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Their video on the front page contradicts itself. They highlight the UI coded by "user interaction" and no surprise, the Pocket button in the URL bar has tiny u

Their video on the front page contradicts itself. They highlight the UI coded by "user interaction" and no surprise, the Pocket button in the URL bar has tiny usage. And yet, in the new design? It's bigger and more prominent. And they try to say this is data-driven in the voice-over. Now, yet again, I'll have to just pin Firefox and stop updating it everywhere for a few months until the inevitable "undo all these changes" plugins are ready. Update: Just tried the new design. As expected, the new tabs take up substantial vertical space and even compact mode (now hidden behind about:config) barely helps. Time for more userChrome.css...

0xy 5y ago
Consider yourself lucky there isn't a giant banner ad for Mr Robot in the title bar. Mozilla's CEO really needs another pay rise for overseeing plummeting product market share.
alanbernstein 5y ago
Also "remove clicks" and "remove clutter" are directly contradictory... I want to be able to configure my browser to minimize clicks FOR ME, and I'm ok with having a lot of "clutter" i.e. functionality.
mrweasel 5y ago
The new tabs also look nothing like tabs. It’s now a button bar. It looks great, but it’s not really an inprovement and is clearly designed on a large monitor.
- jansan 5y ago
  They will go back to the conventional tab design, I am pretty sure about this. Tabs should look like they look in Chrome, not like in Firefox or VSCode. Tab design has pretty much been settled in the 90s, no need for experiments.
  - ComputerGuru 5y ago
    It takes a lot to convince UI designers to admit they made a mistake. Just look at any redesign ever.
cqz 5y ago
Not so, it's just supervised data-driving: Observation: The Pocket button is used very infrequently Conclusion: To encourage more usage the Pocket button should be made larger
estaseuropano 5y ago
I don't understand the hate or why this seems to take so much headspace in so many (or at least here very vocal) minds. It's a single button, not flashy or animated or otherwise annoying. When the rest of the world spies on you or pushes crypto tokens and abuses websites by replacing their ads with own advertisements, that is what bothers you most and makes you consciously choose an outdated version?
- godelski 5y ago
  I think HN just has hate for certain products and undying love for others. When you hate something then everything bothers you. When you love something you look the other way.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jansan 5y ago
  I saw criticism in the original comment, maybe cynicism, but no hate. Hate is a strong word, we should not set the bar too low for using it.
  - nindalf 5y ago
    It is hate, but worse than that, it’s tedious to read. I saw their video and thought “yep, top comment is going to be about Pocket integration” and it was. It’s the same in every thread about Firefox - someone complaining about pocket, someone complaining about tree style tabs, someone saying they shouldn’t have changed the plug-in model. It would be nice to have some new comments for a change.
    - riffraff 5y ago
      I've used pocket since it was called ReadItLater and love it, and the original comment didn't seem to be just hate for it. It seemed mostly criticism of an approach where marketing says X ("we look at what users really use") but the product says Y ("we push feature X cause we like it eve if users don't").
reinforcedpaper 5y ago
Only 10% of users are using compact mode: Time to remove it. Only 1% of users are using Pocket: Make it more prominent to increase usage. Data-driven design!
- sva_ 5y ago
  Maybe the kind of people who use compact mode turn off usage statistics, and those who use pocket (non-accidentally) don't turn them off.
- myphs 5y ago
  I wonder how many users who disable telemetry are also using compact mode and how many people are actually disabling telemetry.
  - KirillPanov 5y ago
    I run a large farm of VMs with telemetry turned on. I programmed them to make happy mouse movements whenever Mozilla embiggens their UI elements. My herd of shill-VMs has totally swamped out whatever telemetry-votes you compact-mode people are casting.
- morpheuskafka 5y ago
  The funny thing is I didn't use compact mode before (although I did know it was there), and after upgrading to the new UI, the first thing I did was find it and enable it because of how enormous they made the tabs and buttons.
opheliate 5y ago
It looks like Pocket has been moved from the URL bar to where extensions are located. While it is larger, if Mozilla feel they must include it for whatever reason, it makes more sense to have it look like an extension than an integral part of the browser. Hopefully this also corresponds with the ability to remove it from the extension box, as you can do with other extensions.
paxys 5y ago
That button takes two clicks to remove. Those who use it will appreciate the new design. Those who don't will never see it anyways.
Semaphor 5y ago
> As expected, the new tabs take up substantial vertical space I just tried it, the vertical difference is 5 pixels, horizontally it’s about twice as much with 5 pinned and 9 normal tabs. Amazing? No. But that doesn’t really seem substantial. This is with compact mode in both versions.
- ComputerGuru 5y ago
  I don’t think testing it in compact mode is the idea.
  - Semaphor 5y ago
    GP said "and even compact mode barely helps"
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  Compact mode is hidden and not supported now. Count on them removing it.
mariusor 5y ago
Just to provide a contrary opinion, I find the pocket button very useful. Pocket has out of the box integration with the Kobo ebook readers. This means that the amount of work I need to do to read an article on my device is one click[1]. That seems a lot better than any alternative that I know of. [1] After, of course, authorizing both Firefox and the Kobo device.

