5 ms·

Firefox 57: new Photon design screenshots

56 points by anaxag0ras 9y ago

uwu 9y ago
it's looking more and more like chrome i'm not a fan of the wasted space around the centered but not-wide-enough url bar (urls are truncated even in the screenshots) the rest seems decent though it says the screenshots are mockups so i hope they improve
- abrowne 9y ago
  > i'm not a fan of the wasted space around the centered but not-wide-enough url bar (urls are truncated even in the screenshots) Somewhere previously I saw a mockup screenshot that showed customizing the toolbar, and the URL bar was flanked by flexible placeholders that could be removed. Removing them would also let you have the URL bar be left-aligned instead of centered.
- plorkyeran 9y ago
  Photon is significantly less like Chrome than Australis.
  - kibwen 9y ago
    As far as I can tell, among technical commentators, there is a one-dimensional spectrum of browser UI design: on the one end is Chrome, and on the other is Netscape Navigator 3. Because this does not look particularly like Netscape Navigator 3, by definition it must be Chrome-like. :)
lostmsu 9y ago
IMHO, Firefox needs to focus on performance now. There's nothing wrong with the 'old' UI. It is performance that made me move to Chrome.
- kuschku 9y ago
  This is part of that. The old UI required an antiquated, single-threaded, XML based widget system. The new UI is a clean rewrite, which allows them to drop all that old, slow code from Firefox.
- kibwen 9y ago
  Yes, performance, stability, and security are the primary goals of the quantum initiative. I suppose they figure that such a disruptive change might as well warrant a new UI while they're at it.
- sergiotapia 9y ago
  Try Brave to get a taste of what browsing used to feel like. Just ridiculously fast. It's so fast it "feels" fake, hard to explain. Try it.
  - dstaley 9y ago
    Brave is built with the same rendering engine and JavaScript engine as Chrome (Blink and V8). I think the speed increase is probably due to the built-in ad blocker.
  - JohnTHaller 9y ago
    A fresh Chrome install with no extensions + uBlock will give you the same performance as Brave as evidenced from every independent test I've seen online. That's what Brave is. Chromium + custom theme + adblocker - extension support. You can get similar performance from Firefox now with a fresh install + uBlock + turning on Electrolysis.
- dralley 9y ago
  Yes, this is part of those efforts. The UI redesign and performance projects are part of a cross-functional group working on making Firefox faster. They've talked about how part of the reason for square tabs is that they're much faster to draw for example. Weekly newsletters about the "Quantum Flow" performance project here: https://ehsanakhgari.org/blog/2017-03-09/quantum-flow-engineering-newsletter-1 https://ehsanakhgari.org/blog/2017-03-09/quantum-flow-engine...
abrowne 9y ago
Live mockups here (found via a link in Bugzilla; I don't know how accurate they are, but S[tephen] Horlander is a Mozilla designer): https://people-mozilla.org/~shorlander/projects/photon/Mockups/ https://people-mozilla.org/~shorlander/projects/photon/Mocku...
- Vinnl 9y ago
  That actually feels pretty good, and gives a far better impression than the static screenshots. Thanks for sharing!
- quadrige 9y ago
  Looks really nice
- kibwen 9y ago
  Oh, is Stephen Horlander back at Mozilla? I'd be happy to hear it, I thought that he had left a few years back.
- nachtigall 9y ago
  And here are some first images for Photon on Android: https://www.soeren-hentzschel.at/firefox-android/erste-bilder-und-videos-zu-photon-fuer-android/ https://www.soeren-hentzschel.at/firefox-android/erste-bilde... (article is in German, but the images will do ;)
- therein 9y ago
  What are they using for these mockups? I really enjoyed being able to show them in different desktop environments.
whatnotests 9y ago
The design looks great - I look forward to other improvements to follow suit (performance, plugin architecture, security, etc).
sorenjan 9y ago
Where's the search bar? I use that more than the URL bar, doesn't mean I don't want a URL bar too. Classic Theme Restorer will stop working when Mozilla goes web extensions only, and now this?
- Dunedan 9y ago
  I stopped using the search bar long ago in favor of using "smart keywords" (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-search-from-address-bar https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-search-from-address...) in the urlbar. Maybe that's an option for you as well.
  - Brakenshire 9y ago
    I make DuckDuckGo my principal search engine, then use !bang syntax in the url/awesome bar.
- Karunamon 9y ago
  I'm probably the biggest critic of Mozilla's godawful UI, but this is mostly acceptable. Really the only gripe I see here is that the URL bar isn't the full width of the page for some reason. What remains to be seen is what happens to their user count once all the plugins get broken. That will impact a lot more people more dramatically than whatever UI fad they cook up.
