17 ms·

Australis is landing in Firefox Nightly

288 points by bpierre 13y ago

lux 13y ago
They're still keeping the search and address boxes separate? :\
- sp332 13y ago
  If you type a word into the address box, it tries to look it up in DNS. If you put a word in the search bar, it goes straight to search.
  - rodms 13y ago
    You can type a ? before the one word in the url bar to go straight to search
    - m_gloeckl 13y ago
      I created keyword search bookmarks for all my frequently used search engines. For example, I often look up music releases on musicbrainz: http://musicbrainz.org/search?query=%s&type=release http://musicbrainz.org/search?query=%s&type=release I bookmarked this URL and assigned a keyword (You can also right-click input fields and select 'Add a keyword for this search'). Now, everytime I enter "mb-r <name of the release I'm looking up>" into the url bar, it goes straight to musicbrainz and inserts my search string into the %s-placeholder.
- aroch 13y ago
  I prefer it this way...The address box works as a search bar but the search is persistent (ie. I can search for something, close the tab and come back later in two key presses)
  - eterm 13y ago
    I've recently tried to switch back from chrome to Firefox but the persistent search thing really bugs me, as well as the fact that it doesn't always search when typing into the url bar. If you want to get back so quickly there are recently closed, bookmarks, history and plenty of other ways. Always persisting the search term I find very visually distracting. Edit: On the other hand, the current tab behaviour is more of an irritation. Middle clicking the tab closes the tab unless it's the last tab when it does nothing. This is irritating. Dragging a tab doesn't work well when that tab is maximised. In chrome if you have 2 windows both maximised it's easy to drag a tab from one window to the other. In firefox you have to make one window smaller first to do this. I'm quite excited to find out if this new interface fixes this.
    - yeukhon 13y ago
      There is a not-so-well-known trick. Type % into the url bar and you can quickly navigate tabs opened. :)
      - sp332 13y ago
        To be specific, starting a search with a % searches only in open tabs. + searches tagged pages, * searches bookmarks, and ^ searches frequently-visited pages that aren't bookmarked.
  - kibwen 13y ago
    I also prefer them separate, but rather for ease of navigation. I use the address box as a form of "search my browsing history" to jump to pages that I've visited before, and it's convenient to keep that separate from the search box's own history and automatic suggestions. The fact that Chrome conflates these two concepts is its biggest turn-off to me.
    - johnath 13y ago
      If you're living in your awesomebar and don't already know them, you might want to check out our filters: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/awesome-bar-find-your-bookmarks-history-and-tabs#w_changing-results-on-the-fly https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/awesome-bar-find-your-b... You can restrict location bar matches to bookmarks only, urls only, open tabs only, &c. I don't know if it counts as an easter egg, but it makes my own life a lot easier.
  - Pxtl 13y ago
    My problem with conflating search and URL is 1) 1-word searches/domains or searches involving a domain-looking piece of text throw it off. 2) cluttering my typed-URL history with search keywords.
    - aroch 13y ago
      1) My feelings as well 2) Bothers me to an extent but since FF ranks by usage + weights naked domains higher in the awesomebar it isn't too big an issue.
      - Pxtl 13y ago
        On (2), that's good. I have a WP7 phone and it's terrible about typed URLs in the history... search words obliterate your typed URLs 90% of the time.
    - ngpio 13y ago
      > 1) 1-word searches/domains or searches involving a domain-looking piece of text throw it off. With DuckDuckGo, it's easy to prepend/append "!ddg" onto the offending text to force a search. I sometimes have to do this for arithmetic operations, the first operand of which the bar interprets as an address. For me, the small amount of extra time this takes is worth it. A unified search/URL bar, particularly with DDG's bang functionality, feels like a command line. And a command line feels like home.
      - antsar 13y ago
        !ddg is quite a few extra keystrokes though. Isn't it easier to just keep a shortcut key bound to that search? For example, I have 'g' bound for Google. The result: "blah blah" -> Google: blah blah "blahblah" -> attempts to find a host named blahblah "g blahblah" -> Google: blahblah
        chris_wot 13y ago
        Depends whether you are a vi fan or not.
- MLR 13y ago
  I just get rid of the search bar and use the URL bar for search too, don't think there are any downsides to doing that.
