29 ms·

Firefox Release 89.0

• mcglyb 5y ago
  what did you do to my bookmarks, updated Firefox last week and it spaced my bookmarks to a ridicules level, can I get it back the old way
• rwaksmunski 5y ago
  How do I get the old style of tabs back? I need every vertical pixel I can get.
  • capableweb 5y ago
    > How do I get the old style of tabs back? Don't know but: > I need every vertical pixel I can get. If this is really important to you (as it is for me), try Tree Style Tab (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...). First just installed it to move the tabs to the side, but now I gotten so used to tabs in a logical tree that anything else is a big hassle to use.
    • konart 5y ago
      Or https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sidebery/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sidebery/ as an alternative.
      • dTal 5y ago
        Interesting. How is it better?
        • SSLy 5y ago
          Also an user of Sideberry, from my experience it just works a little bit better than TST.
        • Vinnl 5y ago
          For me, I really liked how it has "panel" functionality that also let me replace Simple Tab Groups, and how nicely that interacts with Multi-Account Containers. I have a panel for work, and when I'm done with work I can switch to another panel for another task and no longer have to look at my work tabs - then the next day I can have just those in my tab bar again.
      • infinityplus1 5y ago
        Tree style tabs used to get very laggy when you have lots of tabs open. Sideberry performed much faster. So I switched to it.
    • dTal 5y ago
      This is the same order of improvement over plain tabs, that tabs were over 1-page-per-window. All browsers should come with this by default, and the fact that they don't is proof to me that UI innovation is stagnating.
      • twobitshifter 5y ago
        Edge and Vivaldi are the two that I know of that have it as an option built in. Opera has a sidebar and uses workspaces to organize tabs now, but they used to have vertical tabs in the past.
  • apetresc 5y ago
    In that case, install the Tree Style Tabs[1] extension, disable the tab bar altogether, and get back 100% of it :) [1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta... EDIT: Ah, looks like capableweb beat me to it by a fraction of a minute!
    • idbehold 5y ago
      How do you disable the tab bar?
      • Vinnl 5y ago
        See https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery/wiki/Firefox-Styles-Snippets-(via-userChrome.css) https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery/wiki/Firefox-Styles-Snipp....
      • plyptepe 5y ago
        https://github.com/piroor/treestyletab/wiki/Code-snippets-for-custom-style-rules#on-firefox-69-and-later https://github.com/piroor/treestyletab/wiki/Code-snippets-fo...
  • ihuman 5y ago
    In about:config, set "browser.proton.enabled" to false. I don't know if this will work in future versions, but it works in v89.
    • rwaksmunski 5y ago
      You sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.
    • Tokelin 5y ago
      Thank you for this. While searching I also found `browser.uidensity`. Setting it to 1 makes the whole UI more compact, which gives some more vertical pixels for the website window.
      • rwaksmunski 5y ago
        Wow, browser.proton.enabled and browser.uidensity gives me 1 more pixel than Safari. This is awesome.
      • _Microft 5y ago
        Thanks for suggesting setting browser.uidensity to 1, it actually makes bars a lot more compact!
    • genpfault 5y ago
      This also fixes Firefox not using the Windows 10 accent color in the titlebar[1], thanks! [1]: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1701266 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1701266
    • pseudalopex 5y ago
      It won't work for long. Better start looking for userChrome.css fixes.
      • ihuman 5y ago
        The only one I've seen so far is Firefox-UI-Fix. In my opinion, it looks like it's halfway between the old and new UI. https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/ https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/
  • ricketycricket 5y ago
    You can also re-enable compact mode in 89 by toggling browser.compactmode.show in about:config. Hope they don't remove it entirely.
  • rbx 5y ago
    There is also browser.compactmode.show set to true that will allow compact density. Unfortunately that won't reduce the padding around bookmark entries. For that can go to https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/ https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/
  • Ristovski 5y ago
    I also use https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix to tame the insane vertical (and horizontal!) padding. Might be worth checkout it out.
• jhvkjhk 5y ago
  Looks like this is the first stable version with their renewed UI? Downloading.
  • bserge 5y ago
    Oh dear God, is it like the mobile version? I need to turn off updates asap and test it first. I was willing to give it more time on Android, but it would randomly stop loading pages and that was the last straw. I begrudgingly use Chrome now :/
    • nicoburns 5y ago
      FWIW, I encountered quite a few bugs in the initial Fenix versions, but I've found that they've managed to get rid of most of the bugs now. This should be less drastic, as Fenix was a complete rewrite. Whereas this seems more of an incremental update to the styling.
    • bluecatswim 5y ago
      Tell me about it. The newer Android Firefox UX is so bad I'm forced to stay on version 68. I can't use other browsers since extensions are core to my web browsing experience (especially userscript managers). Maybe once a year I'll try out the latest version to see if they've ironed out some of the problems.
    • conradfr 5y ago
      Sending tabs between devices has been broken for months. But I guess tab design is more important.
• jmkni 5y ago
  I was worried last year (I think it was last year...) when Mozilla laid off a bunch of people that Firefox would be a casualty. Thankfully that doesn’t seem to be the case!
  • claudiojulio 5y ago
    Just because they renewed the look does not mean that Firefox is doing very well. The entire research industry was fired. Firefox in the future will be stagnant and will be swept away by Chrome. But I'm sure the community will raise another titan to fight Google's ills. Automatically translated.
    • pessimizer 5y ago
      Firefox's market share is already a rounding error. A change in focus to the browser (not saying that this is what's happening) could be nothing but an improvement or a no-op.
  • acqq 5y ago
    Is this irony? A lot of the fired developers worked on the engine and all the surrounding levels below the UI, there are bugs lasting years in the current engine, but this is the UI lipstick change nobody needed anyway but its convenient for the management to demonstrate that "they" did "something". A tab that doesn't look like a tab but like a button. Progress!
    • kaba0 5y ago
      You do realize there are plenty of more technical changes in Firefox from release to release? Eg, per site process isolation was merged recently.
• jefftk 5y ago
  Developer information: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Releases/89 https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Rel... I'm excited about top-level await and PerformanceEventTiming
• kevincox 5y ago
  Does anyone feel that this new UI brings notable improvement? I don't think it is much worse, other than taking some extra vertical space but for the most part my reaction is "meh". I feel like these resources could have been spent much better in other parts of the browser. Am I missing some reason why this is worth the investment?
  • SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
    I've been using it for a while now with Firefox developer edition and I can't figure out a reason why it was done. Does it give a new look? Sure, but I too don't know if anything was made better because of it.
    • nathanaldensr 5y ago
      Many of these changes are made not to improve some actual user grievance but merely to satisfy designer egos or product managers' needs to remain employed. Simply: it's make-work.
  • userbinator 5y ago
    Because "designers". I'm absolutely sick of this trend of dumbing-down lowest-common-denominator UI, removing useful features and affordances for learning. Insanely huge buttons, rounded corners everywhere, floating controls in a sea-of-white/blackspace... On the bright side, I believe the UI is still highly customisable so it should be possible to make it look exactly as you want, but it's not exactly straightforward.
    • ddek 5y ago
      I think I'll throw a fit when my 'tabs-on-the-bottom' css inevitably stops working. Why? I don't know. It's not notably better, it's just I like having the top of the content at the top of the screen. But it uses the most legacy of firefox's legacy features, so I can't see it staying around forever.
