5 ms·

This is me exactly. I can't stand the UI in FF. It seems to change too much and it's ugly. There are probably plugins to help with that, but I haven't invested

by vlunkr 11y ago

This is me exactly. I can't stand the UI in FF. It seems to change too much and it's ugly. There are probably plugins to help with that, but I haven't invested the time to look into it. It's also hard to kick the Chrome dev tools.

sawwit 11y ago
How is FF ugly? I don't find the UI very different from Chrome and Safari.
- cptskippy 11y ago
  I don't get how he thinks it's ugly or different. Not only is it very similar but, unlike Chrome or Safari, every aspect of it is customizable so you can make it look however you want. Out of the box you can rearrange the the UI elements to match Chrome or Safari.
  - swozey 11y ago
    I absolutely hate the FF UI. I WANT to use FF, I actually switched a few months ago and did it for a couple of months. I THINK my problem (I say think because I feel like someone will measure the pixel and say I'm wrong) is that it feels like there is a ton of wasted space between the tabs, above the tabs. etc. I can't control the size of the top bars and they're huge compared to chrome. I'm a fan of tiny icons and very, very compact UIs so that I can get more on the screen at once. Here's my comparison on a 28" monitor https://www.dropbox.com/s/k32gln7s3ev5a7t/Screenshot%202016-01-27%2010.51.41.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/k32gln7s3ev5a7t/Screenshot%202016-...
    - sawwit 11y ago
      Perhaps give Tree Style Tabs on FF a try.
    - JupiterMoon 11y ago
      Hang on the chrome UI at the top takes up a couple of mm more vertically than the FF one. What other differences are there?
    - cpeterso 11y ago
      You might try the "Custom Tab Width" add-on to shrink your Firefox tabs. I also like to set my toolbar bookmarks' names to an empty string, so my toolbar is just a bunch of bookmark favicons. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/custom-tab-width/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/custom-tab-wi...
    - noir_lord 11y ago
      For me it's the other way around, I use FF for everything but dev sessions where I use Chrome (I prefer it's dev tools). I tried breaking the habit for a while but I ended up opening FF all the time by muscle memory.
    - Tiksi 11y ago
      Plugins can get you a very compact ui: http://paste.click/XfPZOR http://paste.click/XfPZOR I'm also a fan of minimal as possible.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- coldtea 11y ago
  It's quite different, and because of XUL it also falls in the uncanny valley of looking like native widgets but not behaving exactly like them.
- corv 11y ago
  I'd say FF Developer Edition has the best UI out of all of them. Nothing fits better next to a terminal window or a code editor.
- wahsd 11y ago
  I don't know what it is, but I agree. There is something subtly and subconsciously going on that nudges me away from FF too. I think it's the loose feeling UI, the default smiley face icon of the chat that I don't know anyone uses, the paper airplane as the share icon. It's that there is still not unified search/address bar even if one would prefer it without running a poorly executed extension. It's that the tabs feel so childish with the far too rounded corners and loose padding and it's even the few pixels more of padding between the address bar and the tabs boundary. It's the small font of the address bar, it's the disproportionately large back button, it's the apparent lack of design and style requirements for extension icons that make them look blurry and generally shitty and bolted on in the UI, etc. I know that all that maybe sounds rather petty and maybe there's something wrong with me and it's my biases for some reason, but it just all adds up to a fuzzy notion of childishness and less than "down to business" feel. I say that as someone that used to exclusively use FF and shunned Chrome for all the various reasons mentioned by others.
  - sawwit 11y ago
    Care to list those reasons. Genuinely interested, and not sure which reasons you are referring to.
martinczerwi 11y ago
For UI check out Firefox Dev Edition, clean and classy alternative. And the dev tools take some time, but they're likeable for sure.
- Callmenorm 11y ago
  The problem I have with FF dev tools is that json responses are hideous, just one long string. Where Chrome's look like json with expandable fields.
  - martinczerwi 11y ago
    In the network panel (in FF), I have a structured view on JSON data, and can expand nested objects and arrays (like here https://mdn.mozillademos.org/files/7421/nm-response-json.png https://mdn.mozillademos.org/files/7421/nm-response-json.png). Same goes for JS objects, which is a thing that bugged me long time.
zbjornson 11y ago
How can you live without FF's 3D DOM view?! More seriously, FF's dev tools have felt more advanced than Chrome's for a while, including the ability to edit and resend an XHR request.
- vlunkr 11y ago
  The 3D DOM view is really neat, but so far I haven't found a practical use for it.
macNchz 11y ago
Not all that different these days. http://imgur.com/qII55SM http://imgur.com/qII55SM The new FF UI has been out and stable for nearly two years now.
- fredley 11y ago
  I'm assuming there's an extension to merge the URL and search bars to get Chrome-like behaviour?
  - macNchz 11y ago
    Yes you can enable search suggestions in the URL bar right in the Firefox preferences and hide the separate search box. I keep them separate because I don't care to have everything I type in the URL bar be sent to Google by default.
    - sawwit 11y ago
      Exactly. The divide between address bar and search bar is a much under-appreciated privacy feature.
  - ripdog 11y ago
    Omnibar is what you're looking for.
- ProAm 11y ago
  FF changes the UI very frequently. Even the last update from 42 to 43 had changes. I love FF and its my only browser but this is one of the most irritating things they do. Maintaining a standard UI is a must to retaining users (and keeping them upgrading).
- wahsd 11y ago
  I think you are underestimating the impact of the subtle nature of the differences. For me, it really kind of annoys me that FF seems to have a looser UI than Chrome. It's those couple of pixels of padding between address bar and tabs, it's the wider/longer tab due to padding, etc.. And now that I think about it, it's even things like the tab behavior where Chrome condenses tabs and FF just pushes them out of view an adds the disgusting scroll UI. Maybe that's a personal preference thing, but I would very much prefer having a dense overview rather than having what is essentially a nested scrolling.

