Firefox Redesign Brings Round Tabs, New Themes, and Compact Mode (theverge.com) 163
Firefox 157 is rolling out a major redesign across desktop and mobile, bringing rounded "bubble" tabs, a curved address bar, refreshed icons and colors, and a more consistent visual language across devices. Mozilla is also adding more themes and wallpapers while bringing back Compact Mode, which the company says "reduces the size of your tabs and toolbar to give more of your screen to the web, with an auto-compact option for smaller screens." The Verge reports: According to Mozilla, the design changes will have "no cost to your browser performance." Mozilla says the overhauled design is a "renewal" for Firefox, following major updates over the last year, like homepage widgets, Split View, a built-in VPN, and controls for disabling the browser's AI features.
Just Updated (Score:2)
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I think the industry needs to just stop changing irrelevant visual elements, I really don't care. They have a couple of nice features like the built in VPN and screen shot tool.
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It's dark mode that's affected. Yes, it's possible to adjust it out. I think it's arrogant of the developers to make an appearance choice like this.
Someone needs to justify their existence.
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It's dark mode that's affected. Yes, it's possible to adjust it out. I think it's arrogant of the developers to make an appearance choice like this.
Agreed. Disable dark theme for private mode: "browser.theme.dark-private-windows" => false
In "user.js"
user_pref("browser.theme.dark-private-windows", false);
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That said, the vast majority of people using dark mode will consider some purple highlights in dark mode far, far less annoying than switching to light mode.
Personally, I prefer most of my "non-content" screen elements to be low-contrast grayscale and, wherever possible, dark grey window backgrounds. Purple is an annoying violation of that preference, but still beats bright white backgrounds and obno
Re:Reinstate Brendan Eich NOW!!! (Score:4, Informative)
Yes it’s quiet a paradox. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Since when are phobias something a person should be punished for?
Re: Reinstate Brendan Eich NOW!!! (Score:2)
When they are afraid of intelligence they should be laughed at
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Religious orders are fine to mock.
And there's the rub, most of the homophobes and transphobes and most of the other phobes in the USA think they're Christians but don't want to love anyone. They got told that homosexuality was wrong by people who want them to make good Christian Soldiers. But the same goes for the other Abrahamic brainwashing victims, and there's no real difference between them.
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I'm waiting to hear you mock Islam next.
You can look at my posting history instead, I don't work for you.
But I didn't ask about religion, did I?
Yeah, you're stupid in a lot of ways.
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If someone is attracted to someone of the same sex or gender, but then are against LGBT+ because they don't want to admit who and/or what they are attracted to, then they don't deserve sympathy. Being against what you actually feel is a sign of someone who will cause problems in the long run.
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And what about someone with strong violent impulses (aka, a bad temper) that they work hard to control? What if such a person becomes a DA and prosecutes murderers (people who failed to control their bad tempers)? By your logic, that is a bad person who is going to cause problems in the long run, not someone who works to protect the public.
Re:Reinstate Brendan Eich NOW!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
The "81% market share" fact is pretty irrelevant
it's not even a fact, firefox never surpassed around 30%. the 80% figure refers to a subset of linux distributions which had firefox as default browser.
seeing as he had only served as CEO for 11 days when he left.
well, he actually co-founded mozilla and served as technology leader for over a decade. besides creating javascript, that is. probably one of the most salient and influential contributors that mozilla will have ever had in its history. after being canceled for his ideology (actually, for donating $3k for a cause of his choosing, which i would assume is everyone's right in a free democracy (cough)) he left and went on his own to create which is arguably one of the best browsers regarding efficiency and privacy available today, while mozilla (and firefox in particular) have become a laughing stock. make of it what you will.
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Creating Javascript is not something to be proud of.
Either way, Firefox's decline has nothing to do with him. It's because Chrome is good. I know, Google steals all your data, but most people just want a browser that is fast and easy to use. If they care about privacy, there are numerous forks to choose from.