      • 5y ago
• philo23 5y ago
  I don't mind the new design, except for the 2-line "Playing" message on tabs playing audio. It just seems really obnoxious. I know in compact mode it's similar to how it was previously, but knowing that's now hidden away and unsupported doesn't exactly inspire confidence it'll stick around for long…
• toomanyducks 5y ago
  I bounce between qutebrowser, brave, and firefox - could anyone who exclusively uses ff convince me to switch? I've always viewed ff as a solid fine out of ten, and would be interested in hearing more about any unique and cool features.
  • justinph 5y ago
    Multi-account containers are awesome: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers Also good to keep non-chrome browsers alive.
    • secfirstmd 5y ago
      Containers probably the main reason to stay with FF as a Chrome alternative
    • hawski 5y ago
      This and three extensions that make it even better: - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account... - bit easier to manage, you can place a sensible button next to "Open a new tab" that gives you a menu to open a new tab in specific container, also easy to assign site to a container which is vital - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con... - this makes a temporary container every time you open a new empty tab (if you open a tab from within it stays with the temporary container), when you close the last tab from the container it will remove the container after a while. This extension should not be used with tab syncing from the former extension if you use Firefox Accounts to sync tabs and stuff. - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/i-dont-care-about-cookies/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/i-dont-care-a... - this makes it manageable to use the temporary containers extension. Because every time you open a new tab with new Google search you will see a cookie consent popover. It gets old fast, this clicks it for you.
      • justinph 5y ago
• nsonha 5y ago
  Chrome does superficial ui updates way less than Firefox. One of them got the priority right. Honestly these kinds of change can be welcomed by some people and not by some others, I personally don't like that thick ass tab bar.
  • SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
    > Chrome does superficial ui updates way less than Firefox. One of them got the priority right. Yeah, why change how things look when you've got data to harvest? But really I agree, the look is definitely not an improvement.
    • nsonha 5y ago
      I commented specifically about the perceived priority. I didn't say Chrome was better. However, Chrome also seems to be rather consistent with its minimal UI philosophy. Firefox's UI doesnt appear to have a philosophy, I liked it regardless, at times.
• adreamingsoul 5y ago
  I'm not interested in the redesigned UI and this just might push me over the fence to the Nyxt browser.
• Torwald 5y ago
  Still can't use it. The tabs have the close button on the wrong side, for me as a Mac user. And yes, this is a serious issue. So far Opera and Vivaldi got it right. Brave and Firefox lack behind here.
  • brianzelip 5y ago
    I'm a Mac user and think Safari has the close tab button on the wrong side :)
    • Torwald 5y ago
      Windows, the OS, introduced closing on the left. (Supposedly to evade lawsuit from Apple.) Closing on the right is the traditional way, from PARC onwards. On a Mac windows and everything else (eg Mac OS 9 palettes) has the close button on the right, as it should be.
      • IceWreck 5y ago
        I think you accidentally interchanged left and right
  • stuff4ben 5y ago
    Is it really? I have so many tabs open at once, it's just a slight move to the right to close a tab. But then I usually close my tabs with Command+W anyways.
    • Torwald 5y ago
      I am not sure what you are trying to say here. For me as a die-hard, old-school Macintosh user the irritation is just too much. This wasn't a problem when you could just hide the tab bar and use windows instead. But having loads of windows open, all with one tab AND the tab bar, that's ridiculous.
      • stuff4ben 5y ago
• destructionator 5y ago
  I stopped updating firefox on version 74 since the UI became unusably bad (it was already bad at 74, even with my userchrome.css hacks, but it went over the edge to unusable at 75). They need to separate out the UI updates from the the rest of it. Then they'd actually have a browser for people.
• Devid2014 5y ago
  Why no more icons in menus? :(
  • jodrellblank 5y ago
    They're making you agitated, apparently: "Cohesive, calmer visuals: Lighter iconography, a refined color palette, and more consistent styling throughout."
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • conradfr 5y ago
      That reminds of Jetbrains removing colors on icons because it was "distracting". Sure, let's remove things that help me find what I want to click on quicker.
      • booleandilemma 5y ago
        Nothing will beat that time Microsoft decided to put all the Visual Studio menu text in caps. They've since regained their sanity. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/a-design-with-all-caps/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/a-design-with-al...
    • 0-_-0 5y ago
      Actually, it's their removal that's making me agitated
  • fuzzy2 5y ago
    Mozilla decided they’re visual noise. > We've reduced visual noise by removing unnecessary iconography and provided clearer labels. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/89.0beta/releasenotes/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/89.0beta/releasenotes/
  • yoodenvranx 5y ago
    The funny thing is that Chrome re-added icons to their menu on Android 1-2 months ago
• csmpltn 5y ago
  > "We’ve redesigned and modernized the core experience to be cleaner, more inviting, and easier to use." Why does the UI change with every single Firefox release? I find myself having to re-adjust every time a new update is shipped. What's wrong with having a consistent experience that survives for more than 6 months? It's just a URL bar, and a bunch of tabs. Just leave it be already.
  • _Microft 5y ago
    Sadly, I think there is some truth to the adage that departments ensure their continued existence.
    • teknopaul 5y ago
      I worry about that
      • _Microft 5y ago
        For good reason - design changes of a web browser might be the least of our troubles though. This problem is everywhere. The last thing we should do when we need a problem solved is creating a department or office whose continued existence depends on the problem being there.
        • cutemonster 5y ago
          > This problem is everywhere Makes me think of "Defunding the police".
    • jsight 5y ago
      I tend to agree. This is like the marketing team reworking the name, slogan, or logos every few years.
  • Tempest1981 5y ago
    UI design is like fashion design, often trying to catch your eye. Sometimes trying to be edgy or controversial, to provoke a reaction.
• _Microft 5y ago
  Anyone remembers these old Win 95-era programs that faked tabs and tab panes by having a number of buttons in a row and switching the content of the pane below? The new tab bar certainly gives off these vibes. :/
  • walterlb 5y ago
    They apparently have re-implemented tabs using some sort of tab-by-wire system, since the physical tab-to-content connection is now missing :)
    • mathw 5y ago
      Yes that feels very weird. I expect I'll get used to it, but as somebody who used to be very passionate about how tabs must be above the address bar because that is part of the tab not the overall browser, losing that visual link of "all this page stuff is inside the tab" is weird.
  • marcodiego 5y ago
    Napster.
  • TonyTrapp 5y ago
    Interestingly, they (or at least not all of them) didn't fake it - there's a style option on the tab control to turn tabs into push buttons. It looked exactly like the task bar - maybe the task bar was actually implemented using that control.
    • _Microft 5y ago
      I did not know that. Is it this? https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/controls/tab-controls#tab-control-styles https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/controls/tab-... https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/controls/tab-control-styles https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/controls/tab-...
      • 5y ago
• resfirestar 5y ago
  I noticed the URL bar can look a little squished if you had the UI density set to compact before the update (it now says "Compact (not supported)" in the customization menu). When trying out the new UI you may want to switch to Normal density to get the intended experience, though as a fan of vertical space I might go back at some point.
• megous 5y ago
  I really hope userChrome.css still works, because this redesign is just terrible on GNU/Linux.
