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What I'd like to see in a browser is a button which resets it to the UI from Firefox 1.0 [1] OS-provided window border and titlebar Standard menubar with keyb

What I'd like to see in a browser is a button which resets it to the UI from Firefox 1.0 [1] OS-provided window border and titlebar Standard menubar with keyboard hints, always displayed Five buttons: Back, forward, reload, stop, home Address bar and separate search field Status bar which shows me link URL when I hover a link [1] https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/web-design-history/mozilla-firefox-1-0-2004 https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/web-design-history/mozilla-f... Personally, these days I use a keyboard-driven browser without any of that stuff, just the frame, vertical tabs on the right, and a status bar. But for people in my friends and family circle, I think that interface would be infinitely more functional and productive than anything else I've seen.

stkdump 6y ago
Can't imagine anyone being happier nowadays without tabs.
- simongr3dal 6y ago
  Presumably your application would just be creating new windows and your windowing system would take care of displaying it as either tabs or separate windows.
- wtallis 6y ago
  Did you ever use Firefox 1.0? It supported tabs.
- astura 6y ago
  Firefox has had tabs since it was in beta (and called Phoenix); It's the reason I started using it back then (~2002)
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  Tabs were always there since before it was even called Firefox.
dudeinjapan 6y ago
Should drop CSS support while they're at it.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  You can turn off CSS in many browsers. It is under the Accessiblity dialog in IE, at least in 6.x. Firefox also supports disabling CSS in older versions, and so does Opera before the crippling WebKit migration. I can't imagine it being that difficult to implement as a feature. If the setting is on, you would skip interpreting any <style> tags and style= attributes. Past versions of many browsers support selecting between multiple stylesheets specified by the page, as well as provide your own stylesheet to use in place or in addition to the page's stylesheet. (This was one of the main, amazing fucking benefits of CSS, to separate presentation from content, so that users who were hindered by the page's styles could turn it off and still be able to view the content. And all of it works great if you do it right, because the styles cascade, and, I apologize for repeating myself, the content layer is separate from the presentation layer. At some point all these features went away, 'cause fuck accessibility, I guess. Meanwhile, CSS became Turing complete, so security-wise it's like having a second JavaScript which cannot be turned off. Great progress all around. /s When people ask me why I spend time on ensuring that I support older browsers in my projects, this is one of the reasons. Sometimes I just want to use a decent fucking browser that's not been lobotomized, and at least I can do it on my own sites.
  - progman32 6y ago
    Was View -> Page Style -> No Style removed for 86?
    - forgotmypw17 6y ago
      The menu is no longer there, AFAIK. I have not spent much time looking for the feature, to be honest, and I no longer keep Firefox installed except when testing, so I won't look for its existence now. (I usually apt install before testing and apt remove after, because otherwise it often becomes the system default.)
ebegnwgnen 6y ago
Go to Menu -> Customize. Tick "Title Bar" Drag & Drop the "search" widget aside your URL bar Drag & Drop the Five buttons you mention where you want You're welcome. (for the status bar URL link preview on hover it's already the case by default)
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  And have it all reverted at random because well "there seems to be along time since you last used Firefox, do you want to lose all your configurations? Yes. Later."
  - AshamedCaptain 6y ago
    Each time I see that prompt I have to pause and consider the otherwise wacky theory that there evil forces trying to cripple Mozilla from the inside. Why. Just why.
    - forgotmypw17 6y ago
      It's hard to try to come up with another explanation, to be honest. When I try imagine how incompetence can explain everything that's happened with Firefox in the past several years, it feels like I'm going for the gold in the mental gymnastics world championship.
    - marcosdumay 6y ago
      I dunno. Software often have very unintuitive features, like the problem of closing with CTRL-Q on Linux, that looks like a "damn, why did they put it there on the first place", but actually is something GTK does if you follow the guidelines (what goes to show that most software doesn't follow them). My bet is that they were receiving complaints of Firefox breaking due to bad migration of settings between versions, so instead of fixing the migrations, they decided that this user-hostile anti-feature was good enough.
      - forgotmypw17 6y ago
jangid 6y ago
I just want the disconnect button. It used to sit in status bar. I don't want to fetch things when I am reading downloaded articles.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  Remember when browsers would actually cache pages and not reload them every time you accidentally blinked or moved the mouse cursor?
lucideer 6y ago
Everything you listed except for the status bar can be gotten by customising the UI in Firefox (not single-click but pretty easy). On the other hand, if this is the kind of approach to UI you like personally, I think the Vivaldi browser would be up your alley (sadly not open-source though).
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  Sorry, but that is not even close to true, see my other comment describing what doesn't work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26276871 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26276871 Vivaldi is OK, but it's proprietary AFAIK?
  - lucideer 6y ago
    Aha, yes sorry: re: the menubar, I am on a Mac so I didn't realise that wasn't restore-able on other systems. Re: the status bar I had mentioned that, that's unfortunately still missing. Vivaldi is proprietary sadly :'( But it does tick all of your boxes otherwise.

