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> Last year we launched Firefox Colorways, a new desktop feature that allowed our users to express their most authentic selves and bring joy while browsing the

by hbn 4y ago

> Last year we launched Firefox Colorways, a new desktop feature that allowed our users to express their most authentic selves and bring joy while browsing the web > “‘Independent Voices’ are the voices of the past and present that create a better future,” said Keely Alexis. “I chose this [analogy] as my inspiration for the collaboration because it feels authentic to me but it also aligns with Firefox and the vision that we can make the world better, on the internet and beyond.” Jesus, can you just say "we've got themes?" No one is going to remember Firefox as the next MLK Jr because they let you turn the window chrome orange.

Nextgrid 4y ago
I remember being able to add a background to Firefox' UI a decade ago. Maybe they've removed it and are now celebrating it as a new feature despite it actually being a casualty of the browser's never-ending devolution.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Macha 4y ago
  They actually still support legacy themes, persona themes and colorways themes last I checked, so three generations of themes. I'm surprised with how much they like to deprecate stuff
stoplying1 4y ago
Does it still have the cursed text with it that says "going away in (some month soon)". It's so stupid and confusing and baffling that I want to rage quit Firefox with this as the absolute last straw. Like wtf, you're gonna take back my color in a few months? Just pull the upsell for it? Why the hell am I having to wonder about any of this? Why on God's green earth was this done instead of spending any effort getting a SINGLE bit of unity among the Bookmarks, Downloads and Add-ons panels, all of which should behave at least rougly similarly. (Because, to be clear, I had a Firefox theme that was imperceptibly similar to this months ago before this Colorways upsell) I don't get it. I do not do not do not get it. And now they're screwing around with another extensions menu that takes space on the toolbar but doesn't de-dupe with the extension buttons themselves (I actually can see where this Might be going, but again, zero clear comms about it). I'm the poster boy for an annoying Firefox advocate and I'm increasingly looking at selling my laptop to build a woodworking shed because it all feels hopeless.
- dylan604 4y ago
  >Why on God's green earth was this done instead of You are not alone. I'm starting to think something is wrong with me because I don't give an iota of a damn about any of this. I have watched people just get sucked into the rabbit hole of browsing for themes for the their browser while accomplishing exactly nothing after being overwhelmed and paralyzed by the choices. (Kinda like trying to find something to watch on streaming platforms) Me, I have the default desktops from the OS, mobile OS, etc. I have too many windows covering my desktop to even care what it looks like. Yes, that's me, and I'm not even close to being everyone else. If this is the thing that convinces people to stop using Chrome, then fine. Spend time making the UI customizable to the point it looks like a MySpace background because that's what 99.9999% of people not me want. I'll do me, you do you.
  - forsythe_ 4y ago
    I think the entire point is that Mozilla has depended on people "like you" to stay relevant for years and knows that's not a great long-term growth strategy compared to appealing to the general populace who cares about things like customizable themes.
    - rjzzleep 4y ago
      Chrome isn't the most common browser on the planet because of its identity politics. It's actually addressing real needs(i.e. a default browser on common computing device - used to be reason for antitrust but w/e), rather than a loud vocal subsection of a handful of societies, so I don't think that that growth strategy works. Given that a huge number of Chrome users probably come from societies that actively despise this kind of stuff, it might actually backfire. Lucky for them I guess most people outside of HN probably never even read that marketing material, so I think it's more of a circle jerk for the marketing dpt.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
        > Chrome isn't the most common browser on the planet because of its identity politics. It's actually addressing real needs(i.e. a default browser on common computing device - used to be reason for antitrust but w/e), rather than a loud vocal subsection of a handful of societies, so I don't think that that growth strategy works. I'm pretty sure Chrome is the most common browser on the planet because Google abused its market position in search and mobile (Android) to shove it down people's throats, helped along by bundling it with other installers. Everything else was secondary.
reitanqild 4y ago
Firefox used to be so extensible that what is developer tools in every browser today started in Firefox as an extension, Firebug (yes, I am aware it is slightly more nuanced, but it is close enough for this argument.) Also for a long while one of my preferred FTP programs was just a Firefox extension. Yes, I think Google must be punished harsher for Chrome than Microsoft was for IE, but Mozilla couldn't have done much more to eradicate their market share without losing plausible deniability ;-)
- dylan604 4y ago
  - reitanqild 4y ago
    Haven't used it for years (5 years since last I can remember and that was close to a one off). I used it only as an example. Oh, and BTW I always tried to use SCP or SFTP where possible the last few years.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    As long as it's FTPS and it works for the intents and purposes you use it for, what's wrong with using it?
    - dylan604 4y ago
      - 0x457 4y ago
        You sure that you're not confusing SFTP and FTPS? FTPS is absolutely FTP. Also, FTP is still used a lot, unfortunately.
        dylan604 4y ago
        So you're telling me that if I enter ftp://blah to something expecting a secured connection that it'll work just fine no problems? Then I have to ask what the point of the 'S' really is. >Also, FTP is still used a lot, unfortunately. Um, like, yup. Please see my original comment on my feeling on this.
uni_rule 4y ago
God what a non-issue.
causi 4y ago
Jesus, can you just say "we've got themes?" No one is going to remember Firefox as the next MLK Jr because they let you turn the window chrome orange. Meanwhile Firefox Android is still a slow, unstable garbage pile. How many years now since Mozilla began developing exclusively for headline writers instead of their users?
- sabellito 4y ago