  • arkitaip 5y ago
    It works on my Firefox profile and I just updated to v. 89.
    • megous 5y ago
      Is there any way to make page inspector work on browser chrome to see xul tree/css? Searching on the internet for "firefox chrome inspector" is just ridiculously frustrating because of naming conflict with the other browser. Hmm, looking at css, it's still possible to toggle browser.proton.enabled to false, to get at least some of the old UI back (tabs will be less crappy), but the new "color" theme will persist.
      • arkitaip 5y ago
        I've used this tutorial [0] to get the built-in inspector to work with Fx chrome elements. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/FirefoxCSS/comments/73dvty/tutorial_how_to_create_and_livedebug_userchromecss/ https://www.reddit.com/r/FirefoxCSS/comments/73dvty/tutorial...
        • megous 5y ago
          Thank you.
• unethical_ban 5y ago
  I do think the new padding on tabs and menus is a positive thing, but I don't think they needed to remove things like "compact mode". It's a useful feature for those who want their UI out of the way, and it seems lazy to take it out rather than keep in what is essentially a ratio adjustment wrapped in a checkbox.
• rbx 5y ago
  Setting browser.compactmode.show to true in about:config allows for setting density to compact again. But unfortunately the padding around bookmark entries remains huge.
• drukenemo 5y ago
  It looks good. I hope next they address other functionalities such as bookmarks. I find them important and the bookmark management window design still looks legacy.
• leodriesch 5y ago
  It is fascinating how much negative feedback the redesign is getting on HN. I am using it on Mac and Windows now and I think it is great! The Firefox design always felt very dated compared to Chrome, Safari and Edge. Not the case anymore :)
  • Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
    I always hated the latest roundish design of Chrome. Previous was much better, cleaner and more friendly.
  • Hamuko 5y ago
    What part of the new design is actually better than the old design?
  • GordonS 5y ago
    Do you really like separators being removed from tabs, so it looks like one gigantic mono-tab?
  • tgv 5y ago
    There have changes I disliked, but since a while it's become better. For me. This change, however ... I don't fancy the new tabs (macOS). It feels like they want to be pushed, like a button. Either that, or that they're not really part of the browser, but a third party application floating over the window. I'll get used to it, I suppose, but it's not love at first sight. But if you didn't like the preceding batch of changes, and then this one comes along, I can imagine you're going to give negative feedback. It surprised me more to see so many people that like it!
  • pmlnr 5y ago
    When will people learn there's no such thing as dated design, just design people finally got used to?
  • freediver 5y ago
    Agree on Safari point, only because Safari looks like an actual native macOS app and Firefox could not be farther than that. Which is not a good thing to be clear.
• arrayjumper 5y ago
  I don't like the removal of tab separators. Now all the background tabs kind of merge into one large mega tab :( for example - https://i.ibb.co/p4LWvtb/2021-06-01-19-12-43-3841x169.png https://i.ibb.co/p4LWvtb/2021-06-01-19-12-43-3841x169.png
  • Hamuko 5y ago
    The lack of tab separators and the poor contrast between the tab bar and the rest of the chrome are my biggest issues. Chrome has both tab separators and higher contrast between the tab section and the rest. And of course, the old Firefox design also has tab separators and very high contrast.
    • Merem 5y ago
      You mean like this? https://abload.de/img/tabp1jaa.png https://abload.de/img/tabp1jaa.png
  • schrute 5y ago
    That seems like it should be at least a customizable setting and IMO on by default. Let’s hope the HN thread full of people pointing it out helps.
    • foepys 5y ago
      Themes have control over how it looks. You can search, test, and install one directly within Firefox.
      • mmis1000 5y ago
        Not really, theme is currently only allowed to alter css variables(basically colors). There is a special type addon that do allow to alter the browser theme directly (behave like userChrome.css). But that requires addon signing from mozilla and enable certain hidden control in about:config. Basically not likely done by a general user.
  • 5y ago
• PascLeRasc 5y ago
  I just want to chime in and mention that I’ve been using an old version of Chromium with the trapezoid tabs for years now and nothing bad has happened yet. Not updating isn’t as big a deal as people make it sound, especially if you use ublock origin and some common sense when browsing.
  • vlmutolo 5y ago
    How would you know if something had happened? Are you constantly monitoring your network traffic? Who's to say that you haven't had data exfiltrated from your machine, or that you haven't participated in a botnet somewhere?
    • PascLeRasc 5y ago
      The only issues that I'd care about are: having money stolen from me and having my social media profiles hijacked. So far I haven't noticed that happen. I don't care if anything else happens.
• arua442 5y ago
  Looks good!
• gbrown_ 5y ago
  When was the last time a UI update didn't add padding?
  • rubyist5eva 5y ago
    Eventually apps will be nothing but padding!
• francoisz 5y ago
  I stopped using Firefox the minute I realized that `enable DRM' actually meant `run unfree secret-source software on my computer'. Don't know what this is doing in my distribution's ``free'' package repository.
  • krastanov 5y ago
    I am curious what you are using instead? A fork that hardcodes that choice?
    • francoisz 5y ago
      Qutebrowser. I get that the choice is there, people want it and Firefox is still better than Chrome; but (1) Firefox should no longer be advertised as free software; and (2) it should be made abundantly clear what `enable DRM' actually means.
      • gjm11 5y ago
        If Firefox is not free software because it is able to run un-free binary blobs on your computer, then the same is true of (e.g.) Linux.
        • megous 5y ago
          Yeah, just disable the loader if you don't like it. Kinda unfair to call the whole system unfree for just being able to load non-free software.
          • francoisz 5y ago
            What put me off the most was that there was no warning: I had to know what DRM meant or run unfree software without realizing it. But, as was pointed out, this is also true of most Linux distrubutions, which is bad. There should be a clear warning and the default should be nothing unfree.
          • btdmaster 5y ago
• jodrellblank 5y ago
  > "Clear, streamlined menus: Re-organized and prioritized menu content according to usage" "Backup and sync data, sign in" is used more than "new tab"? "Print" is used more than save? More than exit? More than anything? > "Updated prompts: Infobars, panels, and modals have a cleaner design and clearer language." Changing "don't allow" to "block" makes me think they will do different things, temporary no becomes permanent no; was "don't allow" actually blocking the site forever in the past, not just denying the request this time? > "For macOS users, we're introducing the elastic overscroll effect known from many other applications. A gentle bouncing animation will indicate that you reached the end of the page." Is there an option to enable this on Windows, please?
• marban 5y ago
  Colors in Firefox on macOS will no longer be saturated on wide gamut displays, untagged images are properly treated as sRGB, and colors in images tagged as sRGB will now match CSS colors. Finally, red is red again. PITA since FF3.5 — Thanks
• redleggedfrog 5y ago
  How much research was done on the UI changes improving useability? I can't determine this...
  • gbrown_ 5y ago
    You may want to check out these tickets [1][2]. The latest comment in the second link nails it for me. > I don't understand this decision. First the removal of compact mode was motivated because is has bad discoverability. Then community raise its voice to say that not what it wants. And the answer is to make the setting even less discoverable… > Of course is won't be used if it is less and less discoverable. And this decision break the meaning of doing telemetry on compact mode altogether, how are we going to mesure if people prefer Proton normal vs Proton compact if they don't even have the option showed at all??? > Please keep support on compact mode, don't let it rot and broke [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1693028 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1693028 [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1703254# https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1703254#
    • anonymousab 5y ago
      I see these kinds of changes as "smiling product manager" changes. They have chosen an answer to a question and the data _will_ be made to justify the decision. That path is inevitably paved with catch-22s.