  - FuzzyDunlop 13y ago
    It's handy unless you accidentally start searching for anything that could be mistaken for an IP address or domain. Typing in `0x10c` to find the site for the game, or `minimal-library.js`, or whatever, won't take you to a search results page. Works alright for most things though, and I think it's still better than Google's default to Google approach, which is frustrating when you're working on a locally hosted site and keep getting sent to a search page.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - yeukhon 13y ago
    Persistent. You type into the search bar and it stays there until you clear it out. Whereas url bar search you lose it. You have to click on your search engine's search bar on the page.
  - Watabou 13y ago
    Well, when searching from the address bar, I can't get the search suggestions to work. Or maybe there's a setting that I missed. Still, I don't use the search bar and leave it off since I only like to keep the the address bar + the download button to minimize complexity.
  - buugs 13y ago
    Well in firefox you can't do searches like cache:news.ycombinator.com or site:news.ycombinator.com (Edit: in the address bar) I also prefer the way firefox acts with suggestions in the search and address bar being separate, I often find myself messing up where I meant to go because I thought pressing enter would take me to a site but instead goes to a search. Firefox is easy for me because the address bar acts differently.
- notatoad 13y ago
  by default. the address box still works as a search box, if you don't want the separate search box just get rid of it.
- pcx66 13y ago
  I like having them separate too, you can use the Omnibar add-on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/omnibar/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/omnibar/ to have Chrome-like functionality.
- dec0dedab0de 13y ago
  I wish they would remove all search functionality from the address bar.
- RandallBrown 13y ago
  I think they have some data showing that when they're separate, people search more. Since Mozilla gets almost all of their money from searches, it seems like a good idea to keep it that way.
- fsck--off 13y ago
  A Mozilla coder gave an explanation for this several months ago: "In case you wonder, the reason for which Firefox doesn't merge url and search bar is to protect user's privacy. If you prefer a Chrome-style UI, there are a couple of add-ons that provide just that." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5590988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5590988
  - brymaster 13y ago
    Thanks for that. Any idea on how exactly this protects privacy though? The moz dev didn't clarify.
    - mnutt 13y ago
      I assume the location bar only auto-completes previously visited URLs, while the search bar auto-completes search queries by hitting google with every key you press. So in chrome's unified case, google knows how many times you type http://news.y..* http://news.y..*, not just every potential search query you make.
  - jfoster 13y ago
    It's interesting. The address bar currently doubles as a search input, but doesn't autocomplete. The search bar does autocomplete, but won't take you to an address if you put one in it. (it takes you to a search for the address) In my opinion, they need to think this through a bit more. Each input bar is crippled in some way (one won't autocomplete, the other won't go to addresses), and it's all driven by wanting to keep incomplete searches private (until Enter gets hit). Do users realize that the search bar in Firefox is not private, whereas the address bar is? I'm betting not. Do users expect them to be? Chrome assumes not. In my opinion, if the privacy thing is so important, they'd still be better off having just one input with autocomplete off by default, and easily toggled to on. I doubt that users understand the current setup as "address bar is private, search bar is not".
    - Ankaios 13y ago
      Well, I'm a Firefox user, and I understand the difference, and I use the input fields differently depending on whether I mind particular information leaking to a search company. So, I personally strongly prefer leaving things the way they are. I'd actually vote for one change, though: I'd prefer the URL field didn't default to falling back to querying a search engine. One of my pet peeves is mistyping a URL and having my input sent by my system to Google. (That's easy enough for me to change, though, and the Firefox developers seem to be concerned enough about privacy and security to leave the ability to change it intact.)
doe88 13y ago
Is it merged in today's build? It seems not to be available in the 28.0a1 (2013-11-18) OS X build/update.
- simanyay 13y ago
  It will either be in tomorrow's Nightly or we will do an extra build of Nightly in the afternoon.
  - doe88 13y ago
    Ok, great. edit: a new update is now available with the new changes, I _like_ it! edit': a minor quibble though, I preferred the star button when it was directly integrated in the url bar. I find it too excentred from the url for my eyes, I often give a quick look to check if an url is already starred or not.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
sanyi 13y ago
It looks even more like chrome now. DISCLAIMER: I don't like chrome.
- tete 13y ago
  I agree. It's still more beautiful in my opinion though. I don't like Chrome either, but a few parts of it are nice. The thing I dislike most about recent Firefox releases is that the selected search engine influences URL bar search, which is rather annoying in my opinion, but then I removed the search feature from the URL bar, making them at least somewhat distinct again.
  - evilpie 13y ago
    I wrote an addon for that issue: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/keywordurl-hack/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/keywordurl-ha...