  I use FF Android every day, including watching videos, and haven't noticed the "unstable garbage pile". Are you being hyperbolic?
  - _wolfie_ 4y ago
    Well it's useable, I use it as well, but definitely worse then before this "new" version. And I want the extension support back.
    - godshatter 4y ago
      Install Fennec using F-Droid, it's firefox with more extensions than what firefox for android allows. Are they ever going to re-enable other extensions on firefox android? Firefox used to be synonymous with "awesome list of helpful extensions".
    - Georgelemental 4y ago
      I've had the opposite experience, switched to Firefox on Android after the new update because of the better performance and UI. Limited extension support is annoying, but if you get it from F-Droid or use the nightly version, you can enable a hidden setting that lets you install any extension you like.
  - zeppelin101 4y ago
    Me too. It's my main browser on Android for years now and it works great.
    - 4y ago
wlesieutre 4y ago
> “‘Independent Voices’ are the voices of the past and present that create a better future,” said Keely Alexis. “I chose this [analogy] as my inspiration for the collaboration because it feels authentic to me but it also aligns with Firefox and the vision that we can make the world better, on the internet and beyond.” Hooli is about people. Hooli is about innovative technology that makes a difference, transforming the world as we know it. Making the world a better place, through minimal message oriented transport layers.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  For those out of the loop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZmpYxbBDQw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZmpYxbBDQw
- pluc 4y ago
  I love Firefox but the hubris is takes to think a few themes for your app is a betterment for the world is hard to fathom
  - rasz 4y ago
    Not hard at all when you look at salaries and allocation of funds.
- pbhjpbhj 4y ago
  Sounds like Zombo.com
  - layer8 4y ago
    Zombo.com is way better. Firefox could make it the default start page.
- echelon 4y ago
  There's truth in Mike Judge's caricature. It's because you don't get paid as much to say "we've got themes". Classic example (pdf warning) : https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell-021109.pdf https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell... That PDF cost Pepsi millions of dollars.
Barrin92 4y ago
the entire colorways branding reminds me so much of that Silicon Valley scene it's hilarious. That said the themes are pretty good though, in particular the matte versions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GtF_zpJc_w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GtF_zpJc_w
saint-loup 4y ago
I observed the change in tone in Mozilla blog posts, from experts talking about their craft to marketspeak. Even posts I should be professionally partial to, like those about UI design, rub me of the wrong way. It's often full of "creating delightful experiences" and "streamlining a seamless flow".
- authpor 4y ago
- dblohm7 4y ago
  Former Mozilla engineer here. > I observed the change in tone in Mozilla blog posts, from experts talking about their craft to marketspeak. I think I can explain what you're seeing here. The original blog.mozilla.org was run very much like the old "MSDN blogs" from Microsoft (think Raymond Chen's The Old New Thing.) When I started at Mozilla a decade ago, my manager told me to file a request for my own space on blogs.mozilla.org -- which was denied. I was told that this was because blog.mozilla.org was being refocused as the "official" Mozilla blog. People who already had accounts on there were grandfathered in, which is why some people (Nick Nethercote's blog come to mind) still had blogs on there. Obviously as those developers moved on, those employee blogs have gradually died off. These days, if you want technical content, you'll need to look at hacks.mozilla.org for "officially sanctioned" pieces, or look at the blogs that publish to planet.mozilla.org for developer blogs (though much like blogging in general, there is much less traffic on there compared to a decade ago). TL;DR: The focus of blog.mozilla.org is primarily corporate and marketing at this point.
  - margarina72 4y ago
    thanks for the explanation, didn't know about those spaces.
Aardwolf 4y ago
In Windows 3.11 you could choose all the colors you wanted for every part of the window rendering (and it wasn't called "limited edition" or whatever there either, and naming it limited edition in FF as in the image caption in the article doesn't inspire confidence to rely on this feature long term). Nothing recent comes close to that, even Linux desktops make it hard to choose colors or how visible your scrollbars are if you prefer to actually see and use scrollbars (sometimes you can edit CSS files that get overwritten again each time you update your system).
- dkdmso 4y ago
  KDE definitely still lets you theme like crazy, I believe including the scroll bar settings The CSS comment sounds like Gnome. I used Gnome for fifteen years and got tired of what you're complaining about and switched to KDE eight or nine months ago and haven't looked back
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - BenjiWiebe 4y ago
    That's one thing I really like about KDE - endless customizability. I actually end up using a lot of the defaults anyways.
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    KDE can be completely transformed by themes and they've also just introduced a choice of accent color for the default Breeze theme. A bit similar to what macOS has. I really love that about KDE, the configurability.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
smesla 4y ago
> bring joy while browsing the web Why am I seeing people using the word "joy" everywhere lately? And why is theming a web browser bringing it to anyone?
- chowells 4y ago
  Blame Marie Kondo. It's just modern self-help vocabulary.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Ptchd 4y ago
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
Does anyone remembers when Firefox was called Phoenix and it was born as the lightweight alternative to Mozilla and it was already highly configurable theme wise on basically calculators for today's standards? https://blog.mozilla.org/community/files/2013/05/2002_phoenix.png https://blog.mozilla.org/community/files/2013/05/2002_phoeni...
soundnote 4y ago
I spontaneously developed cancer and projectile vomited in an impressive arc on reading their marketing copy for this stuff. Easy theming is nice, but holy fuck. Talk about saccharine.
OJFord 4y ago
Which presumably you could already do with userChrome.css if you really cared anyway!