• rubyist5eva 5y ago
  I can't stand this new UI. Removing icons that which ends up making navigating menus more difficult, these new "floating" tabs are ugly as sin, you can barely see them in light mode...just...awful. Making the browser harder to use to follow "design trends" is ruining Mozilla. That Alpenglow theme was a completely asinine waste of resources, just make your browser match the system theme - we have theme extensions for a reason. They claim they are removing unused features but give us useless garbage like that built-in rainbow theme. The only reason I use Firefox is because it's the only decent FOSS option that I can use on all my devices. My patience is wearing thin and this is not going to be a good enough reason for much longer. Make your browser competitive with Google instead of trying to impress your inner circle of designer hipster friends. The CEO gave themselves a fat raise and gutted staff for _this_?!
  • vort3 5y ago
    The only things I ask for are: - Non-Google, non-chromium, non-blink engine browser - Support for good keyboard navigation (vimium etc) - Support for Ublock Origin And the only browser that satisfies those requirements is ruining my user experience by removal of «compact» mode (I know it can be brought back but it's temporary) and making UI bigger without any reason, because having unnecessary empty spaces everywhere is what's considered good design now. Recently I opened some page that was filled with ads and banners and only 17% of my screen was actually filled by content that I want to be reading. Now, with the new Proton™ design I guess I'll have to get used to 12% of my screen being used.
    • freediver 5y ago
      - Non-Google, non-chromium, non-blink engine browser - Support for good keyboard navigation (vimium etc) - Support for Ublock Origin Check. - compact mode Check. Orion may be for you (if on Mac)
      • vort3 5y ago
        Too bad I'm on Windows.
• aeharding 5y ago
  Wow. This is a significant UX improvement for MacOS users! I might try FF as my daily personal browser in lieu of Safari. Overscroll and (to a lesser extent) native context menus are huge to me.
  • nikodunk 5y ago
    Agreed! That overscroll bounce is huge for MacOS users. I know there was an open bug forever on that - super glad they implemented it. Makes it feel way more native. I've been using Firefox full-time since Quantum again - mainly for speed - but it's amazing how nice it is starting to feel too.
  • AlexAndScripts 5y ago
    What's special about over scroll?
    • Klonoar 5y ago
      It's just how macOS works, and it should've been done years ago. If your entire mental model expects it, Firefox _not_ having it was really, really annoying and offputting. I outright didn't use Firefox for years due to this. I like 89, though. Very glad they finally got this done.
• mikkelam 5y ago
  Love it. Fresh new sleek look. Firefox needs to be sexier to attract more than just the tech crowd.
• textman 5y ago
  does this 89.0 have the annoying update now dialog, or at least a setting to block it? In version 72.02 that I am using it pops up with every new tab and there is no setting to block it.
• dbg31415 5y ago
  Still no fix for the massive energy waste on Mac? Oof. Stream a call through Firefox vs Safari and it uses literally 40x the energy. And turns your MBP into a toaster. Been over a year, we all live on streaming calls, shame they haven't addressed this.
• throwaway-jim 5y ago
  Wow, I'm on a macbook and Smart zoom works. Double-tap with two fingers to zoom. Christmas came early this year!
• ironMonkey 5y ago
  I update and the Mac's native sharing is gone. Wondering if the company employs product managers responsible for Mac features (i know it's complex to handle various capabilities for different OS versions) because i assume a storm of negative feedback is coming.
  • pantulis 5y ago
    What!? This makes it unusable for me.
    • ironMonkey 5y ago
      I'm afraid that's the case. Was hoping that native menus meant tighter integration with the Mac, but turned out to be something very different.
      • pantulis 5y ago
        One step forward, two backwards, sigh.
  • Beaving 5y ago
    widget.macos.native-context-menus
• rplnt 5y ago
  If I use mouse to navigate webapges, the most used actions would be back/foward stop/reload (it took them maybe a decade to combine this into one action) and the address bar. Makes sense these actions would be close together, right? So what's the motivation for moving one (address bar) away from the rest?
• cute_boi 5y ago
  those tab heights will certainly kill me. And it seems I cannot mute tab like I can do it now. Simply worst design tbh :(
• icegreentea2 5y ago
  I'm using developers edition so not sure how the final release turned out - did they revert their compact mode decision, or do you still need to re-enable in about:config? Ugh, I love FF, but I hate that decision, and the apparent bone-headed decision making process. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1693028 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1693028 if you want to feel sad about your favorite browser =(
• Someone1234 5y ago
  The Firefox UI team keeps rotating the same chairs, but hasn't touched the awful bookmark UIs for five+ years. They're just lucky that Edge-Chrome's odd floating Favorites box is what it is, or they'd have the worst offering (and even in Edge-Chrome you can open the Chrome-like Bookmarks tab). I was legitimately hopeful that everyone would just copy Chrome's very functional and clean Bookmarks approach, but I guess we have to keep dragging around this kludge from the 1990s.
  • morsch 5y ago
    The last time they touched the bookmarks interface was when they added "collections" to the Android version, which now coexist side by side with bookmarks. Kind of bizarre.
• doodpants 5y ago
  Sigh. Another UI overhaul, another reduction in information density. I just updated on Windows, and all menus (context and otherwise) have their items spaced remarkably far apart. How come they switched to native context menus on Mac, but away from native menus on Windows?
  • pseudalopex 5y ago
    The Windows menus just looked native. They wanted to stop maintaining different styles for each system. But they knew Mac users wouldn't put up with the new menus.
• href 5y ago
  Personally I really like the updated design. I switched back to Firefox a while ago because I get weird rendering artifacts in Safari. The only thing I didn't like was the way the UI looked, so this update comes as a very welcome surprise for me.
• open-source-ux 5y ago
  Random Firefox UI observations: - Tabs have been redesigned to look like buttons. Why? Surely altering the appearance of an interface component or control to reflect something it isn't is basic UX 101? And why remove the outline of non-selected tabs? Isn't "affordance" of components also UX 101? - Themes: Isn't one of the goals for a web browser to minimise the "chrome" (the toolbars, tabs, status bar) so that as much of the browser page is visible? Theming a thin toolbar strip seems a bit pointless. (It's pointless in Chrome too, why copy them?)
  • shaan7 5y ago
    > Tabs have been redesigned to look like buttons Exactly! The tabs are no longer "attached" to the page, my brain sees them as two different things now -.-
• ericwood 5y ago
  This is really exciting, I've been waiting forever for elastic scrolling. It seems like they fixed a majority of the issues that made Firefox feel awkward and out of place on MacOS. I might actually switch over now!
• tut-urut-utut 5y ago
  When will they learn to just not touch what works? I clicked "update" and now I have to chase settings how to get back to the old UI. The new one is just annoying.
• rank0 5y ago
  why can't mozilla give me tab groups and improved lockwise? Lockwise is seriously awful and needs an overhaul.