  - sorenjan 9y ago
    The main reason they plan to break all old plugins are because of performance issues. They will probably lose some users, but they might gain others if they make Firefox sufficiently smoother and/or less memory hungry than Chrome. I use several plugins that won't work and I'm not happy about it at all, but what's the alternative?
    - Karunamon 9y ago
      Chrome. Mozilla's basically asking their user base to use a worse browser for some amount of time, during which they will have absolutely no tangible benefits over Chrome. They're not faster right now (judging by nightlies), they won't be faster on day one. Firefox's current advantage is its addon system. It's losing a lot of functionality there. Once that goes away, what's left? And is that "what's left" better than the competition?
felixer 9y ago
Mozilla needs to stop messing with the UI and removing functionality. From removing a lot of UI customization, to requiring extension signing, forcing PulseAudio on Linux and now removing the search bar. Congratulations Mozilla, it's Chrome. I'm not sure who they're catering to anymore. People that like Chrome, but don't want to use it? Edit: it looks very different than Chrome, but I feel like they're constantly copying (removing) functionality
- kuschku 9y ago
  They’re messing with the UI because the current UI still uses XUL (an antiquated XML based widget toolkit with lots of bugs, slow performance, and the cause of many Firefox issues). This new UI is entirely HTML – allowing the browser to be a lot faster. > to requiring extension signing That’s to prevent the vast majority of Firefox users from getting auto-installed toolbars. > forcing PulseAudio on Linux You’re free to maintain the Firefox ALSA backend, which less than 1% of Linux users use, and which no one was willing to continue maintaining.
  - dralley 9y ago
    >This new UI is entirely HTML – allowing the browser to be a lot faster. No, that is definitely not true. The rewrite is, however, part of an effort to make the UI something which can be represented in HTML easily, and they may be working on making as much of it HTML as possible, but bits of the UI will be XUL for a long time to come.
- felixer 9y ago
  If they don't kill VimFX and Tree Style Tabs, I might still stick around because the competition is pretty weak. FireFox without audio pretty much sucks though.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
    Tree Style Tabs won't work with WebExtensions unless some new features get added to that framework.
Brakenshire 9y ago
Anyone know what's going on with the icons in the top left of the first screenshot? Or on this mockup posted by abrowne below: https://people-mozilla.org/~shorlander/projects/photon/Mockups/linux.html https://people-mozilla.org/~shorlander/projects/photon/Mocku... Would be quite useful to have an area like that for web apps. The browser could apply a heuristic similar to that used by Chrome for the 'pin to home screen' (a website that fulfills the PWA guidelines, and is used repeatedly), which would then be pinned to the new tab page, and when they are open go to that area at the top left. Or something. But, anyone know what it's actually used for?
- abrowne 9y ago
  Pinned tabs, with a notification for new activity?
  - Brakenshire 9y ago
    Ah, yes, just found that this already exists in firefox. Is it new?
    - abrowne 9y ago
      Not particularly, I can't remember it not being there.
      - notatoad 9y ago
        IIRC it came about during the last big redesign, australis.
      - Brakenshire 9y ago
        Ah, right, thanks, just never stumbled across it.
Artlav 9y ago
Not again... We can't we just summarily execute all designers? It would save so much diffuse suffering.
abrowne 9y ago
Tagentially, since Fx 57 will also kill legacy extensions like Htitle¹, I'm glad CSD (tabs in the titlebar) on Linux is showing some recent activity: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1283299 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1283299 1: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/htitle/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/htitle/
- kuschku 9y ago
  They’re going to go even more GTK centric? That might actually drive me off, tbh. I don’t want to rewrite my GTK themes all the time, just because GTK loves breaking the API. I don’t want to patch every version of Firefox manually to at least use Qt’s file and print dialogs.
  - abrowne 9y ago
    Firefox already (ab)uses GTK+. Tabs in the titlebar will be optional.
    - kuschku 9y ago
      It’s not about tabs in the titlebar being optional – in fact, I want them – but Qt’s API for that is still in development, and GTK’s CSD is probably the worst possible implementation of that feature. And yes, every day Firefox continues using GTK or even adding any more integration is a bad day.
      - abrowne 9y ago