by hbn 4y ago

Nextgrid 4y ago

I remember being able to add a background to Firefox' UI a decade ago. Maybe they've removed it and are now celebrating it as a new feature despite it actually being a casualty of the browser's never-ending devolution.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Macha 4y ago
They actually still support legacy themes, persona themes and colorways themes last I checked, so three generations of themes. I'm surprised with how much they like to deprecate stuff

stoplying1 4y ago

Does it still have the cursed text with it that says "going away in (some month soon)". It's so stupid and confusing and baffling that I want to rage quit Firefox with this as the absolute last straw. Like wtf, you're gonna take back my color in a few months? Just pull the upsell for it? Why the hell am I having to wonder about any of this? Why on God's green earth was this done instead of spending any effort getting a SINGLE bit of unity among the Bookmarks, Downloads and Add-ons panels, all of which should behave at least rougly similarly. (Because, to be clear, I had a Firefox theme that was imperceptibly similar to this months ago before this Colorways upsell) I don't get it. I do not do not do not get it. And now they're screwing around with another extensions menu that takes space on the toolbar but doesn't de-dupe with the extension buttons themselves (I actually can see where this Might be going, but again, zero clear comms about it). I'm the poster boy for an annoying Firefox advocate and I'm increasingly looking at selling my laptop to build a woodworking shed because it all feels hopeless.