- untog 13y ago
  But there is a reason why Chrome looks like Chrome. Ironically, it's the lack of Chrome - the UI is unobtrusive and gets out of the way. I see the new Firefox UI in the same way.
  - sanyi 13y ago
    I don't understand how curved tabs are supposed to get "out of the way". The new design seems to use less standard UI elements to push it's own (WinXP / Fisher-Price) agenda: I don't see any gains here and I reckon they just want to appeal to the chrome crowd.
    - untog 13y ago
      And I can't fathom why you'd focus in on curved tabs in this UI redesign. It's one of the smallest details.
      - 13y ago
MLR 13y ago
I really, really dislike that the bookmark button has been taken out of the address bar, that's my biggest pet peeve, along with the slightly less customisable look.
kibwen 13y ago
Hooray! Been waiting for this for a long time. I'll be especially happy if Mozilla can manage to improve the default look of Firefox on Linux, where it's just absolutely dreadful (and where I'm usually forced to resort to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fxchrome/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fxchrome/ to preserve my sanity).
- mixmastamyk 13y ago
  Mine looks great on Ubuntu, what are your issues?
- mhurron 13y ago
  It looks like every other app. What is wrong with that?
  - alexanderchr 13y ago
    Assuming we are talking about ubuntu - a lot.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - riquito 13y ago
    For example I'd like to have the Firefox button at top left orange, not gray. And slimmer (not as tall as a tab). It's clearly less polished than the Windows version. And yet I thanks them everyday for the browser
- silon3 13y ago
  That looks much better than Australis (I _really_ don't like rounded tabs).
- latortuga 13y ago
  Huge agreement from a regular Chrome user on Linux here. I watched the video and the design is great. I'm really looking forward to this landing in a stable release.
vaadu 13y ago
Can it be disabled? Not everyone is going to like it or it may break a useful extension.
- yeukhon 13y ago
  I think so, haven't tried to be honest, but this article http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-disable-australis-in-firefox-and-get-back-the-classic-interface/ http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-disable-australis-in-firefox-... Also this only affects the nightly and add-on developers should be testing nightly anyway so they should prepare to update their add-ons in the future to adopt to the new UI.
- at-fates-hands 13y ago
  Technically speaking, the Nightly Build is only for testing purposes and is the most unstable version of FF available. Here's a brief explanation: In order of development - some new features may come and go from channel to channel. Nightly - Under heavy development. Least stable/secure. First tests of new changes/features; some changes/features introduced in Nightly may be removed before Release and other versions. Only for testing. Should only be used by very experienced users/testers. Aurora - Still under development. More stable/secure than Nightly. Some bugs may still be present that need resolution. Should be used by experienced users only who can post/report reproducible problems and work around issues. Beta - Final development stage before Release. Usually good stability/security. Major bugs resolved. Working out final bugs. Preview of what Release version will most likely contain in the way of changes/features, though some changes/features can still disappear before Release. Release - Final channel released to public for everyday use. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/970739 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/970739
pcx66 13y ago
Been using this on the UX branch for a while now, loving it. Been very stable, excited to see this is finally merged.
johnernaut 13y ago
This is awesome news. One thing that I'm still hoping the Firefox team would integrate is the ability to clear all downloads from the dropdown menu once they're finished instead of having to open the downloads window.
- mauricioc 13y ago
  Try right-clicking any download from the dropdown menu. There should be a "Clear List" option.
  - johnernaut 13y ago
    I had no idea that existed - thanks!
conradfr 13y ago
I hate this tab design so much. I hate it with a passion since the first release of Chrome. And I don't even know why :) So I'm quite sad to see it landing in Firefox.
- kbrosnan 13y ago
  So use a complete theme. May take a bit for some to get updated as they need to overlay the current UI elements. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/complete-themes/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/complete-themes/
  - conradfr 13y ago
    I try to use softwares as vanilla as possible (especially with multiple computers not all synced) but thanks for pointing that out, we'll see.
mixmastamyk 13y ago
Do not want. I'm happy with the tabs provided with my OS theme and do not want each app to have tabs with a custom shape and wasted space. Do not want a rainbow in my title bar and have not met anyone > 12 that does. What is it with these people and their obsession with skinz! and constant rearranging of buttons?
- untog 13y ago
  Do not want a rainbow in my title bar and have not met anyone > 12 that does. You do realise that's an add-on skin, right? The entire point of that system is that people can do whatever the hell they like and you aren't affected by it.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- Watabou 13y ago
  The rainbow is a Persona theme that you can optionally add. It's not the default.