        Fair enough – I certainly wouldn't mind a Qt version of Firefox – but as a user of GTK+-based desktops – lately mostly MATE, but also Xfce and sometimes GNOME – I like Firefox's GTK+ integration
Animats 9y ago
I'm still annoyed at Mozilla for killing off Jetpack. They told developers that was the long-term path. I haven't decided whether to update my add-ons or end-of-life them. Usage has declined in proportion to Firefox usage.
sweden 9y ago
People are so worried in moving buttons around and making things blue while calling it a redesign and here I am, just wishing for native horizontal tree style tabs in Firefox.
appleflaxen 9y ago
Someone on HN posted the spec-ulation talk by Rich Hickey recently [1]. I found it really persuasive, with the fundamental point being: when you update your software in an incompatible way, you shouldn't bump the "major version" number; you should rename it. I hope the firefox devs consider this approach. Firefox has great name recognition, but it will be a deficit if users learn that it is a name that means breakage. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyLBGkS5ICk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyLBGkS5ICk
Magnets 9y ago
They keep messing around with the UI and changing it so often while also breaking extensions. If you remove those features why wouldn't I just use chrome? It's faster and has more consistent usability
pbuzbee 9y ago
For me, Firefox's customizability is its biggest advantage. When this update rolls out and breaks many extensions and complete themes, I'm not sure what reason I'll have to choose Firefox over Chrome.
johnnydoebk 9y ago
Overall I like it but the short centered URL bar, unused space around it, and trimmed URL are terrible.
mrspeaker 9y ago
I've been loving the "minimized" tab theme that shipped recently (I can't remember what it's called - I can never find the "themes" stuff for Firefox... not prefs, not sure where you set it) - but one issue with it is you can't drag the window around by clicking a tab. I see they've addressed that by adding a few pixels above the tab now. I think this is a good idea, but I hope it means they've reduced the vertical size of a tab too: otherwise all the vertical-space gain is lost. People here are complaining "stop changing the UI", but web browsers are our main interface to everything... and they are feeling very 90s - I welcome any efforts to do something different or updated! One thing that I think would be interesting to try is to treat the browser as only the header by default: it doesn't have a "height". When you start the browser it's 80px high, and the window only shows after you load a tab. The landing pages seem like a waste/unnecessary to me. Annnyhooo.
Grue3 9y ago
Looks like an EDGE ripoff. Why is there space to the left of pinned tabs and to the left of URL field? Is it used for something? I have no unused space in my Firefox UI right now, so this seems wasteful. The only thing I like is that they moved bookmarks star back into the awesome bar. The current "joint bookmarks button" is the ugliest piece of UI I've ever seen.
- kibwen 9y ago
  > to the left of pinned tabs Presumably to allow one to click on the title bar, which the tabs otherwise occupy. The same gap exists in today's Firefox; when the window is maximized, I can slam my cursor into the upper-left corner and see that it's not hovering over a tab.
- ssdfe 9y ago
  It's really weird how for a long time stuff looked like Chrome with everything getting the smooth corners everywhere and then they gave the Developer Edition theme which had angles everywhere and now we get the Edge/Chrome all-in-one treatment. If I didn't know any better, I'd think Firefox is just throwing different UIs at a wall and seeing what sticks.
jazoom 9y ago
I might give it another look if they finally use native scroll behaviour in Android.
zcyzcy88 9y ago
Fucked again. No one can stop Mozilla make Firefox more like Chrome.
IE6 9y ago
I'd prefer to see firefox attempt to disrupt the browser UI landscape somehow (in the same way tabs-in-the-browser did way back when) than see them just copy another design. Firefox decided it wanted to look like Chrome and now it's deciding it wants to look like Edge.
frik 9y ago
The page constantly re-renders on mobile - worst "responsive design" coded in JS ever seen. Firefox market share is in free fall for months. Sad, but no wonder. They don't care about users. Support the old API as long you call your browser "Firefox". Fire all your "designer" that mess around with the UI - they habe too many off them, they are bored and change the look way too often. I removed the update service, and use Firefox only for local development and reverted back to the old Firebug. I would be interested in Servo plus an HTML based UI from them - but I don't wait for them, it see,s it will take 2+ more years for a useable version. I would have assumed the support the current Firefox with XUL until then, but without old API support and without XUL support, there is no reason for Firefox anymore. Chrome and Safari are far ahead.

