5 ms·

Alienating some of your most loyal users whom have spent decades advocating for Firefox has its costs too, and there are always ways to safeguard or hide config

Alienating some of your most loyal users whom have spent decades advocating for Firefox has its costs too, and there are always ways to safeguard or hide configuration options, such as about:config. Personally I wouldn't mind a slight expansion to highlight the search bar, but the current design is crude and over the top, and it has led to usability issues.

kelnos 7y ago
For some balance: As someone who is one of those most loyal users and has been using Mozilla since they were releasing milestones of the app suite after the 1998 open-sourcing, then moving on to Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox... I can say I just don't care about this change. I run beta channel, and it was a weird jarring surprise when I first saw it a month or so ago, but within a few hours I just stopped noticing it, and stopped caring. I just don't get why people end up in arms about such trivial changes to software. Admittedly I used to be like that, to some extent, but at some point I realized this sort of thing doesn't actually affect my life in any meaningful way and so there's no point worrying about it. Change your mindset. This sort of thing is not worth even the tiniest raise in blood pressure. It's a waste of time and energy to even give it a second thought. Doing so provides no value to anyone, especially yourself.
- CabbageRice 7y ago
  If nobody cared about the quality of software we'd still be using internet explorer.
  - sgift 7y ago
    Nothing about this change applies a change in quality. It's the opinion of a few vocal people that this is bad, nothing more.
    - guug 7y ago
      I don't like this change but haven't publicly remarked about it until now. What about the vast majority of people who don't browse hn or haven't been provoked into making their opinions heard? Dismissing opinions you don't agree with as vocal minority won't help you and certainly won't help Mozilla. Mozilla like other companies providing user-centric products must conduct focus groups to see what works and what doesn't. Relying on designers' ideas without proper validation is a recipe for disaster.
- avh02 7y ago
  > but within a few hours I just stopped noticing it, and stopped caring > there's no point worrying about it So continuing that logic, people should not care about, or notice about something mozilla spent time and resources on, and made a risk on. Bad project management IMO then. > Change your mindset why? if it's not worth the frustration, why is it worth the change? I'll admit, I didn't directly notice it immediately, but it felt off. What annoyed me was reading the reasoning - "Focused, clean search experience that's optimized for smaller laptop screens", yeah, I don't want that optimization. This "help you focus" crap (in general, for years) is ridiculous. I like density, but not stupid density. I didn't pay for screen real estate to get "beautiful" whitespace.

kelnos 7y ago

For some balance: As someone who is one of those most loyal users and has been using Mozilla since they were releasing milestones of the app suite after the 1998 open-sourcing, then moving on to Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox... I can say I just don't care about this change. I run beta channel, and it was a weird jarring surprise when I first saw it a month or so ago, but within a few hours I just stopped noticing it, and stopped caring. I just don't get why people end up in arms about such trivial changes to software. Admittedly I used to be like that, to some extent, but at some point I realized this sort of thing doesn't actually affect my life in any meaningful way and so there's no point worrying about it. Change your mindset. This sort of thing is not worth even the tiniest raise in blood pressure. It's a waste of time and energy to even give it a second thought. Doing so provides no value to anyone, especially yourself.

CabbageRice 7y ago
If nobody cared about the quality of software we'd still be using internet explorer.
- sgift 7y ago
  Nothing about this change applies a change in quality. It's the opinion of a few vocal people that this is bad, nothing more.
  - guug 7y ago
    I don't like this change but haven't publicly remarked about it until now. What about the vast majority of people who don't browse hn or haven't been provoked into making their opinions heard? Dismissing opinions you don't agree with as vocal minority won't help you and certainly won't help Mozilla. Mozilla like other companies providing user-centric products must conduct focus groups to see what works and what doesn't. Relying on designers' ideas without proper validation is a recipe for disaster.
avh02 7y ago
> but within a few hours I just stopped noticing it, and stopped caring > there's no point worrying about it So continuing that logic, people should not care about, or notice about something mozilla spent time and resources on, and made a risk on. Bad project management IMO then. > Change your mindset why? if it's not worth the frustration, why is it worth the change? I'll admit, I didn't directly notice it immediately, but it felt off. What annoyed me was reading the reasoning - "Focused, clean search experience that's optimized for smaller laptop screens", yeah, I don't want that optimization. This "help you focus" crap (in general, for years) is ridiculous. I like density, but not stupid density. I didn't pay for screen real estate to get "beautiful" whitespace.