- WizzleKake 13y ago
  Concur. The design people in Firefox lost me as a user when they decided to re-arrange an interface that had looked the same for the better part of a decade. Re-arrange, not improve. Apparently years of users' visual + muscle memory means nothing to these UX guys. I persevered with it for a while but eventually I just gave up and switched browsers. Shame, since I'd been using Firefox since its first release (called Phoenix back then, later Firebird, finally Firefox). FWIW, here's the "original" user interface: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Mozilla_Firefox_1.0_front_page_screenshot.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Mozilla_F...
  - Watabou 13y ago
    Well design is always subjective. I think before Firefox 4, the browser looked really stale and old (as does your screenshot) And I don't think they really changed it much anyways. Many of the GUI elements are in the same position as before, there's nothing new to learn. A lot of them have been integrated, which is nice and reduces the unnecessary chrome. I like Australis. To me, it looks more modern, even if it does look like Chrome. It feels like a step in the right direction. I also don't mind them changing the UI of Firefox because most of the time, this is what I look at: http://d.pr/i/iEtP http://d.pr/i/iEtP
jcutrell 13y ago
"Modern, clean, and comfortable." Design terms like these, when juxtaposed with the "curvy tab" language, get way under my skin. What is a "comfortable" design, exactly? I suppose a better question would be, what made the other design "uncomfortable"? What is a clean design? Do you really mean "modern" instead of "clean"? Wouldn't it be better to say the interface elements are more defined, or there are less textures, or whatever? Perhaps this is Janet Murray speaking through me (GaTech), but using vague terms to describe minuscule changes is somewhat bombastic. Instead, use appropriately narrow and descriptive terms. I guess the rant is here because the changes aren't really that big of a deal. It's pretty much a nod to Chrome, run through a few iterations, am I right? Or maybe I'm being short sighted.
nsmartt 13y ago
Firefox has looked awful on Linux for a long time. I'm excited to see a consistent design on every OS, and I've been primarily using the UX build for months. A lot of people say this looks a lot like Chromium, but I don't find that to be the case at all. The background tabs aren't rounded at all, while tabs are shown to be rounded on mouse-over. It's a significant improvement over Chromium's approach. I'm not a tremendous fan of the rounded design, but it's certainly an improvement over the previous design.
truhd 13y ago
Looks like Australis "borrows" a lot from Chrome UI. It has pinned tabs with an icon, chrome like tab shape, chrome like options (3 horizontal bar) icon, chrome like simple settings and even chrome like icons (incognito, bookmarks).
- icegreentea 13y ago
  shrug. Firefox already had pinned tabs with an icon, and the icons for incognito/private and bookmarks aren't much different from the current ones either. I'll grant you the tab shape and the option icon.
  - asadotzler 13y ago
    http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3696/8994445994_c0939b83ca_o.png http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3696/8994445994_c0939b83ca_o.p... But I won't grant you the tab shape, unless you're the kid that couldn't figure out square pegs and round holes.
nly 13y ago
Maybe I'm blind, but it looks basically the same on Linux as it does now except the tabs are curved (and possibly take up more space!) I notice the tabs aren't sitting up in to the window manager in their Linux screenshot (understandable). I've already hidden the menu bar, then killed the window decorations for FF in KWin, so my tabs touch the top of the screen. In fact, Chrome actually uses a few more pixels than FF for me.
- dangrossman 13y ago
  Maybe it's your OS? They look very different to me on Windows. The orange Firefox top menu is gone, the tabs have gained an "x" button, the "+" no longer has a border, the padding above the tabs is reduced, there are 3 new buttons on the search bar which is now larger and lost its colored background, and the forward button is gone. It looks more like Chrome than it does old Firefox. http://i.imgur.com/Y3ZFcD4.png http://i.imgur.com/Y3ZFcD4.png
  - nly 13y ago
    Yes, It has always looked different on Linux. Here's how Firefox 25 looks on KDE for me right now (entire screen). http://i.imgur.com/bYDqi2L.png http://i.imgur.com/bYDqi2L.png with the exception of adblock on the right, that's the default layout. Fyi, I also liked the orange button on Windows :(
    - _delirium 13y ago
      The OSX version also looks closer to that than the Windows version. There is no orange "Firefox" bar, and tabs already have x's on them.
lsv1 13y ago
How about we get a Firefox that doesn't use a gig of RAM for 10 tabs? Or perhaps isn't slower than IE9 in jscript?