I use Firefox, but the compatibility issues and long standing bugs are frustrating. Most people would probably give up, and even I look at new Chrome based browsers to see if moving back is feasible now
Re:Reinstate Brendan Eich NOW!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Creating Javascript is not something to be proud of.
The fact you personally hate it is irrelevant. Creating a language that functionally runs the world around us today is very much something to be proud of.
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He hacked it together in a weekend with little thought. As is often the case, the worst option becomes the de-facto standard. See Markdown for another example.
I thought common Slashdot wisdom was to disable Javascript because only a madman runs unknown code downloaded from the internet on every website he visits.
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He hacked it together in a weekend with little thought.
True (though technically it was over about 10 days, not a weekend), and it's a fantastic story to read about [freecomputerbooks.com] (pdf [acm.org]). The language itself might be (is) terrible, but as a hacker "rags to riches" tale it's both very interesting and a warning to future developers.
take a walk on the wild side ... (Score:2, Informative)
Creating Javascript is not something to be proud of.
i would like to invite you to revisit/challenge/update that preconditioned view watching this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] because it is just plain wrong. (it's a bit dated but still very valid, worth a watch and entertaining. the book and a bit of tinkering would be way better)
I think the lack of uBlock on Chrome will probably keep me here
or ... you could just give mr eich's browser a try? hey, what's that look? X'D
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Brave has betrayed user trust far too many times. They currently offer a paid version that claims not to monetize you, but how can you trust them? Besides, they are not keeping Manifest V2 either, they won't maintain it after Google removes it.
Re:Reinstate Brendan Eich NOW!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
which i would assume is everyone's right in a free democracy (cough)
Everyone's right in a free democracy is to choose whom they associate themselves with. While it may be a dick move, your rights end where other's start. The same applies to speech. You have the right to say what you want as much as your employer has a right to not want to associate with you for what you say.
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He had a right to donate money anywhere he wanted and people had a right to feel any way they wanted about it and act accordingly. No one interfered with his rights. They come with responsibilities. One of those is responsibility for your actions.
Mozilla and Firefox were a joke long before he left so that's clearly not the reason.
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that suggests to me that the problem wasn't really his opinions but him becoming the ceo. unlike a cto, a ceo can actually manage a corporation and change direction in fundamental ways
The only reason anyone even noticed was he became CEO and therefore was subjected to more scrutiny. This is warranted for exactly the reason you describe. It didn't matter as much when he was only CTO, because he didn't have that level of control.
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after being canceled for his ideology (actually, for donating $3k for a cause of his choosing, which i would assume is everyone's right in a free democracy (cough)) .
He employed people from one of the most gay friendly and progressive cities in the country and was shocked when people were upset that he was donating money to lessen their freedoms.
Re:More than a mere Mozilla employee. (Score:5, Informative)
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and Eich created Javascript
Firing wasn't enough. TO THE MINES WITH HIM!
Did they bring back the throbber? (Score:2)
If it doesn't have the throbber, status bar, and big ass buttons at the top like classic Netscape I don't care.
Rounded tabs? (Score:5, Insightful)
These clowns keep finding new ways to waste screen real estate.
Re: Rounded tabs? (Score:3)
They should fire whoever told them this was a good idea and everyone who supported it. Completely backwards. Looks like those people never worked with more than 5 tabs before.
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Can you turn it back to rectangular tabs in tool/settings
I use the portable version and it hasn't been updated yet.
Re: Rounded tabs? (Score:5, Informative)
>"Can you turn it back to rectangular tabs in tool/settings"
I doubt that. And themes only change colors and backgrounds.
But you can make actual changes with Userchrome. It takes a bit of effort, though. I have my tabs square and always outlined and against the content, in a traditional way, using it.
https://www.userchrome.org/ [userchrome.org]
https://github.com/Aris-t2/Cus... [github.com]
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I used to use Userchrome to reorganize the order of context menus and do a few other UI tweaks... until they removed those features.