dylan604 4y ago
>Why on God's green earth was this done instead of You are not alone. I'm starting to think something is wrong with me because I don't give an iota of a damn about any of this. I have watched people just get sucked into the rabbit hole of browsing for themes for the their browser while accomplishing exactly nothing after being overwhelmed and paralyzed by the choices. (Kinda like trying to find something to watch on streaming platforms) Me, I have the default desktops from the OS, mobile OS, etc. I have too many windows covering my desktop to even care what it looks like. Yes, that's me, and I'm not even close to being everyone else. If this is the thing that convinces people to stop using Chrome, then fine. Spend time making the UI customizable to the point it looks like a MySpace background because that's what 99.9999% of people not me want. I'll do me, you do you.
- forsythe_ 4y ago
  I think the entire point is that Mozilla has depended on people "like you" to stay relevant for years and knows that's not a great long-term growth strategy compared to appealing to the general populace who cares about things like customizable themes.
  - rjzzleep 4y ago
    Chrome isn't the most common browser on the planet because of its identity politics. It's actually addressing real needs(i.e. a default browser on common computing device - used to be reason for antitrust but w/e), rather than a loud vocal subsection of a handful of societies, so I don't think that that growth strategy works. Given that a huge number of Chrome users probably come from societies that actively despise this kind of stuff, it might actually backfire. Lucky for them I guess most people outside of HN probably never even read that marketing material, so I think it's more of a circle jerk for the marketing dpt.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
      > Chrome isn't the most common browser on the planet because of its identity politics. It's actually addressing real needs(i.e. a default browser on common computing device - used to be reason for antitrust but w/e), rather than a loud vocal subsection of a handful of societies, so I don't think that that growth strategy works. I'm pretty sure Chrome is the most common browser on the planet because Google abused its market position in search and mobile (Android) to shove it down people's throats, helped along by bundling it with other installers. Everything else was secondary.

reitanqild 4y ago

Firefox used to be so extensible that what is developer tools in every browser today started in Firefox as an extension, Firebug (yes, I am aware it is slightly more nuanced, but it is close enough for this argument.) Also for a long while one of my preferred FTP programs was just a Firefox extension. Yes, I think Google must be punished harsher for Chrome than Microsoft was for IE, but Mozilla couldn't have done much more to eradicate their market share without losing plausible deniability ;-)

dylan604 4y ago
- reitanqild 4y ago
  Haven't used it for years (5 years since last I can remember and that was close to a one off). I used it only as an example. Oh, and BTW I always tried to use SCP or SFTP where possible the last few years.
- capableweb 4y ago
  As long as it's FTPS and it works for the intents and purposes you use it for, what's wrong with using it?
  - dylan604 4y ago
    - 0x457 4y ago
      You sure that you're not confusing SFTP and FTPS? FTPS is absolutely FTP. Also, FTP is still used a lot, unfortunately.
      - dylan604 4y ago
        So you're telling me that if I enter ftp://blah to something expecting a secured connection that it'll work just fine no problems? Then I have to ask what the point of the 'S' really is. >Also, FTP is still used a lot, unfortunately. Um, like, yup. Please see my original comment on my feeling on this.

uni_rule 4y ago

God what a non-issue.

causi 4y ago

Jesus, can you just say "we've got themes?" No one is going to remember Firefox as the next MLK Jr because they let you turn the window chrome orange. Meanwhile Firefox Android is still a slow, unstable garbage pile. How many years now since Mozilla began developing exclusively for headline writers instead of their users?

sabellito 4y ago
I use FF Android every day, including watching videos, and haven't noticed the "unstable garbage pile". Are you being hyperbolic?
- _wolfie_ 4y ago
  Well it's useable, I use it as well, but definitely worse then before this "new" version. And I want the extension support back.
  - godshatter 4y ago
    Install Fennec using F-Droid, it's firefox with more extensions than what firefox for android allows. Are they ever going to re-enable other extensions on firefox android? Firefox used to be synonymous with "awesome list of helpful extensions".
  - Georgelemental 4y ago
    I've had the opposite experience, switched to Firefox on Android after the new update because of the better performance and UI. Limited extension support is annoying, but if you get it from F-Droid or use the nightly version, you can enable a hidden setting that lets you install any extension you like.
- zeppelin101 4y ago
  Me too. It's my main browser on Android for years now and it works great.
  - 4y ago