56 points by anaxag0ras 9y ago

uwu 9y ago

it's looking more and more like chrome i'm not a fan of the wasted space around the centered but not-wide-enough url bar (urls are truncated even in the screenshots) the rest seems decent though it says the screenshots are mockups so i hope they improve

abrowne 9y ago
> i'm not a fan of the wasted space around the centered but not-wide-enough url bar (urls are truncated even in the screenshots) Somewhere previously I saw a mockup screenshot that showed customizing the toolbar, and the URL bar was flanked by flexible placeholders that could be removed. Removing them would also let you have the URL bar be left-aligned instead of centered.
plorkyeran 9y ago
Photon is significantly less like Chrome than Australis.
- kibwen 9y ago
  As far as I can tell, among technical commentators, there is a one-dimensional spectrum of browser UI design: on the one end is Chrome, and on the other is Netscape Navigator 3. Because this does not look particularly like Netscape Navigator 3, by definition it must be Chrome-like. :)

lostmsu 9y ago

IMHO, Firefox needs to focus on performance now. There's nothing wrong with the 'old' UI. It is performance that made me move to Chrome.

kuschku 9y ago
This is part of that. The old UI required an antiquated, single-threaded, XML based widget system. The new UI is a clean rewrite, which allows them to drop all that old, slow code from Firefox.
kibwen 9y ago
Yes, performance, stability, and security are the primary goals of the quantum initiative. I suppose they figure that such a disruptive change might as well warrant a new UI while they're at it.
sergiotapia 9y ago
Try Brave to get a taste of what browsing used to feel like. Just ridiculously fast. It's so fast it "feels" fake, hard to explain. Try it.
- dstaley 9y ago
  Brave is built with the same rendering engine and JavaScript engine as Chrome (Blink and V8). I think the speed increase is probably due to the built-in ad blocker.
- JohnTHaller 9y ago
  A fresh Chrome install with no extensions + uBlock will give you the same performance as Brave as evidenced from every independent test I've seen online. That's what Brave is. Chromium + custom theme + adblocker - extension support. You can get similar performance from Firefox now with a fresh install + uBlock + turning on Electrolysis.
dralley 9y ago
Yes, this is part of those efforts. The UI redesign and performance projects are part of a cross-functional group working on making Firefox faster. They've talked about how part of the reason for square tabs is that they're much faster to draw for example. Weekly newsletters about the "Quantum Flow" performance project here: https://ehsanakhgari.org/blog/2017-03-09/quantum-flow-engineering-newsletter-1 https://ehsanakhgari.org/blog/2017-03-09/quantum-flow-engine...

abrowne 9y ago

Live mockups here (found via a link in Bugzilla; I don't know how accurate they are, but S[tephen] Horlander is a Mozilla designer): https://people-mozilla.org/~shorlander/projects/photon/Mockups/ https://people-mozilla.org/~shorlander/projects/photon/Mocku...

Vinnl 9y ago
That actually feels pretty good, and gives a far better impression than the static screenshots. Thanks for sharing!
quadrige 9y ago
Looks really nice
kibwen 9y ago
Oh, is Stephen Horlander back at Mozilla? I'd be happy to hear it, I thought that he had left a few years back.
nachtigall 9y ago
And here are some first images for Photon on Android: https://www.soeren-hentzschel.at/firefox-android/erste-bilder-und-videos-zu-photon-fuer-android/ https://www.soeren-hentzschel.at/firefox-android/erste-bilde... (article is in German, but the images will do ;)
therein 9y ago
What are they using for these mockups? I really enjoyed being able to show them in different desktop environments.

whatnotests 9y ago

The design looks great - I look forward to other improvements to follow suit (performance, plugin architecture, security, etc).

sorenjan 9y ago

Where's the search bar? I use that more than the URL bar, doesn't mean I don't want a URL bar too. Classic Theme Restorer will stop working when Mozilla goes web extensions only, and now this?

