remove Extension support several years ago, with some foolish idea that they could drive people to use their "jet" thing. Not only was Jet utter crap, but the outcry at the threat of removing extensions echoed for a long time in their ears. I don't think they have enough remaining customers to make good on that stupid promise again.
The only reason I've remained loyal to Firefox is the extension model works so well. I can live with most of their ugly and awkward UI changes, even though they're all user-unfriendly and I hate everything about them. Extensions have replaced some of the missing needed features they've removed. But the main thing is there is no reason to use any browser that doesn't run NoScript. There's no reason to contact any server of a resource if I have no intention of loading or viewing said resource. And all the major alternatives are worse. Chrome is actively sending browsing habits directly into the world's largest advertising company, and I have no desire to feed that rapacious tiger. Microsoft's old offerings are laughably as insecure as swiss cheese, and their new browser phones home with practically every keypress.
Yes, I could run privoxy, but that's a really awkward approach when compared to NoScript's brilliant rules engine. But if the only choice becomes running through a filtering proxy, then I'm no longer bound to Firefox. May as well use the built in browsers at that point - they're less hassle.
John