stkdump 6y ago

Can't imagine anyone being happier nowadays without tabs.

simongr3dal 6y ago
Presumably your application would just be creating new windows and your windowing system would take care of displaying it as either tabs or separate windows.
wtallis 6y ago
Did you ever use Firefox 1.0? It supported tabs.
astura 6y ago
Firefox has had tabs since it was in beta (and called Phoenix); It's the reason I started using it back then (~2002)
forgotmypw17 6y ago
Tabs were always there since before it was even called Firefox.

dudeinjapan 6y ago

Should drop CSS support while they're at it.

forgotmypw17 6y ago
You can turn off CSS in many browsers. It is under the Accessiblity dialog in IE, at least in 6.x. Firefox also supports disabling CSS in older versions, and so does Opera before the crippling WebKit migration. I can't imagine it being that difficult to implement as a feature. If the setting is on, you would skip interpreting any <style> tags and style= attributes. Past versions of many browsers support selecting between multiple stylesheets specified by the page, as well as provide your own stylesheet to use in place or in addition to the page's stylesheet. (This was one of the main, amazing fucking benefits of CSS, to separate presentation from content, so that users who were hindered by the page's styles could turn it off and still be able to view the content. And all of it works great if you do it right, because the styles cascade, and, I apologize for repeating myself, the content layer is separate from the presentation layer. At some point all these features went away, 'cause fuck accessibility, I guess. Meanwhile, CSS became Turing complete, so security-wise it's like having a second JavaScript which cannot be turned off. Great progress all around. /s When people ask me why I spend time on ensuring that I support older browsers in my projects, this is one of the reasons. Sometimes I just want to use a decent fucking browser that's not been lobotomized, and at least I can do it on my own sites.
- progman32 6y ago
  Was View -> Page Style -> No Style removed for 86?
  - forgotmypw17 6y ago
    The menu is no longer there, AFAIK. I have not spent much time looking for the feature, to be honest, and I no longer keep Firefox installed except when testing, so I won't look for its existence now. (I usually apt install before testing and apt remove after, because otherwise it often becomes the system default.)

ebegnwgnen 6y ago

Go to Menu -> Customize. Tick "Title Bar" Drag & Drop the "search" widget aside your URL bar Drag & Drop the Five buttons you mention where you want You're welcome. (for the status bar URL link preview on hover it's already the case by default)

marcosdumay 6y ago
And have it all reverted at random because well "there seems to be along time since you last used Firefox, do you want to lose all your configurations? Yes. Later."
- AshamedCaptain 6y ago
  Each time I see that prompt I have to pause and consider the otherwise wacky theory that there evil forces trying to cripple Mozilla from the inside. Why. Just why.
  - forgotmypw17 6y ago
    It's hard to try to come up with another explanation, to be honest. When I try imagine how incompetence can explain everything that's happened with Firefox in the past several years, it feels like I'm going for the gold in the mental gymnastics world championship.
  - marcosdumay 6y ago
    I dunno. Software often have very unintuitive features, like the problem of closing with CTRL-Q on Linux, that looks like a "damn, why did they put it there on the first place", but actually is something GTK does if you follow the guidelines (what goes to show that most software doesn't follow them). My bet is that they were receiving complaints of Firefox breaking due to bad migration of settings between versions, so instead of fixing the migrations, they decided that this user-hostile anti-feature was good enough.
    - forgotmypw17 6y ago

jangid 6y ago

I just want the disconnect button. It used to sit in status bar. I don't want to fetch things when I am reading downloaded articles.

forgotmypw17 6y ago
Remember when browsers would actually cache pages and not reload them every time you accidentally blinked or moved the mouse cursor?

lucideer 6y ago

Everything you listed except for the status bar can be gotten by customising the UI in Firefox (not single-click but pretty easy). On the other hand, if this is the kind of approach to UI you like personally, I think the Vivaldi browser would be up your alley (sadly not open-source though).

forgotmypw17 6y ago
Sorry, but that is not even close to true, see my other comment describing what doesn't work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26276871 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26276871 Vivaldi is OK, but it's proprietary AFAIK?
- lucideer 6y ago
  Aha, yes sorry: re: the menubar, I am on a Mac so I didn't realise that wasn't restore-able on other systems. Re: the status bar I had mentioned that, that's unfortunately still missing. Vivaldi is proprietary sadly :'( But it does tick all of your boxes otherwise.