0xy 5y ago

Consider yourself lucky there isn't a giant banner ad for Mr Robot in the title bar. Mozilla's CEO really needs another pay rise for overseeing plummeting product market share.

alanbernstein 5y ago

Also "remove clicks" and "remove clutter" are directly contradictory... I want to be able to configure my browser to minimize clicks FOR ME, and I'm ok with having a lot of "clutter" i.e. functionality.

mrweasel 5y ago

The new tabs also look nothing like tabs. It’s now a button bar. It looks great, but it’s not really an inprovement and is clearly designed on a large monitor.

jansan 5y ago
They will go back to the conventional tab design, I am pretty sure about this. Tabs should look like they look in Chrome, not like in Firefox or VSCode. Tab design has pretty much been settled in the 90s, no need for experiments.
- ComputerGuru 5y ago
  It takes a lot to convince UI designers to admit they made a mistake. Just look at any redesign ever.

cqz 5y ago

Not so, it's just supervised data-driving: Observation: The Pocket button is used very infrequently Conclusion: To encourage more usage the Pocket button should be made larger

estaseuropano 5y ago

I don't understand the hate or why this seems to take so much headspace in so many (or at least here very vocal) minds. It's a single button, not flashy or animated or otherwise annoying. When the rest of the world spies on you or pushes crypto tokens and abuses websites by replacing their ads with own advertisements, that is what bothers you most and makes you consciously choose an outdated version?

godelski 5y ago
I think HN just has hate for certain products and undying love for others. When you hate something then everything bothers you. When you love something you look the other way.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jansan 5y ago
I saw criticism in the original comment, maybe cynicism, but no hate. Hate is a strong word, we should not set the bar too low for using it.
- nindalf 5y ago
  It is hate, but worse than that, it’s tedious to read. I saw their video and thought “yep, top comment is going to be about Pocket integration” and it was. It’s the same in every thread about Firefox - someone complaining about pocket, someone complaining about tree style tabs, someone saying they shouldn’t have changed the plug-in model. It would be nice to have some new comments for a change.
  - riffraff 5y ago
    I've used pocket since it was called ReadItLater and love it, and the original comment didn't seem to be just hate for it. It seemed mostly criticism of an approach where marketing says X ("we look at what users really use") but the product says Y ("we push feature X cause we like it eve if users don't").

reinforcedpaper 5y ago

Only 10% of users are using compact mode: Time to remove it. Only 1% of users are using Pocket: Make it more prominent to increase usage. Data-driven design!

sva_ 5y ago
Maybe the kind of people who use compact mode turn off usage statistics, and those who use pocket (non-accidentally) don't turn them off.
myphs 5y ago
I wonder how many users who disable telemetry are also using compact mode and how many people are actually disabling telemetry.
- KirillPanov 5y ago
  I run a large farm of VMs with telemetry turned on. I programmed them to make happy mouse movements whenever Mozilla embiggens their UI elements. My herd of shill-VMs has totally swamped out whatever telemetry-votes you compact-mode people are casting.
morpheuskafka 5y ago
The funny thing is I didn't use compact mode before (although I did know it was there), and after upgrading to the new UI, the first thing I did was find it and enable it because of how enormous they made the tabs and buttons.

opheliate 5y ago

It looks like Pocket has been moved from the URL bar to where extensions are located. While it is larger, if Mozilla feel they must include it for whatever reason, it makes more sense to have it look like an extension than an integral part of the browser. Hopefully this also corresponds with the ability to remove it from the extension box, as you can do with other extensions.

paxys 5y ago

That button takes two clicks to remove. Those who use it will appreciate the new design. Those who don't will never see it anyways.

Semaphor 5y ago

> As expected, the new tabs take up substantial vertical space I just tried it, the vertical difference is 5 pixels, horizontally it’s about twice as much with 5 pinned and 9 normal tabs. Amazing? No. But that doesn’t really seem substantial. This is with compact mode in both versions.

ComputerGuru 5y ago
I don’t think testing it in compact mode is the idea.
- Semaphor 5y ago
  GP said "and even compact mode barely helps"
pseudalopex 5y ago
Compact mode is hidden and not supported now. Count on them removing it.

mariusor 5y ago

Just to provide a contrary opinion, I find the pocket button very useful. Pocket has out of the box integration with the Kobo ebook readers. This means that the amount of work I need to do to read an article on my device is one click[1]. That seems a lot better than any alternative that I know of. [1] After, of course, authorizing both Firefox and the Kobo device.