Now I don't bother. I just use a fork of Firefox.
Re: Rounded tabs? (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, CustomCSS is dead. See announcement:
https://github.com/Aris-t2/Cus... [github.com]
It still worked for me perfectly with the previous Firefox ESR (140.x), but with 153.x I suddelny got my search box (yes I want a separate search box, not automatic search from the url bar!) with double line spacing. No other issues though.
The announcement has a couple of other recommended projects as suggested migration paths.
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Hmm, I hadn't noticed. Why didn't author post something in the main readme? If anyone knows which might be taking the crown, please post... Aris recommends
https://github.com/QNetITQ/Wav... [github.com]
https://github.com/MrOtherGuy/... [github.com]
Anyway, I have Aris-t2's working fine, and yes, with a separate search box, just like you, with every Firefox through now 154. Also tabs on bottom, square tabs, and other stuff. Will update to 157 soon so maybe it will break at that point. I hope not.
Re: Rounded tabs? (Score:5, Informative)
Go to about:config and toggle browser.nova.enabled to false.
I read the Ars interview with one of the guys who worked on this, and he justified it by saying that for broad appeal they need to have a modern looking UI. That may be true, but only if they also have a strong base of speed and compatibility.
He mentioned that they are using AI to help develop things faster, which may be good if it helps catch back up for speed and compatibility. I think what they really need to do is straighten the codebase out and make it easier to build, so that other browsers can adopt it like they have adopted Chromium. I know there are forks, but they are little more than skins and default settings changes.
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I read the Ars interview with one of the guys who worked on this, and he justified it by saying that for broad appeal they need to have a modern looking UI.
Remember when Firefox supported themes? Back when they cared what we wanted?
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You're the third comment implying we can no longer apply (or even make) custom themes, yet the linked announcement bluntly states exactly the opposite and implies they're increasing the number of themes available. Admittedly I run ESR rather than the bleeding edge, but we're only talking six mo
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The problem with Nova is that the themes no longer quite work. For example, the Dark theme is not Dark, it is purple in private mode. Also, the tabs are too round, so I may explore CSS to alter them eventually. They actually have a bit of jaggedness on the curves. I prefer the slight rounded corners of pre-Nova.
Regardless, Dark must work before I will consider Nova, so I will disable it until they fix it.
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Not easily. That's why I use the Floorp fork. They preserve the ability to set the UI to something sane.
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No you cannot, at least I haven't found it.
Your only option is "compact" mode which just crunches it all together.
It looks like I'm using a Mac app in a VM on Windows now.
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If you're posting on slashdot you should be old enough to recognize that designers cycle through the same trends perpetually.
Guess they gotta justify their jobs and salaries somehow... /s
Re: Rounded tabs? (Score:4, Insightful)
THIS !!!! We created a whole new job...UI engineer, but they were not needed to start with and things haven't changed. They HAVE to redo UI every time or they don't have a purpose, imagine that. They make arbitrary changes based on worst taste case.
Re: Rounded tabs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, they were needed around 1980. But in the last few decades they seem to concentrate on making things worse.
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OK you have a point. But I say the last one really needed worked for Xerox at the Parc research facility, and was involved in Xterm.
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>"These clowns keep finding new ways to waste screen real estate."
1) Nothing is larger than before or using more space.
2) They just brought back compact mode, which REDUCES the screen real estate. Turn it on and be happy.
I am OK with people complaining about things, but at least make them valid complaints...
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It's clear from screenshots on this page [mozilla.org] that is not what I am talking about here. I know that nobody RTFAs, but RTFA before you come at me bro
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Agreed. I just watched the video and they've doubled down on the annoying changes they've been making for years now. All that rounding wastes space by definition - a square holds more of squares and circles than a circle holds of circles and squares, if you know what I mean. Why all the rounded corners? Are they afraid users will cut themselves, so they've created the browser equivalent of kiddie scissors?