- 21echoes 13y ago
  Firefox has consistently been shown to use less RAM than all other browsers: http://media.bestofmicro.com/L/5/390857/original/memuse.png http://media.bestofmicro.com/L/5/390857/original/memuse.png
  - nly 13y ago
    Not only that, it's faster as well. Try closing a session of Chrome with 20 tabs open and then reopening it. On both Windows and Linux, Chrome can be extremely unresponsive in this scenario. FF lazy loads tabs so doesn't care to reload everything in the background when you restart your session.
    - lsv1 13y ago
      I've noticed the reverse with Firefox, closing an instance with 20 tabs takes quite some time. However I've yet to notice Chrome take any time in opening 20 tabs.
- pwnna 13y ago
  Yeah. Chrome has been consistently using more RAM, CPU, and power for me than firefox over the last year or so.
- Watabou 13y ago
  People still seem to make the statement that Firefox uses more RAM, when in fact, since Firefox 20, it has consistently used LESS ram than all the other browsers. I have 40 tabs open now, and it's using 1.16 GB which is awesome. I actually want it to take up more because I have 6GB of free RAM not being used, which is a waste. Compare that to chrome. Using the same number of tabs and it can easily take up more than 3GB of ram on my system, which is expected since each tab is a different process. I wonder when Firefox's tabs will run on their own separate process. I'm looking forward to that. I think I saw some updates a month ago but I can't find that now. (fwiw, I have 16GB of RAM)
ahoge 13y ago
Looks pretty wasteful. I prefer how it currently looks on my machine: http://i.imgur.com/PvlTZ3k.png http://i.imgur.com/PvlTZ3k.png My tabs can get as small as the pinned ones on the left (which is the default behavior of every other browser). There used to be a about:config setting for minimum tab width, but one(!) Firefox developer decided to remove it, because: "Users can override this using userChrome.css if they absolutely want it. I don't think the prefs are worth it."[1] Now I have to use a custom user chrome CSS file and disable the tab animations to get the same effect. I really hope this pointless update won't make me jump through a dozen hoops again. I'm tired of it. [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=574654 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=574654
- bcj 13y ago
  I also use a very minimal setup (http://imgur.com/NoCafoH http://imgur.com/NoCafoH). On OSX, Australis will actually be thinner (once they fix https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=938985 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=938985) because the window buttons are now on the same level as the tabs.
  - super_mario 13y ago
    Firefox 25 is currently quite good (with Pentadactyl I hide the address and search bar altogether) http://imgur.com/pSzvcAi http://imgur.com/pSzvcAi This update will make it worse it seems and waste more vertical space (apart from the really ugly aliased curved tabs).
    - rizumu 13y ago
      Checkout the pentadactyl plugin "buftabs" for maximum vertical space and a friendly tab bar: http://www.leighbicknell.com/pentadactyl-setup/ http://www.leighbicknell.com/pentadactyl-setup/
      - super_mario 13y ago
        Thanks. I don't know this existed. Can you control the width of the tabs? Right now the URL in the tab is clipped, which can be dangerous and makes you susceptible to fishing attacks when you browse casually.
wbharding 13y ago
So Firefox is now Chrome plus IE's back button? Doesn't seem like the most inspired way to differentiate your product.
- quarterto 13y ago
  Firefox has had that back button since 3. http://www.megaleecher.net/uploads/firefox3_beta3.jpg http://www.megaleecher.net/uploads/firefox3_beta3.jpg
Osiris 13y ago
One interesting feature is the ability to customize the layout of the UI. Opera had some really great features for customization of UI and it's nice to see another browser doing it. One thing I still haven't seen except in Opera: Tabs on the left or right. With widescreen monitors, I prefer my tabs on the left. Even better, tabs with thumbnails.
- Narretz 13y ago
  I hope they don't make it harder for add-ons to have the tabs on the left / right side. It's such a no-brainer to have the tabs there. Viewport is still big enough, and you can see the tab content mor easily.
dubcanada 13y ago
Is this Mozilla's responsive to Chrome's Aura? I'm a little confused with what benefit this offers over the previous one.
Taylorious 13y ago
Why is Mozilla trying so hard to make Firefox exactly like Chrome? I have been using Firefox since like 1.5, if I wanted it to be like Chrome I would use Chrome.
- mikevm 13y ago
  Because Chrome is superior.