• BuckRogers 5y ago
  For us compact UI users, if you go into Customize Toolbar you'll see it still selected and listed, but it says "unsupported". It might be time to bite the bullet and go to the normal density setting since they'll likely rip it out in time anyway. Which would be a mistake, not only did compact get slightly larger itself, but the now-unsupported compact mode merely match's Microsoft Edge's UI pixel usage. If it's just normal and tablet mode, Firefox is now larger than Edge. Edge is supposed to be the good-default browser, not the power user's choice. It would make more sense to have compact (in reality this is desktop density), and tablet mode. Just remove "normal". At the rate they're going, may as well go whole hog and remove compact and normal, having everyone use tablet mode density. Burn the house down. Compact mode looks so much better than normal it's not even funny. Mozilla needs to stop disrespecting our precious vertical pixels. I don't think you'll win over the masses or power users with an oversized Fisher Price UI.
• fabioz 5y ago
  I'm a long time user of FF. I really don't like the UI changes in this upgrade, but setting: "browser.proton.enabled" to false "browser.uidensity" to 1 (while using the `System Theme`) Seems to have done the trick, so, I can just ignore the UI changes (which is great)... fingers crossed in that this keeps working in the future. UI changes are very much subjective, so, I think that it's great that some people like the new UI better and keep using it as long as there's also a way to not alienate existing users that like the existing UI.
  • ocdtrekkie 5y ago
    Thanks. At least for now, this staves off the existential panic and need to use a different browser.
  • freddyheppell 5y ago
    The browser.uidensity setting is actually exposed in the UI, in the customise toolbar panel, so it seems to be an official setting that should stick around.
    • megous 5y ago
      It no longer exposes compact option, despite it still being in many places in chrome's browser.css (if you grep browser.css there's about the same amount of references to compact and touch variants). Just why? It looks like it was not removed for any technical/maintenance reason, but just to spite users.
      • freddyheppell 5y ago
        I am on Firefox 89 and the compact option is still exposed in the UI, in the Customise Toolbar screen.
        • megous 5y ago
          Only if you had it enabled before. It's not shown on clean install.
• therealunreal 5y ago
  I noticed a light blue or sky blue color used as the accent color (on Windows at the moment). Screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/yZUXhxf https://imgur.com/a/yZUXhxf It's even used as outline on this textbox I'm typing in. I would expect it to use the system accent color, but it does not! Any ideas if I can customize just this color, without installing a different theme?
  • black7375 5y ago
    https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/wiki/Tips#system-accent-color https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/wiki/Tips#system... You need userChrome.css custom. -moz-accent-color: Accent Color -moz-accent-color-foreground: Accent Color with text color
• duped 5y ago
  The sound indicator on tabs only shows on hover which is strictly less information than was available before
• bla3 5y ago
  Whoa, Firefox is suddenly good now! I give it a try every now and then, but somehow it never sticks. Random perf hangups, keyboard shortcuts not working like I'm used to, but this time I didn't run into anything obvious yet. Hm, now that I write this, Ctrl-A/Ctrl-E are wrong: They're supposed to jump to start of logical line, not visual line on macOS, and Firefox gets this wrong. But it took a lot longer until I ran into an inconsistency like this. The UI looks a lot less clunky than I remember. Nice job, Mozilla! Keep working on OS integration :)
  • onnnon 5y ago
    Same here. I always run into something. I'll give this version a try and see how it goes. I also like the new UI and the macOS native context menus!
• xedrac 5y ago
  I suspect that a large percentage of Firefox's remaining user base are power users - people who tend to value function over fluff. It seems odd to me that they'd alienate their current users like this. I've used Firefox for over 10 years, but I think I'll start using chromium until the next Firefox UI overhaul. The tab design is just unacceptably awful.
  • oblak 5y ago
    I've been using FF for 20 years. More if you count its previous incarnations. Not that it's a competition or anything. Looking at the screenshots, UI changes seem mindful and subtle to me. They even removed some useless iconography. Content aware tabs aren't such a bad idea and seem to be executed nicely. Having an option to remove the clutter would be nice, though. I've been reading about people switching to Chromium due to UI changes for over a decade. Still doesn't make sense to me. I feel people just want to vent but I could be wrong and UI changes do have this powerful effect on some. Still though, Gnome and FF making UI changes somehow generates tons of rage that I mostly ignore but sometimes find amusing.
    • dandellion 5y ago
      I used to think the same. Then they broke my favorite extensions, then removed RSS, later bookmark descriptions. Just wait long enough and they'll probably get to the features you like. The other day I installed a different browser to see what it was like and you know what, there wasn't anything I missed from Firefox. I didn't change my default because I'm used to the Firefox dev tools, but I really have no reason to prefer it anymore, I'm one extension or feature away from becoming one of those people that left for something else.
• keeganjw 5y ago
  If you want to revert the UI changes, go to about:config, search for browser.proton.enabled, and set it to false. Then restart Firefox and you should be good.
• nkotov 5y ago
  I welcome the UI changes. I don't use Firefox as my daily browser (team Safari) but it's definitely a solid update for me.
• Izkata 5y ago
  Is it just me, or have they gone from mimicking Chrome to mimicking Edge?
• Scarbutt 5y ago
  Is there something like chrome's tab groups for firefox?
• HelloNurse 5y ago
  Meanwhile, Firefox Developer Edition is currently stuck on version 89 beta. Is it a bigger than usual update?
• shantara 5y ago
  Here's how the new tab bar looks in Firefox on iPad: https://imgur.com/a/QUm3r1q https://imgur.com/a/QUm3r1q There is so much padding now, that the titles are shortened to a single character when you have more than a few tabs, despite the tab bar already being horizontally scrollable.
• up6w6 5y ago
  I liked the new design but what always keeps me out of firefox is the performance. I dont know if its some UI trick but chrome just feels a lot faster no matter what the benchmarks says. (https://arewefastyet.com/ https://arewefastyet.com/)
  • FlashBlaze 5y ago
    Agreed. I've said it here before but the only thing which is keeping me away from completely switching to FF for personal use is YouTube stuttering issue. I've searched everywhere, updated all drivers, also ran FF in safe mode where all extensions are disabled but nothing. After every 10-15 seconds or so (not an exact number) the video skips a couple of frames. I have no idea why it happens.
• max23_ 5y ago
  So happy to see "New Tab" is added to the context menu when right click on an open tab.
• sorenjan 5y ago
  I find it infuriating how designers keep adding more and more whitespace and padding on my desktop computer. If you want to make your UI easier to use on touch devices that's fine, but Windows 10 has a tablet mode that I keep disabled, so there's no reason to assume I'm not using a mouse. If I go to Customize toolbar there's three density options: Touch, Normal, and Compact (not supported). Why aren't there a supported compact mode, and why is the normal mode so full of unnecessary padding? With the new design my bookmarks menu that previously had plenty of vertical space left now needs scrolling. Tabs have poor contrast and lack visual anchoring to the web content they contain. I'm going to keep browser.proton.enabled to false in about:config as long as it's possible.
  • Scarbutt 5y ago
    'Compact' is flagged as not supported but looks like it still works.
    • starik36 5y ago
      How do you turn it on? I don't see it.