They've also kept the monochromatic controls bullshit which eliminates colour as a cue for identifying
Worse. Rounded VIEWPORT (Score:2)
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I'm not seeing that. Lots of rounded GUI elements, but the viewport (meaning where the actual web content is displayed) is still a rectangle for me.
I kind of like the new look, but it's /. tradition to shit all over Firefox, so meh.
Re:Worse. Rounded VIEWPORT (Score:4, Insightful)
The rounded parts waste space. They create more visual space which can be helpful for some people who are not using very many tabs. Seriously what we want is better ad blocking, better performance and lower memory use which frankly I am pretty happy about these days anyway so thanks for that Firefox devs, and oh yeah less stuff forced on us! Let us keep a theme. Don't shove AI or Pocket or any other thing in there, make it an extension! Let us just set the scrollbar width with a goddamn slider!
None of this is a lot to ask, in fact we're asking mostly for less which should be easy. Instead they have to prove that they're important by fucking with Firefox. I don't want them to leave their dickprint on the browser. What I would be thankful for, what I would literally pay for, is a light lean browser like it used to be. Take out every damn thing that isn't necessary to the mission of web browsing and make it an addon. And I am not a zealot about it, I'm not talking Javascript here or whatever, I'm talking stuff like Web Developer. I need it on this browser on this machine, it's only just an fkey I might accidentally hit on others, there's no reason to even have it on the machine. Why is it mandatory? That kind of functionality used to be an addon.
TL;DR: Firefox used to be a browser and a platform that you could build on but didn't have to carry around what you weren't using, and I believe it should be again. Is that wrong?
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I don't understand. I'm still on 156.0.1 and my tabs are already rounded? I believe they've been like that for a long time now. How is this new?
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These clowns keep finding new ways to waste screen real estate.
Oval tabs do seem to waste some space, especially on the left/right margins, but I don't know if it's a lot of space.
A more pertinent question is, "How do oval tabs enhance the browser, its usage, and/or actual browsing experience?" 'cause I can't see any real benefit over rectangular tabs -- and the latter is actually more space efficient.
ACKSHUALLY (Score:2)
Re: Rounded tabs? (Score:2)
Has anyone found a way to turn off the GD rounded tabs? I didn't expect Firefox to fuck me over like this.
It's not a phone. You're not poking at little islands with your finger. The stupid round tabs present a smaller target for click and lower accuracy for the User.
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Yes. And thereby they violate the first rule of all good UI design: Screen space is precious. Vertical one even more so.
"Major redesign" (Score:3)
>"Firefox 157 is rolling out a major redesign"
Exactly how is slightly more rounded tabs/address bar and some slightly different icons a "major redesign"? (It isn't). BTW- I hate rounded buttons and tabs, so I use mods to fix that anyway. It isn't new, they have had those rounded for a long time.
Anyway, it is good they brought back compact mode, I could not fathom why it was taken away in the first place.
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A very slight rounding is useful, as it makes the distinction between one tab and another easier to spot. Currently on my Firefox it's done by highlighting the active tab and putting a small icon at the start of the tab...which also wastes space, but differentiates tabs. (OTOH, the tab labels are already slightly rounded, but the "not currently selected tabs" are so greyed out that the tab margins are invisible. Not ideal. And if they do the same thing with the rounded tabs, there will be absolutely no
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This is an instance of the "Big Lie" approach (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie), where when you have some minor changes you claim earth-shattering improvements. Works on many people because people generally have trouble seeing reality.
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Amusingly, that means you're the one engaging in the "big lie", because you're accusing someone of telling a lie too big to be disbelieved. Which is why I say it doesn't actually exist. "The Big Lie" is just a regular lie about someone else telling a whopper.
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You just rediscovered the toddler-level "No, YOU stink!". Congratulations.
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What I am n
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Firefox 157 is rolling out a major redesign"
Exactly how is slightly more rounded tabs/address bar and some slightly different icons a "major redesign"? (It isn't).