Dunedan 9y ago
I stopped using the search bar long ago in favor of using "smart keywords" (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-search-from-address-bar https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-search-from-address...) in the urlbar. Maybe that's an option for you as well.
- Brakenshire 9y ago
  I make DuckDuckGo my principal search engine, then use !bang syntax in the url/awesome bar.
Karunamon 9y ago
I'm probably the biggest critic of Mozilla's godawful UI, but this is mostly acceptable. Really the only gripe I see here is that the URL bar isn't the full width of the page for some reason. What remains to be seen is what happens to their user count once all the plugins get broken. That will impact a lot more people more dramatically than whatever UI fad they cook up.
- sorenjan 9y ago
  The main reason they plan to break all old plugins are because of performance issues. They will probably lose some users, but they might gain others if they make Firefox sufficiently smoother and/or less memory hungry than Chrome. I use several plugins that won't work and I'm not happy about it at all, but what's the alternative?
  - Karunamon 9y ago
    Chrome. Mozilla's basically asking their user base to use a worse browser for some amount of time, during which they will have absolutely no tangible benefits over Chrome. They're not faster right now (judging by nightlies), they won't be faster on day one. Firefox's current advantage is its addon system. It's losing a lot of functionality there. Once that goes away, what's left? And is that "what's left" better than the competition?

felixer 9y ago

Mozilla needs to stop messing with the UI and removing functionality. From removing a lot of UI customization, to requiring extension signing, forcing PulseAudio on Linux and now removing the search bar. Congratulations Mozilla, it's Chrome. I'm not sure who they're catering to anymore. People that like Chrome, but don't want to use it? Edit: it looks very different than Chrome, but I feel like they're constantly copying (removing) functionality

kuschku 9y ago
They’re messing with the UI because the current UI still uses XUL (an antiquated XML based widget toolkit with lots of bugs, slow performance, and the cause of many Firefox issues). This new UI is entirely HTML – allowing the browser to be a lot faster. > to requiring extension signing That’s to prevent the vast majority of Firefox users from getting auto-installed toolbars. > forcing PulseAudio on Linux You’re free to maintain the Firefox ALSA backend, which less than 1% of Linux users use, and which no one was willing to continue maintaining.
- dralley 9y ago
  >This new UI is entirely HTML – allowing the browser to be a lot faster. No, that is definitely not true. The rewrite is, however, part of an effort to make the UI something which can be represented in HTML easily, and they may be working on making as much of it HTML as possible, but bits of the UI will be XUL for a long time to come.
felixer 9y ago
If they don't kill VimFX and Tree Style Tabs, I might still stick around because the competition is pretty weak. FireFox without audio pretty much sucks though.
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
  Tree Style Tabs won't work with WebExtensions unless some new features get added to that framework.

Brakenshire 9y ago

Anyone know what's going on with the icons in the top left of the first screenshot? Or on this mockup posted by abrowne below: https://people-mozilla.org/~shorlander/projects/photon/Mockups/linux.html https://people-mozilla.org/~shorlander/projects/photon/Mocku... Would be quite useful to have an area like that for web apps. The browser could apply a heuristic similar to that used by Chrome for the 'pin to home screen' (a website that fulfills the PWA guidelines, and is used repeatedly), which would then be pinned to the new tab page, and when they are open go to that area at the top left. Or something. But, anyone know what it's actually used for?

abrowne 9y ago
Pinned tabs, with a notification for new activity?
- Brakenshire 9y ago
  Ah, yes, just found that this already exists in firefox. Is it new?
  - abrowne 9y ago
    Not particularly, I can't remember it not being there.
    - notatoad 9y ago
      IIRC it came about during the last big redesign, australis.
    - Brakenshire 9y ago
      Ah, right, thanks, just never stumbled across it.

Artlav 9y ago

Not again... We can't we just summarily execute all designers? It would save so much diffuse suffering.

abrowne 9y ago

Tagentially, since Fx 57 will also kill legacy extensions like Htitle¹, I'm glad CSD (tabs in the titlebar) on Linux is showing some recent activity: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1283299 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1283299 1: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/htitle/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/htitle/

kuschku 9y ago
They’re going to go even more GTK centric? That might actually drive me off, tbh. I don’t want to rewrite my GTK themes all the time, just because GTK loves breaking the API. I don’t want to patch every version of Firefox manually to at least use Qt’s file and print dialogs.
- abrowne 9y ago
  Firefox already (ab)uses GTK+. Tabs in the titlebar will be optional.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    It’s not about tabs in the titlebar being optional – in fact, I want them – but Qt’s API for that is still in development, and GTK’s CSD is probably the worst possible implementation of that feature. And yes, every day Firefox continues using GTK or even adding any more integration is a bad day.
    - abrowne 9y ago
      Fair enough – I certainly wouldn't mind a Qt version of Firefox – but as a user of GTK+-based desktops – lately mostly MATE, but also Xfce and sometimes GNOME – I like Firefox's GTK+ integration