  - Watabou 13y ago
    The look of it, certainly.
    - mikevm 13y ago
      The look _and_ the performance. I used to be a die-hard Firefox fan. Then I moved to Opera because it was faster. Then I moved to Chrome because Opera was buggy. I tried using Firefox again a while ago and I went right back to Chrome. Overall, Firefox feels more sluggish than Chrome. In part, whenever pages are loading in Firefox, it seems to make the whole browser feel sluggish -- something which doesn't happen in Chrome.
      - Watabou 13y ago
        I have not noticed this. I'm using the Nightly version of Firefox though. For me, since Firefox 23/24, it has performed comparably to Chrome. And believe me I have LOTS of tabs (sometimes > 50) open. Firefox handles them much more nicely than Chrome, uses less memory and doesn't crash, EVER. Chrome is just too happy to show me the sad face randomly during page loads.
      - isaacremuant 13y ago
        And, as always with browser wars. This is your anecdotal opinion. Different users and configs have different experiences and the memory or speed issues are something from the past even if the features were comparable (You can't beat the amount and quality of FF's addons). A concerning issue about FF is that it might be drifting away from one of the things that makes it great. The ability to customize. Disclaimer: Chrome, Firefox, Opera are all great browsers and people should use whatever they like but if you start pushing a case for your subjective choice, be prepared to deal with arguments.
super_mario 13y ago
When is this curved tab experiment going to end already. I hated it in every peace of software that ever used it, and it always forces me to find ways to get rid of it. Why not just stick with native tab implementation?
krelian 13y ago
So nitpickers might point out differences but you cannot deny that the basic tab looks just like Chrome's. When Chrome came out with this it was new and innovative. Now it looks like a copy. When this blatant copying happens (and it happens in many places; it's no wonder all phones look like a variation of the original iphone) I always wonder if the designers really did convince themselves that their design is different or they tried but just couldn't come up with anything better than their inspiration.
- asadotzler 13y ago
  http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3696/8994445994_c0939b83ca_o.png http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3696/8994445994_c0939b83ca_o.p... I recommend you take another look. They're not really the same at all. Firefox's designers were not going for the angular and mechanical chrome look at all. They were designing something softer, rounder and more human.
  - aroch 13y ago
    They're also pretty much the next evolution of the FF tab design as things go "minimalist". The current tabs are curvy as well.
  - gresrun 13y ago
    Personally, I like the rounded edges but just adding a corner radius isn't exactly falling far from the Chrome tree.
    - jasonlotito 13y ago
      Good thing that's not all they are doing.
      - coldtea 13y ago
        Bad thing there's not much other changes.
davb 13y ago
I much prefer how it looks for me currently (Firefox 26.0b5 on XFCE, Greybird/Numix styles): http://i.imgur.com/XXzCFQZ.png http://i.imgur.com/XXzCFQZ.png It seems like change for the sake of making things "glossier". That inactive tabs have no top border bothers me. As does the fact it seems to completely ignore my native window toolkit tab/widget styles.
- diaz 13y ago
  Very similar configuration as mine: http://imgur.com/PiehG1V http://imgur.com/PiehG1V I have simplified and totally removed the search bar. Some tweaks to get just an icon for the menu in the top left and also remove the close buttons in each tab. Probably something else I don't remember. I thought this australis revision would make firefox look better integrated in the environment, not less, it seems they want to make it look the same in all plataforms... I'm not a huge fan of that, but I'll wait to see if it can be integrated better of not.
fjk 13y ago
It's live :) My knee-jerk reaction is that I like the old UI better... I do feel that the tab layout is preferable to Chrome's tab layout because the inactive tabs are faded and not round. http://grab.by/s8ne http://grab.by/s8ne
- Systemic33 13y ago
  When I look at your screenshot, it really doesn't look like Chrome at all. Well as much as any browser looks the same with url bar, etc.
Dirlewanger 13y ago
And still no mention of shrinking tab headers...Jesus christ.
- oblio 13y ago
  That's a feature, not a bug. Yay! (Chrome) I have 40 tiny tabs and I don't know what any of them are! At least Firefox + tabs provides real tab management options: scroll bar, Tree Style Tabs, Panorama, etc.
Nux 13y ago
I hope they preserve the addon-bar.
- wjoe 13y ago
  They haven't. It's been removed, and as far as I can tell, there's now no way to add a bar to the bottom of the window.