Han Solo (Blue Harvest) redesigned it, he's got some maneuvers [youtube.com]. :-)
I wish it was easier to click the title bar (Score:5, Interesting)
At least on macOS, I've increasingly wished I could click the title bar without worrying I am clicking some arbitrary button. Originally title bars intentionally had dead areas so you could easily throw them around. While a compact mode is nice, I feel like it potentially makes this problem worse.
I miss Linux where I could use sloppy focus and disable click to raise so this was a non-issue, but I have been pulled into the mac ecosystem for a while now..
I've considered donating $5 a month to Firefox to suppor the browser, but the only options i see seem to support AI. In japan, you can't pay for relay or the vpn. There is the Mozilla Foundation you can donate to. There is also the option of paying for the MDN pro. As much as people like to pick on FF, people need money to eat and live.
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They keep making changes I don't like, I'm not paying for them to make it worse. If I could pay only for them to make it better somehow I would do that. The performance is fine, the memory use is fine, the reliability is fine, but I really hate everything they are doing around them. If they would sell me the browser I want without all that crap done to it then I would pay for that. Otherwise it's a hard hell no.
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At the same time, I really do like using the title bar as a tab bar. It's a dec
Please just stop already (Score:2, Interesting)
My userChrome is now 237 lines. Every few versions something new gets fucked up and more entries go in. What a waste of time for no reason.
Before I started keeping the css file tabs were so bad they didn't even look like tabs and I literally could not discern which one was active. The rounded everything is so cartoonish. Please just stop.
Too many UX designers with nothing to do (Score:5, Insightful)
so they keep making UI changes for the sake of doing something to justify their existence.
They wasted testing efforts on UI changes that could have used for fixing bugs and improving performance instead. This is an organisational problem of having the wrong talent mix in the team, and management that lacks vision and sense of responsibility to make corrections.
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UX designers don't have anything to do. Standards have been established and nothing has changed enough to warrant new ones. They just keep dicking around in circles because they have low self esteem knowing their job is frosting, and not the good cream cheese kind but the high fructose garbage.
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Yes. People doing meaningless changes to generate work for themselves. Thys typically makes a product worse.
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WHO wants these changes? (Score:2)
Besides the new IT guys?
I absolutely HATE changes in Apps I use daily.
Re:WHO wants these changes? (Score:4, Funny)
Just stop. (Score:5, Interesting)
My windowing system has a theme. One I'm comfortable with. Please use it and stop going off and doing your own kooky thing.
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Na, that would be, IDK, "sane"? "Sane" is not done when you have to hide the absence of any real improvements.
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You're infringing on my software's branding with your theme! AHHHHHHHH
Re:Just stop. (Score:4, Insightful)
My Firefox on Linux has a system title bar which I can double-click to windowshade (just have the titlebar visible, no actual window.) I can click the downarrow button to get the menu that lets me pin the window to all workspaces, or keep it above all other windows.
It has a File / Edit / History / Bookmarks / Profiles / Tools / Help menu below the title bar.
It has square cornered tabs, positioned above the browser window, not above the URL bar.
It has a URL box and a search box - the search box lets you select which search engine to use.
It pays attention to the system theme, so the scrollbars are wide and permanent, and the edge is more than 0.01 pixels wide so I can actually grab and resize the window. (Anybody who likes tiny edges and disappearing UI elements has never had to use these things on remote connections with rescaled windows - it's all too possible for a screen edge to get scaled away completely, or there not being a trigger point to unhide the magic missing scrollbar.)
I'm running MX with XFCE, have the compositor disabled and the GTK NOCSD library installed - that banishes _most_ of the absurd "I wanna make my own window decorations that don't do what _you_ expect!" BS from Firefox and other moronic software UI developers.
Every few FF updates, I have to go get new User Chrome to put the tab bar back where I want it.
All in all, my Firefox window looks and works a lot like Netscape did, which is fine.
At least there's still a bunch of mechanisms in FF to make it work the way I want it to.