      • Scarbutt 5y ago
        Looks like they made it harder to find the option to customize the toolbar. Right click on toolbar, select 'Customize Toolbar', click 'Density' option at the bottom (I'm macos).
        • starik36 5y ago
          Looks like "Compact" is only in the list, if you had it selected prior. If not, then go to about:config and set "browser.proton.enabled" to false. Then, you'll get the option. What a mess.
          • noisem4ker 5y ago
            You're looking for the "browser.compactmode.show" key.
• kup0 5y ago
  Removing menu iconography and making background tab separation less obvious seem odd choices from an accessibility point of view The use of more vertical space is also bothersome but a personal preference Overall, meh, at least on Windows. Feels like nothing important has changed other than it looks worse and screws with muscle memory. I'm sure I'll get used to it. It feels like the "form over function" type of designers had their hands all over this. Experience is taking a backseat to design and I always hate that
• butz 5y ago
  Good thing that userChrome.css is still working, and one individual even took on the task of fixing this UI update while it was happening: https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix .
  • black7375 5y ago
    Yes. I am it's author. Thank you for your interest === Some introduction about this. Proton(https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Proton)Firefox’s https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Proton)Firefox’s new design released June.01 Photon is 88 or lower design. Proton’s overall feel is good, but there were a few things I didn’t like and wanted to improve. - Padding gaps are wide - Remove icons from panel - A tab that looks like a button - Tab indicators (Ex. Only one of the favicon and sound icon is displayed) I've improved all of these things. - Padding & Icon: https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix#padding-comparisons https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix#padding-comparis... - Tab Indicators: https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/wiki/Screenshots#tab-state-comparison https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/wiki/Screenshots... I've also provided a version for those who like Photon. - https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/tree/photon-style https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/tree/photon-styl... Experimental legacy edge like hover effect feature: https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/25581533/118779970-1a7fbf80-b87b-11eb-9ae9-384758e6ac79.gif https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/25581533/118779970... - https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/tree/interactive-js https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/tree/interactive...
• kiddico 5y ago
  Give me compact display mode or give me death! ... Or, I'll just stay on version 88 for a while.
• SkyMarshal 5y ago
  The new design language looks beautiful imho. They characterize it as the following, and I think they nailed it: >Cohesive, calmer visuals: Lighter iconography, a refined color palette, and more consistent styling throughout. Also the cookie-handling update, moving Total Cookie Protection from strict mode to normal mode, is a good thing especially for non-techie users: >We’ve enhanced the privacy of the Firefox Browser’s Private Browsing mode with Total Cookie Protection, which confines cookies to the site where they were created, preventing companies from using cookies to track your browsing across sites. This feature was originally launched in Firefox’s ETP Strict mode.
• danielEM 5y ago
  my 3 cents here would be: I wish I could have an option to install full desktop version of Firefox on my mobile. There is no performance or memory obstacles any more.
• dannote 5y ago
  Much better on macOS! Proper-themed context menu and smooth scrolling finally.
• mackal 5y ago
  New tabs are gross. Wastes so much space. Luckily there is that Firefox-UI-Fix linked elsewhere in this thread. Pretty much wanted to complain after upgrading and found that repo, which fixed most my complaints. Sadly I now have to make sure I keep that maintained ... I'm really unhappy with the UI changes.
  • conradfr 5y ago
    Me as well. https://i.imgur.com/zrCvxFj.png https://i.imgur.com/zrCvxFj.png That will be a no from me Mozilla. Also they did the Chrome thing that when you start typing your search on the homepage it moves what you're typing to the address bar instead. WHY ?! I'm so tired of having to fight against my browser of choice.
• xvilka 5y ago
  The only way for Firefox to survive and have a slight chance of beating Chrome is finishing[1] conversion to Rust[2] - it will allow to spend less time chasing memory bugs and focus on what matters. Also to reuse some of the already-written crates as building blocks. [1] https://4e6.github.io/firefox-lang-stats/ https://4e6.github.io/firefox-lang-stats/ [2] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Oxidation https://wiki.mozilla.org/Oxidation
• elcapitan 5y ago
  Ok, I don't want to complain about it, I just want to completely reverse it. Can I do that with themes? edit: "browser.proton.enabled" => false "browser.uidensity" => 1 long term solution seems to be via userChrome.css: https://www.userchrome.org/firefox-89-styling-proton-ui.html https://www.userchrome.org/firefox-89-styling-proton-ui.html edit 2: Apparently they also added this annoying rubberish effect when you reach the end of a scrollable area, which can be turned off like this: apz.overscroll.enabled => false
• sajithdilshan 5y ago
  What's up with the padding of the browser tab buttons? They look huge and horrendous. Too much vertical padding.
• ridiculous_fish 5y ago
  This is the release with the native Mac context menus, and it's glorious! Thank you for implementing that!
• rhdunn 5y ago
  I like some of the UI changes, but dislike some of the others. I'm using userChrome.css to make the following changes: 1. connect the tabs to the toolbar, with the active tab using the same background colour as the toolbar; 2. using flat, compact tabs; 3. placing the sound icon over the favicon and not having the secondary sound status label; 4. restoring icons to the hamburger menu. I've used a combination of parts of https://github.com/ShatteredIcicle/firefox-ui-regression-mending https://github.com/ShatteredIcicle/firefox-ui-regression-men... and https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix to make these changes.
• donbrae 5y ago
  I notice on macOS that Firefox now finally has the standard ‘rubber banding’/bounce effect when you scroll past the start/end of the page or text field content.
• vvilliamperez 5y ago
  I liked the UI changes, except that they removed Compact Mode due to "Low Engagement" Why is that even a metric for a browser UI? Are they putting ads in the settings? It's now hidden by this bool in about:config, `preference browser.compactmode.show `
  • darkwater 5y ago
    Because an option visible in the UI that nobody is using is visual clutter. You still have it hidden in about:config as you say.
    • Narishma 5y ago
      It was not visible in the UI before. It was very hard to find, which is probably why not many people are using it.
  • dcormier 5y ago
    > Why is that even a metric for a browser UI? Because they need to know where to focus their efforts.
    • vvilliamperez 5y ago
      I'm not familiar with how Firefox UI works. Would it require a non-trivial amount of work to maintain a compact theme? I'm assuming it's some form of style sheet and they share assets like icons.
      • pseudalopex 5y ago
        A developer said the compact theme isn't much work as long as they have to maintain the touch theme.
  • Macha 5y ago
    The best part is despite all the shit they've gotten for telemetry, they didn't have any metrics to justify this, just a product managers hunch. They've put in metrics now, now that they've hidden the menu option so nobody not gone out of their way to look for it can turn it on, so likely nest year they'll use it to justify killing it for real.
• hermitsings 5y ago
  Love Firefox...
• charlesdaniels 5y ago
  Can't say I'm a fan of this. The new redesign looks dreadful; the weird floating tab button thing looks like a UI toolkit bug or maybe someone trying to fake tabs using buttons, rather than an intentional design choice. As other commenters have noted, there is also now no visual distinction between open tabs (tab separator is gone) - how is the user meant to tell that the non-open tabs are even intractable UI elements, let alone distinct from each other? The menus and omnibar look the same to me though, for better or worse. It seems like FF is getting worse with every release. Who thinks the changes (read: regressions) over the past few versions are a good idea? Who is the target audience of FF?