wlesieutre 4y ago

> “‘Independent Voices’ are the voices of the past and present that create a better future,” said Keely Alexis. “I chose this [analogy] as my inspiration for the collaboration because it feels authentic to me but it also aligns with Firefox and the vision that we can make the world better, on the internet and beyond.” Hooli is about people. Hooli is about innovative technology that makes a difference, transforming the world as we know it. Making the world a better place, through minimal message oriented transport layers.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
For those out of the loop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZmpYxbBDQw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZmpYxbBDQw
pluc 4y ago
I love Firefox but the hubris is takes to think a few themes for your app is a betterment for the world is hard to fathom
- rasz 4y ago
  Not hard at all when you look at salaries and allocation of funds.
pbhjpbhj 4y ago
Sounds like Zombo.com
- layer8 4y ago
  Zombo.com is way better. Firefox could make it the default start page.
echelon 4y ago
There's truth in Mike Judge's caricature. It's because you don't get paid as much to say "we've got themes". Classic example (pdf warning) : https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell-021109.pdf https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell... That PDF cost Pepsi millions of dollars.

Barrin92 4y ago

the entire colorways branding reminds me so much of that Silicon Valley scene it's hilarious. That said the themes are pretty good though, in particular the matte versions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GtF_zpJc_w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GtF_zpJc_w

saint-loup 4y ago

I observed the change in tone in Mozilla blog posts, from experts talking about their craft to marketspeak. Even posts I should be professionally partial to, like those about UI design, rub me of the wrong way. It's often full of "creating delightful experiences" and "streamlining a seamless flow".

authpor 4y ago
dblohm7 4y ago
Former Mozilla engineer here. > I observed the change in tone in Mozilla blog posts, from experts talking about their craft to marketspeak. I think I can explain what you're seeing here. The original blog.mozilla.org was run very much like the old "MSDN blogs" from Microsoft (think Raymond Chen's The Old New Thing.) When I started at Mozilla a decade ago, my manager told me to file a request for my own space on blogs.mozilla.org -- which was denied. I was told that this was because blog.mozilla.org was being refocused as the "official" Mozilla blog. People who already had accounts on there were grandfathered in, which is why some people (Nick Nethercote's blog come to mind) still had blogs on there. Obviously as those developers moved on, those employee blogs have gradually died off. These days, if you want technical content, you'll need to look at hacks.mozilla.org for "officially sanctioned" pieces, or look at the blogs that publish to planet.mozilla.org for developer blogs (though much like blogging in general, there is much less traffic on there compared to a decade ago). TL;DR: The focus of blog.mozilla.org is primarily corporate and marketing at this point.
- margarina72 4y ago
  thanks for the explanation, didn't know about those spaces.

Aardwolf 4y ago

In Windows 3.11 you could choose all the colors you wanted for every part of the window rendering (and it wasn't called "limited edition" or whatever there either, and naming it limited edition in FF as in the image caption in the article doesn't inspire confidence to rely on this feature long term). Nothing recent comes close to that, even Linux desktops make it hard to choose colors or how visible your scrollbars are if you prefer to actually see and use scrollbars (sometimes you can edit CSS files that get overwritten again each time you update your system).

dkdmso 4y ago
KDE definitely still lets you theme like crazy, I believe including the scroll bar settings The CSS comment sounds like Gnome. I used Gnome for fifteen years and got tired of what you're complaining about and switched to KDE eight or nine months ago and haven't looked back
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- BenjiWiebe 4y ago
  That's one thing I really like about KDE - endless customizability. I actually end up using a lot of the defaults anyways.
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  KDE can be completely transformed by themes and they've also just introduced a choice of accent color for the default Breeze theme. A bit similar to what macOS has. I really love that about KDE, the configurability.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

smesla 4y ago

> bring joy while browsing the web Why am I seeing people using the word "joy" everywhere lately? And why is theming a web browser bringing it to anyone?

chowells 4y ago
Blame Marie Kondo. It's just modern self-help vocabulary.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Ptchd 4y ago

peoplefromibiza 4y ago

Does anyone remembers when Firefox was called Phoenix and it was born as the lightweight alternative to Mozilla and it was already highly configurable theme wise on basically calculators for today's standards? https://blog.mozilla.org/community/files/2013/05/2002_phoenix.png https://blog.mozilla.org/community/files/2013/05/2002_phoeni...

soundnote 4y ago

I spontaneously developed cancer and projectile vomited in an impressive arc on reading their marketing copy for this stuff. Easy theming is nice, but holy fuck. Talk about saccharine.

OJFord 4y ago

Which presumably you could already do with userChrome.css if you really cared anyway!