by vlunkr 11y ago

sawwit 11y ago

How is FF ugly? I don't find the UI very different from Chrome and Safari.

cptskippy 11y ago
I don't get how he thinks it's ugly or different. Not only is it very similar but, unlike Chrome or Safari, every aspect of it is customizable so you can make it look however you want. Out of the box you can rearrange the the UI elements to match Chrome or Safari.
- swozey 11y ago
  I absolutely hate the FF UI. I WANT to use FF, I actually switched a few months ago and did it for a couple of months. I THINK my problem (I say think because I feel like someone will measure the pixel and say I'm wrong) is that it feels like there is a ton of wasted space between the tabs, above the tabs. etc. I can't control the size of the top bars and they're huge compared to chrome. I'm a fan of tiny icons and very, very compact UIs so that I can get more on the screen at once. Here's my comparison on a 28" monitor https://www.dropbox.com/s/k32gln7s3ev5a7t/Screenshot%202016-01-27%2010.51.41.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/k32gln7s3ev5a7t/Screenshot%202016-...
  - sawwit 11y ago
    Perhaps give Tree Style Tabs on FF a try.
  - JupiterMoon 11y ago
    Hang on the chrome UI at the top takes up a couple of mm more vertically than the FF one. What other differences are there?
  - cpeterso 11y ago
    You might try the "Custom Tab Width" add-on to shrink your Firefox tabs. I also like to set my toolbar bookmarks' names to an empty string, so my toolbar is just a bunch of bookmark favicons. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/custom-tab-width/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/custom-tab-wi...
  - noir_lord 11y ago
    For me it's the other way around, I use FF for everything but dev sessions where I use Chrome (I prefer it's dev tools). I tried breaking the habit for a while but I ended up opening FF all the time by muscle memory.
  - Tiksi 11y ago
    Plugins can get you a very compact ui: http://paste.click/XfPZOR http://paste.click/XfPZOR I'm also a fan of minimal as possible.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
coldtea 11y ago
It's quite different, and because of XUL it also falls in the uncanny valley of looking like native widgets but not behaving exactly like them.
corv 11y ago
I'd say FF Developer Edition has the best UI out of all of them. Nothing fits better next to a terminal window or a code editor.
wahsd 11y ago
I don't know what it is, but I agree. There is something subtly and subconsciously going on that nudges me away from FF too. I think it's the loose feeling UI, the default smiley face icon of the chat that I don't know anyone uses, the paper airplane as the share icon. It's that there is still not unified search/address bar even if one would prefer it without running a poorly executed extension. It's that the tabs feel so childish with the far too rounded corners and loose padding and it's even the few pixels more of padding between the address bar and the tabs boundary. It's the small font of the address bar, it's the disproportionately large back button, it's the apparent lack of design and style requirements for extension icons that make them look blurry and generally shitty and bolted on in the UI, etc. I know that all that maybe sounds rather petty and maybe there's something wrong with me and it's my biases for some reason, but it just all adds up to a fuzzy notion of childishness and less than "down to business" feel. I say that as someone that used to exclusively use FF and shunned Chrome for all the various reasons mentioned by others.
- sawwit 11y ago
  Care to list those reasons. Genuinely interested, and not sure which reasons you are referring to.

martinczerwi 11y ago

For UI check out Firefox Dev Edition, clean and classy alternative. And the dev tools take some time, but they're likeable for sure.

Callmenorm 11y ago
The problem I have with FF dev tools is that json responses are hideous, just one long string. Where Chrome's look like json with expandable fields.
- martinczerwi 11y ago
  In the network panel (in FF), I have a structured view on JSON data, and can expand nested objects and arrays (like here https://mdn.mozillademos.org/files/7421/nm-response-json.png https://mdn.mozillademos.org/files/7421/nm-response-json.png). Same goes for JS objects, which is a thing that bugged me long time.

zbjornson 11y ago

How can you live without FF's 3D DOM view?! More seriously, FF's dev tools have felt more advanced than Chrome's for a while, including the ability to edit and resend an XHR request.

vlunkr 11y ago
The 3D DOM view is really neat, but so far I haven't found a practical use for it.

macNchz 11y ago

Not all that different these days. http://imgur.com/qII55SM http://imgur.com/qII55SM The new FF UI has been out and stable for nearly two years now.

fredley 11y ago
I'm assuming there's an extension to merge the URL and search bars to get Chrome-like behaviour?
- macNchz 11y ago
  Yes you can enable search suggestions in the URL bar right in the Firefox preferences and hide the separate search box. I keep them separate because I don't care to have everything I type in the URL bar be sent to Google by default.
  - sawwit 11y ago
    Exactly. The divide between address bar and search bar is a much under-appreciated privacy feature.
- ripdog 11y ago
  Omnibar is what you're looking for.
ProAm 11y ago
FF changes the UI very frequently. Even the last update from 42 to 43 had changes. I love FF and its my only browser but this is one of the most irritating things they do. Maintaining a standard UI is a must to retaining users (and keeping them upgrading).
wahsd 11y ago
I think you are underestimating the impact of the subtle nature of the differences. For me, it really kind of annoys me that FF seems to have a looser UI than Chrome. It's those couple of pixels of padding between address bar and tabs, it's the wider/longer tab due to padding, etc.. And now that I think about it, it's even things like the tab behavior where Chrome condenses tabs and FF just pushes them out of view an adds the disgusting scroll UI. Maybe that's a personal preference thing, but I would very much prefer having a dense overview rather than having what is essentially a nested scrolling.