Mozilla lays off 60 team members as it scales back product development

Mozilla, the home of the Firefox web browser and other software products, is cutting back on several project developments. As a result, the non-profit company is also laying off 60 team members, or about 5 percent of its total workforce.

TechCrunch reports that one of the projects that will see an investment reduction will be its Online Footprint Scrubber feature, which was introduced just a week ago as part of its Mozilla Monitor Plus service. It will also be reducing its efforts for its VPN Relay products and services.

In addition, Mozilla stated in a memo sent to its remaining employees that it will slowly wind down the development of the Hubs virtual world services that it launched a few years ago. Mozilla added it will "communicate a graceful exit plan to customers" at some point, but there's no word on when that might happen.

The memo also stated the company would scale back its Mozilla.social service that it launched in 2023 in collaboration with Mastodon. Finally, the company will merge its Pocket, Content, and its AI/ML teams into the Firefox Organization.

In a statement sent to Bloomberg (via Yahoo), a spokesperson said that with these changes, Mozilla will "prioritize resources against products like Firefox Mobile, where there's a significant opportunity to grow and establish a better model for the industry."

Mozilla's Firefox browser remains its most popular software product. The organization recently launched version 122, which added improvements to its built-in translation feature and search suggestions.

Mozilla is also home to the Thunderbird email client. In July 2023, Mozilla began a major revamp of the app, renaming it to Thunderbird Supernova, with a new Card video for messages, a new toolbar, and even a new logo, among other changes.

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