Firefox 4.0 Starts Losing Features, Account Manager First to Go

Mozilla has started slimming down the next major iteration of Firefox in order to make the release deadline set for Octobers or November 2010.

The browser vendor did indicate last week that it was considering dropping some of the features proposed for Firefox 4.0 in order to wrap up and release the successor of Firefox 3.6 by the end of 2010.

The first feature to go is Account Manager. Mozilla confirmed on August 31st that Firefox 4.0 will ship without Account Manager.

“The Account Manager makes it incredibly easy for users to create new accounts with optional randomly generated passwords, and log into and out of them with just a click,” revealed Mozilla’s Dan Mills, back in April 2010.

“As a web developer, adding support for this feature could take as little as fifteen minutes of hacking."

“We want to make signing into websites easier for all Firefox users, and are looking to ship this feature as soon as possible in Firefox,” he added.

However, additional Firefox 4.0 features have been deemed at risk, according to the browser vendor.

The fate of silent updates on Windows, Inspector and Web Console also hangs in the balance.

The reason why Mozilla announced that Account Manager won’t be making it into the final version of Firefox 4.0 is that the browser vendor is gearing up for the feature free milestone of the version 4.0’s development process.

Initially planned for Firefox 4.0 Beta 5, feature freeze was postponed to September 10th, with Mozilla still needing some time to figure out whether it can deliver all the features announced or not.

For the time being Switch to Tab, Extension Manager, Notification UI, App Tabs, Tab Candy and the new user interface (UI) all seem to be safe, and on track for delivery in Firefox 4.0.

Mozilla already provided early adopters with the Candidate release of Firefox 4.0 Beta 5 (a nightly release) and is preparing to offer testers at least two additional Betas.

Firefox 4.0 Beta 4 for Windows is available for download here.

Firefox 4.0 Beta 4 for Mac OS X is available for download here.

Firefox 4.0 Beta 4 for Linux is available for download here.