- Old man yelling at Clods.
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F-ing troglodyte.
Doing bullshot changes (Score:2)
And calling them "advancement".
Please, make instead FF so slim that it can still run on 10+ yo hardware and display it correctly. Rounded corners are to me just a freaky useless thing. Resource hunger is a serious thing.
You can disable the new look. (Score:3, Informative)
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What do you think how long they keep that switch? They removed even minor convenience features like clickselectsall in the address bar (i.e. disabling that clicking the current URL selects the whole line).
Can we get Apple to sue them? (Score:2)
Doesn't Apple hold the patent on round corners? God I sure as hell hope so.
Funny what counts as "major" these days (Score:2)
Sounds to me like some cosmetic changes and that is it.
Does anyone care? (Score:2)
Seriously, does anyone care about the seemingly hundreds of minuscule UI and/or logo redesign polishes firefox has been doing?? Does anyone even use themes?
Happy with my Firefox (Score:3)
TL;DR: I like my Firefox, it does the job for me across my various devices with no annoying bells and whistles that cannot be easily disabled, nothing changed for me with this update, I am perfectly happy with updates that don't break anything. Don't understand why anything Firefox related seems to always trigger a stream of negative comments on /.
Saw the Firefox article, thought I'd click to check whether comments are as negative as they always seem to be whenever Mozilla does anything, and sure enoug, they are. So I will be that guy who says I'm happy with Firefox, it mostly just works, it syncs nicely between my devices, there is nothing truly annoying that I haven't been able to easily disable, it costs me exactly nothing so value vs cost is amazing, and I get some satisfaction from getting some of my software from an underdog instead of yet again supporting the biggest global megacorporations of the world (not a fanatic, they all get plenty of my money some way or the other). I installed this update people seem to be complaining about - nothing really changed, I dug out the compact option from setting, tried it and realized I could get one more line of text in my main window, realized that currently I liked the default tab size better, and changed it back for now. And after that, I can just get back to work, with a browser that is not getting in my way, and it just works.
I wonder how many of the people who make the constant negative comments about Firefox, are actually Firefox users. If one is so annoyed, one should have switched to an alternative browser by now, there are plenty options out there.
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I use Firefox and am happy with it (I like the plugins and the fact it's not MS or Google) but I can't deny looking at the new screenshots, this new version looks like ass. Didn't designers get the memo that computers shouldn't ape phone design when Windows 8 bombed?
They just HAD to fuck with the colors ! (Score:2)
Maculopathy called., and want solid colors back, no gradients.
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There were some girl artists on staff who needed to make some pretty things.
about: config browser.nova.enabled=false (Score:2)
You're welcome.
Repainting the bike shed on the titanic (Score:2)
Mozilla, Stop Reinventing the UI Wheel (Score:2)
To the point were interactions with desktop environment is compromised.
Please respect the Linux Desktop Environments, whichever they are, all of them, let the Window Manager decorate the Firefox window(s), don't mess with users choices.
No, not being the only one doing that (I see you, Discord, for example) is not an excuse.
We don't want one look & feel per application.
Thankfully it can all be disabled in the browser (Score:2)
For those on Firefox that aren't keen on the new Nova redesign, it can be disabled:
In your address bar, type `about:config`, acknowledge the warning, search for `browser.nova.enabled`, and then set it to false.
IMO, Nova is far too loud; I need my browser UI to be background noise.
Firefox still is not honoring privacy by default (Score:2)
Missed the Compact Mode (Score:2)
That's funny... (Score:2)
I didn't see them put out a post to ask USERS what WE think of the FUCKING CHANGES?
New color gradients are an immediate replace (Score:2)
piled higher and deeper (Score:2)
Oh, no, the last 750 incompatible UI changes were no good. We have to change the UI again, tout de suite.
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The problem with native vertical tabs is, that you need to enable the sidebar revamp, which wastes some horizontal space for the icons to switch between sidebars, which were a simple dropdown in the old implementation.