  - Nux 13y ago
    Fuck. Opened https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=940773 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=940773
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
oinksoft 13y ago
So is this the death of the browser.tabs.onTop setting? Everybody has to use tabs on top now?
HelloTiago 13y ago
Sadly Firefox's developer tools are still inferior to those of Chrome... I've been trying to switch from Chrome, but when I'm developing stuff I keep going back to it...
piyush_soni 13y ago
So Australis means "more Chrome like"? Why?
hardwaresofton 13y ago
So I just updated from the nightly PPA, but for some reason, I still haven't gotten the UX changes... Anyone know why this is? Building tarball right now to see if the changes are there
- hardwaresofton 13y ago
  NVM, posted too fast -- UX is working in the tarball but not in the PPA-updated version for some reason...
DigitalSea 13y ago
I don't care if they've taken heavy inspiration from Chrome. I love the UI of Chrome and I am glad Firefox aren't embarrassed or afraid to take such obvious inspiration from a great looking browser and build upon it. This is exactly what Firefox has needed, a properly designed UI.
rurounijones 13y ago
Unselected tabs blend into the chrome? No border? Eugh. That seems silly.
- zobzu 13y ago
  i got a border, on windows and linux. i kinda found it odd still,then after 5min i decided i actually like it more.
  - rurounijones 13y ago
    Hmm, maybe the screenshots I have seen are incorrect. I shall keep my mouth shut until I have the thing in front of me.
derleth 13y ago
As long as the themes I use keep working, great. One of the best parts of Firefox (which Chrome seems incapable of picking up) is that themes work: You can change the whole look and feel to what you want, as opposed to it being what some self-styled UI expert thinks you should want.
da_n 13y ago
I love Firefox and I tried the Australis build for a few weeks, I found myself not very keen ultimately, it is OK but not mind blowing. The rounded corner thing is inefficient, I think they have only done this so it doesn't look too much like Chrome. The most annoying thing though is that Linux has the full menu bar stuck on top, wish they could integrate it better like on Windows/Mac.
nXqd 13y ago
It's great that you use pentadactyl and you don't have to worry about these changes :v Btw, I don't find that the menu list looks nice. The way it shows history just doesn't fit.
Mikeb85 13y ago
Running Firefox Nightly on Ubuntu (with Unity), Australis looks great. Big improvement on the old interface.

288 points by bpierre 13y ago

lux 13y ago

They're still keeping the search and address boxes separate? :\

sp332 13y ago
If you type a word into the address box, it tries to look it up in DNS. If you put a word in the search bar, it goes straight to search.
- rodms 13y ago
  You can type a ? before the one word in the url bar to go straight to search
  - m_gloeckl 13y ago
    I created keyword search bookmarks for all my frequently used search engines. For example, I often look up music releases on musicbrainz: http://musicbrainz.org/search?query=%s&type=release http://musicbrainz.org/search?query=%s&type=release I bookmarked this URL and assigned a keyword (You can also right-click input fields and select 'Add a keyword for this search'). Now, everytime I enter "mb-r <name of the release I'm looking up>" into the url bar, it goes straight to musicbrainz and inserts my search string into the %s-placeholder.
aroch 13y ago
I prefer it this way...The address box works as a search bar but the search is persistent (ie. I can search for something, close the tab and come back later in two key presses)
- eterm 13y ago
  I've recently tried to switch back from chrome to Firefox but the persistent search thing really bugs me, as well as the fact that it doesn't always search when typing into the url bar. If you want to get back so quickly there are recently closed, bookmarks, history and plenty of other ways. Always persisting the search term I find very visually distracting. Edit: On the other hand, the current tab behaviour is more of an irritation. Middle clicking the tab closes the tab unless it's the last tab when it does nothing. This is irritating. Dragging a tab doesn't work well when that tab is maximised. In chrome if you have 2 windows both maximised it's easy to drag a tab from one window to the other. In firefox you have to make one window smaller first to do this. I'm quite excited to find out if this new interface fixes this.
  - yeukhon 13y ago
    There is a not-so-well-known trick. Type % into the url bar and you can quickly navigate tabs opened. :)
    - sp332 13y ago
      To be specific, starting a search with a % searches only in open tabs. + searches tagged pages, * searches bookmarks, and ^ searches frequently-visited pages that aren't bookmarked.
- kibwen 13y ago
  I also prefer them separate, but rather for ease of navigation. I use the address box as a form of "search my browsing history" to jump to pages that I've visited before, and it's convenient to keep that separate from the search box's own history and automatic suggestions. The fact that Chrome conflates these two concepts is its biggest turn-off to me.