Animats 9y ago

I'm still annoyed at Mozilla for killing off Jetpack. They told developers that was the long-term path. I haven't decided whether to update my add-ons or end-of-life them. Usage has declined in proportion to Firefox usage.

sweden 9y ago

People are so worried in moving buttons around and making things blue while calling it a redesign and here I am, just wishing for native horizontal tree style tabs in Firefox.

appleflaxen 9y ago

Someone on HN posted the spec-ulation talk by Rich Hickey recently [1]. I found it really persuasive, with the fundamental point being: when you update your software in an incompatible way, you shouldn't bump the "major version" number; you should rename it. I hope the firefox devs consider this approach. Firefox has great name recognition, but it will be a deficit if users learn that it is a name that means breakage. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyLBGkS5ICk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyLBGkS5ICk

Magnets 9y ago

They keep messing around with the UI and changing it so often while also breaking extensions. If you remove those features why wouldn't I just use chrome? It's faster and has more consistent usability

pbuzbee 9y ago

For me, Firefox's customizability is its biggest advantage. When this update rolls out and breaks many extensions and complete themes, I'm not sure what reason I'll have to choose Firefox over Chrome.

johnnydoebk 9y ago

Overall I like it but the short centered URL bar, unused space around it, and trimmed URL are terrible.

mrspeaker 9y ago

I've been loving the "minimized" tab theme that shipped recently (I can't remember what it's called - I can never find the "themes" stuff for Firefox... not prefs, not sure where you set it) - but one issue with it is you can't drag the window around by clicking a tab. I see they've addressed that by adding a few pixels above the tab now. I think this is a good idea, but I hope it means they've reduced the vertical size of a tab too: otherwise all the vertical-space gain is lost. People here are complaining "stop changing the UI", but web browsers are our main interface to everything... and they are feeling very 90s - I welcome any efforts to do something different or updated! One thing that I think would be interesting to try is to treat the browser as only the header by default: it doesn't have a "height". When you start the browser it's 80px high, and the window only shows after you load a tab. The landing pages seem like a waste/unnecessary to me. Annnyhooo.

Grue3 9y ago

Looks like an EDGE ripoff. Why is there space to the left of pinned tabs and to the left of URL field? Is it used for something? I have no unused space in my Firefox UI right now, so this seems wasteful. The only thing I like is that they moved bookmarks star back into the awesome bar. The current "joint bookmarks button" is the ugliest piece of UI I've ever seen.

kibwen 9y ago
> to the left of pinned tabs Presumably to allow one to click on the title bar, which the tabs otherwise occupy. The same gap exists in today's Firefox; when the window is maximized, I can slam my cursor into the upper-left corner and see that it's not hovering over a tab.
ssdfe 9y ago
It's really weird how for a long time stuff looked like Chrome with everything getting the smooth corners everywhere and then they gave the Developer Edition theme which had angles everywhere and now we get the Edge/Chrome all-in-one treatment. If I didn't know any better, I'd think Firefox is just throwing different UIs at a wall and seeing what sticks.

jazoom 9y ago

I might give it another look if they finally use native scroll behaviour in Android.

zcyzcy88 9y ago

Fucked again. No one can stop Mozilla make Firefox more like Chrome.

IE6 9y ago

I'd prefer to see firefox attempt to disrupt the browser UI landscape somehow (in the same way tabs-in-the-browser did way back when) than see them just copy another design. Firefox decided it wanted to look like Chrome and now it's deciding it wants to look like Edge.

frik 9y ago

The page constantly re-renders on mobile - worst "responsive design" coded in JS ever seen. Firefox market share is in free fall for months. Sad, but no wonder. They don't care about users. Support the old API as long you call your browser "Firefox". Fire all your "designer" that mess around with the UI - they habe too many off them, they are bored and change the look way too often. I removed the update service, and use Firefox only for local development and reverted back to the old Firebug. I would be interested in Servo plus an HTML based UI from them - but I don't wait for them, it see,s it will take 2+ more years for a useable version. I would have assumed the support the current Firefox with XUL until then, but without old API support and without XUL support, there is no reason for Firefox anymore. Chrome and Safari are far ahead.