• tcpekin 5y ago
  Does anyone know a way to disable tab scrolling? The main thing that prevents me from switching is the fact that I can't see all my tabs at the same time. They don't continually shrink so I can't use any spatial awareness of where things are to know where certain pages are. I looked into trying to disable the tab scrolling on the top bar about two months ago but couldn't figure it out. Any tips would be very appreciated.
• doe88 5y ago
  Not very helpful comment but I want to say it anyway because I usually feel quite critical and maybe a bit harsh on Firefox/Mozilla but from the get-go I like this update and new design, a lot.
• mixmastamyk 5y ago
  Tried it on my Mac since there was where the improvements appear to be centered. I use dark mode there. I like the context menu update. Dark mode about:preferences seem to be darker and bluer. Highlight color is hardcoded to light blue, even though I have orange set in Mac prefs. Don't like, but can't remember highlight color was however. Also don't like how the tabs are disconnected from the rest of the toolbar. I want OS standard tabs. Who has ever asked for this? Just a year or two ago they finally reverted the round tab fashion and I hoped that would be the end of it. :-(
• karmakaze 5y ago
  Don't like how the inactive tabs are 'connected' to the window plane and the active tab is an island. The scrolling feels smoother and slower. Maybe it's updates in general, even switching between already rendered tabs appears a bit slower. OTOH, maybe it's always been this way since I updated to Big Sur but didn't pay attention. No it's certainly slower, even as I'm typing this comment the cursor is lagging behind trying to show characters. This is the worst FF update that I ever recall.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• lykahb 5y ago
  Also on the home page the frequently visited websites panel got smaller. The pocket panel has expanded.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• throwaway41597 5y ago
  This version is painfully slow for me. Yet, starting with a clean profile seems to do the trick. Does anyone know how to troubleshoot it so I don't need to lose all my configuration. I have only 3 addons, but 5000 tabs/21 windows. Also a decade of random about:config tweaks which I suspect are the cause. Issues started with version 87 but got a lot worse today. (I'm on Ubuntu with mozilla.org binaries, Intel Haswell) Thank you Mozilla! edit: this is so bad I can't even scoll through about:config to take a look. Typing this text has a >1s delay. Looks like I'm going to need to bite the bullet.
  • JohnTHaller 5y ago
    You could try backing up your profile and then doing a refresh: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/refresh-firefox-reset-add-ons-and-settings https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/refresh-firefox-reset-a...
    • throwaway41597 5y ago
      That's what I was trying to avoid to be honest. I'd like to keep the 5000 tabs and the tab containers. Maybe I should try migrating to a new profile. Thanks anyway!
• booleandilemma 5y ago
  I feel like the tabs are going to break if I click them too hard.
• nfoz 5y ago
  > The popular Total Cookie Protection moves from the optional strict setting to always-on in private browsing. This feature maintains a separate “cookie jar” for each website you visit while browsing privately. Any time a site deposits a cookie, Firefox locks it up in its own cookie jar so that it can’t be shared with any other website. Why isn't that on all the time, even in normal browsing mode? Like, what breaks because of that? I thought cookies were locked per-domain since the invention of cookies.
  • spartanatreyu 5y ago
    > Why isn't that on all the time, even in normal browsing mode? Like, what breaks because of that? Traditionally speaking, anything with a "Login with facebook/google/microsoft/apple account" would break, because the cookie wouldn't be able to work across domains. This isn't the case now though, mostly...
  • zmmmmm 5y ago
    > I thought cookies were locked per-domain since the invention of cookies That is sort of what this mode breaks. Even if your web page on foo.com loads an image from bar.com, bar.com still cant set a cookie that it will get back next time you go to bar.com. So cookie's aren't "per-domain" any more, they are something much more complicated. And yes, it breaks stuff .... so if for example, if you watch an embedded Youtube video on page A, youtube probably doesn't know its you and if you signed into Youtube previously as a suscriber to avoid ads guess what, you're now going to look anonymous and you'll get treated to ads even if you pay to not have them on Youtube normally.
• wpietri 5y ago
  I'm very excited to try this out on Android! Is there anybody else out there using Firefox Android for long-running web apps like Twitter? For me FF crashes a few times a day. Crashing so hard that my whole phone locks up for 10-30 seconds. Even the power button doesn't do anything.
  • Nux 5y ago
    I use Android to check Twitter. Works fine for me, despite some annoyances, but no crashes like the one you described.
    • wpietri 5y ago
      Interesting. Since I'm using a stock Pixel 3a, I figured it must be Firefox. But I'll try it on another phone to see if it's as bad there. Thanks!
• themodelplumber 5y ago
  So it's bright AND buoyant. This is clearly meant to appease the most technical of us all. :-) I have yet to try it myself, but thanks for the additional design & privacy work, Firefox team!
• stuaxo 5y ago
  I'll have to see if I can get used to this thing where tabs are now buttons. Even the burger menu doesn't have the small arrow to show where it came from. It feels like a continuation of the trend to remove hints UI about which things relate to each other.
  • spartanatreyu 5y ago
    Yes, and it's detrimental to the overall UX. > Tabs also got a glow-up to be a touch brighter when active. Tabs shouldn't be a touch brighter, they should be highly contrasted against inactive tabs.
• esrh 5y ago
  > Based on our research, we found out that more than half of you have 4+ tabs open all the time, and some of you have more, a lot more. This is surprising. I rarely have over three tabs ever, and i usually like to keep it at one. If i really need to multitask that many things I'd prefer to open another window and either splitscreen or move it to a different workspace. I don't like the redesign. I think I'll be moving to brave or ungoogled-chromium despite my dislike for chromium dominance.
  • madeofpalk 5y ago
    You find it surprising that people have more than 4 tabs?
    • gentleman11 5y ago
      I have 38 open on my phone, but it’s more convenient than hunting in nested bookmark folders
  • sorenjan 5y ago
    You can set browser.proton.enabled to false in about:config to get rid of the new design. I agree that it is a downgrade, but I also think that it's important to keep Firefox around as a counterweight to Chromium.
  • thatguy0900 5y ago
    I use tree style tabs because I regularly have 20+ tabs open. Android on my phone right now actually has the infinity symbol instead of a number of tabs open, I think it did that when I crossed 100
    • somishere 5y ago
      Ditto .. tree style tabs revolutionised the way i tabulated :) That said, I wasn't completely happy with how TST sat alongside the default tab bar (and my use of pinned tabs) - thankfully its infinitely customisable so I put together a basic, timed custom style to clean things up a bit (with respect to my personal preferences!): https://gist.github.com/theprojectsomething/6813b2c27611be03e67c78d936b0f760 https://gist.github.com/theprojectsomething/6813b2c27611be03...
• blibble 5y ago
  turn it off with browser.proton.enabled=false in about:config
  • gsich 5y ago
    Not for long.
    • gruez 5y ago
      I'm just hoping it sticks around long enough that it's still in the next ESR, that way I don't have to deal with it for another year or two.
• Ayesh 5y ago
  I love Firefox ethos, Firefox keeps redesigning itself over and over, and this time, for the worse. I have a 400 LOC userChrome.css file because the new redesign was barely usable since Firefox beta received this makeover. - There is no tab contrast, and very difficult to tell tabs apart. Made worse on sides without Favicons. - I loved the mic/speaker icon when a tab is playing/listening audio. They had to make it TWO lines in the tab, and made it difficult to notice when you have more tabs. - I could use some icons in the right top menu. It looks nice and easier to use in Edge, that has icons for every option. - Compact mode is gone, that was discussed here before. That said, I like the native elements (buttons, up/down arrows, etc). The new icons in the addressbar look nicer and fits nicely in.
  • spartanatreyu 5y ago
    > They had to make it TWO lines in the tab It's always been on one line for me, and I use the default styling.
    • shawnz 5y ago
      Previously tabs always took one line of text, but now they sometimes take two (e.g. to show the currently playing indicator, which is now text and not just an icon)
  • lbotos 5y ago
    The speaker one threw me for a loop today and I hate it. So much harder to scan for... Beyond that, I do not understand why the active tab cannot be "connected" to the browser chrome. I don't hate the strong shadow nor the subdued non-active tabs but the disconnect feels like an unnecessary abstraction.
  • NeckBeardPrince 5y ago
    Mind sharing that userChrome.css?
    • Ayesh 5y ago
      Here it is: https://gist.github.com/Ayesh/16b448f7bdbf76d4e954f48623111cd9 https://gist.github.com/Ayesh/16b448f7bdbf76d4e954f48623111c... I excluded some rules that I used to tame the new tab page, but this one mostly brings the proton designs down, and removes a ton of context menu items.
• java-man 5y ago
  Several awful things became immediately apparent: 1. the menus use their own font instead of the one specified by the OS (Windows 10). And of course, there is no way to disable this, or at least I could not find one. 2. The "current tab" highlight looks too much like an entry field. Please bring the tab metaphor back, or at least allow the user to keep the existing interface. 3. The padding on the browser tabs (and may be the address bar) have increased. Why? In short, I don't want a "cleaner" interface. I want an interface with clear affordances.
  • KyleBerezin 5y ago
    4. If a tab plays sound, it replaces the favicon with a picture of a speaker. (in compact mode) https://imgur.com/1rwvByM https://imgur.com/1rwvByM
  • captn3m0 5y ago
    1. looks bad on Linux as well. The spacing is terribly off, and I think the hinting is as well 2. "Current Tab" is badly designed[0], because I can no longer tell which is the current tab. This is especially true if you're using container tabs. 3. I don't mind this much, but I have a wide-screen. But I can see this being a nuisance on smaller screens. [0]: https://i.imgur.com/cCUN8iy.png https://i.imgur.com/cCUN8iy.png
• swinglock 5y ago
  Bring back compact mode.
• somishere 5y ago
  I've been appreciating the new UI for a wee while now on the dev edition. Very easy on the eye. Especially appreciate the improved access to tab syncing between devices (which I use frequently!)
• userbinator 5y ago
  Does anyone really need a "reminder" that the tabs can be dragged around...? I don't think these UI changes are going to attract much of the Chrome userbase, but meanwhile they do have the effect of alienating a lot of the existing userbase. They look more like acts of desperation, while the marketshare continues to slowly decrease. It's sad to see.
• todd3834 5y ago
  I remember the day when Firefox was one of the first things so many people installed on a new Windows machine. I struggle to figure out how Firefox is going to gain marketshare today. I think the privacy features sound great but most people probably believe that the existing browsers consider their privacy as well. Google has such an advantage that they can promote Chrome to users who use their search every day multiple times a day. I think the mobile OS Firefox attempted would have been great for them if it had succeeded. What would make me download and use firefox today? I download and install Chrome on my mac because I feel more productive with the developer tools when I'm doing web development. When I wasn't doing any frontend work I actually stuck with Safari.
  • sorenjan 5y ago
    For me, one of the biggest advantages Firefox have over the competition, beside nostalgia from having used it since launch, is the search bar. I prefer having navigation in one bar, and search in another. It makes it much easier to quickly choose between my installed search providers, and do the same search query on multiple sites.
  • Barrin92 5y ago
    for me personally adblocking on firefox android, feels actually snappier than chrome with the exception of youtube, no tracking, I like the containers for privacy and some small things like a good picture-in-picture mode built in.
• agomez314 5y ago
  For the disgruntled Firefox and other browser users: do yourself a favor and download Brave here: https://brave.com/ https://brave.com/
• brailsafe 5y ago
  I quite like it actually.
• neilpanchal 5y ago
  Do people remember borders? They seperate two elements or layouts. The full-on assault for removing borders is preposterous. Step back from the fashion realm and look at it this way - it is a line segment that seperates two elements and provides context to your eyes. There is a reason why artwork is usually framed - in that it provides a seperating element between it and the background wall. Borders should be made cool and trendy, not the opposite. This is just one small fragment of the many issues with post-2010 design assault.
• berniemadoff69 5y ago
  just downloaded it. theres a black border around the window on every edge but the top edge. im running windows 10, i wonder if its like that for anyone else. still no ability to not check for updates. only given the option of 'automatically update' or 'check but let you choose when to install' . it really makes no sense to me. if they are letting you choose when to install, which could be never, why not offer an option of never update? popup just now saying 'your privacy matters'. the last thing i want is for a browser to ever try and help me 'learn' about how it is helping me with my 'privacy' or anything its doing. it reminds me of opening up Internet Explorer back in the day, the endless amount of garbage you have to check to confirm you've seen the notification before it just finally leaves you alone. searched 'google' in the input bar - another popup, this time helping me 'learn' how to use the URL input bar, with an 'Okay, Got It' confirm button. decided ive had enough and closed out, with a popup saying im about to close 2 tabs
• trinovantes 5y ago
  I miss clicked tabs so many times today thanks to the update. Why would they change dark/light high contrast color scheme to light/slightly lighter?
• motoxpro 5y ago
  Looks like I am in the minority, but man, I love the new design. Actually got me to finally switch over from Chrome.
• belgesel 5y ago
  I didn't want to whine about the changes. But why did they move "Restore Previous Session" button into History in the menu. That was by far the most used button in the menu for me. Now I have to click 2 buttons.
• mmgutz 5y ago
  Doesn't the active tab look like an input box? I hope it can be themed away to be flat.
• childintime 5y ago
  Tried it, but I don't support using it, my productivity is down. I tried to "Submit Feedback", to urge FF to roll this back immediately. But that page also didn't let me get to the point. So I'll give my feedback this way: I'll install another browser now. Any recommendations?
  • childintime 5y ago
    I ended up reverting to Firefox 88, losing my profile: - downloaded Firefox 88 at: <https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/firefox/releases/88.0/win64/en-US/Firefo https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/firefox/relea...> (Windows) Install, accept Create new Profile". Then immediately: - check "Check for updates but let you choose to install them". - uncheck "Use a background service to install updates"
• miaex 5y ago
  I love the 88 design. I made mine compact, no shiny "streamline" UI but solid, functional. I need raw things, not shiny things.
• kfprt 5y ago
  UI designers should have to give a pint of blood for every % increase in cpu usage on a dual core system.
• godelmachine 5y ago
  I wish in one of their releases they address the memory footprint issue. Firefox is a RAM guzzler, consuming at least 1GB, easily.
• godelmachine 5y ago
  I wish the device history from all connected devices would be captured forever and not just for the past few hours as is currently the case.