  - johnath 13y ago
    If you're living in your awesomebar and don't already know them, you might want to check out our filters: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/awesome-bar-find-your-bookmarks-history-and-tabs#w_changing-results-on-the-fly https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/awesome-bar-find-your-b... You can restrict location bar matches to bookmarks only, urls only, open tabs only, &c. I don't know if it counts as an easter egg, but it makes my own life a lot easier.
- Pxtl 13y ago
  My problem with conflating search and URL is 1) 1-word searches/domains or searches involving a domain-looking piece of text throw it off. 2) cluttering my typed-URL history with search keywords.
  - aroch 13y ago
    1) My feelings as well 2) Bothers me to an extent but since FF ranks by usage + weights naked domains higher in the awesomebar it isn't too big an issue.
    - Pxtl 13y ago
      On (2), that's good. I have a WP7 phone and it's terrible about typed URLs in the history... search words obliterate your typed URLs 90% of the time.
  - ngpio 13y ago
    > 1) 1-word searches/domains or searches involving a domain-looking piece of text throw it off. With DuckDuckGo, it's easy to prepend/append "!ddg" onto the offending text to force a search. I sometimes have to do this for arithmetic operations, the first operand of which the bar interprets as an address. For me, the small amount of extra time this takes is worth it. A unified search/URL bar, particularly with DDG's bang functionality, feels like a command line. And a command line feels like home.
    - antsar 13y ago
      !ddg is quite a few extra keystrokes though. Isn't it easier to just keep a shortcut key bound to that search? For example, I have 'g' bound for Google. The result: "blah blah" -> Google: blah blah "blahblah" -> attempts to find a host named blahblah "g blahblah" -> Google: blahblah
      - chris_wot 13y ago
        Depends whether you are a vi fan or not.
MLR 13y ago
I just get rid of the search bar and use the URL bar for search too, don't think there are any downsides to doing that.
- FuzzyDunlop 13y ago
  It's handy unless you accidentally start searching for anything that could be mistaken for an IP address or domain. Typing in `0x10c` to find the site for the game, or `minimal-library.js`, or whatever, won't take you to a search results page. Works alright for most things though, and I think it's still better than Google's default to Google approach, which is frustrating when you're working on a locally hosted site and keep getting sent to a search page.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- yeukhon 13y ago
  Persistent. You type into the search bar and it stays there until you clear it out. Whereas url bar search you lose it. You have to click on your search engine's search bar on the page.
- Watabou 13y ago
  Well, when searching from the address bar, I can't get the search suggestions to work. Or maybe there's a setting that I missed. Still, I don't use the search bar and leave it off since I only like to keep the the address bar + the download button to minimize complexity.
- buugs 13y ago
  Well in firefox you can't do searches like cache:news.ycombinator.com or site:news.ycombinator.com (Edit: in the address bar) I also prefer the way firefox acts with suggestions in the search and address bar being separate, I often find myself messing up where I meant to go because I thought pressing enter would take me to a site but instead goes to a search. Firefox is easy for me because the address bar acts differently.
notatoad 13y ago
by default. the address box still works as a search box, if you don't want the separate search box just get rid of it.
pcx66 13y ago
I like having them separate too, you can use the Omnibar add-on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/omnibar/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/omnibar/ to have Chrome-like functionality.
dec0dedab0de 13y ago
I wish they would remove all search functionality from the address bar.
RandallBrown 13y ago
I think they have some data showing that when they're separate, people search more. Since Mozilla gets almost all of their money from searches, it seems like a good idea to keep it that way.
fsck--off 13y ago
A Mozilla coder gave an explanation for this several months ago: "In case you wonder, the reason for which Firefox doesn't merge url and search bar is to protect user's privacy. If you prefer a Chrome-style UI, there are a couple of add-ons that provide just that." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5590988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5590988
- brymaster 13y ago
  Thanks for that. Any idea on how exactly this protects privacy though? The moz dev didn't clarify.
  - mnutt 13y ago
    I assume the location bar only auto-completes previously visited URLs, while the search bar auto-completes search queries by hitting google with every key you press. So in chrome's unified case, google knows how many times you type http://news.y..* http://news.y..*, not just every potential search query you make.
- jfoster 13y ago
  It's interesting. The address bar currently doubles as a search input, but doesn't autocomplete. The search bar does autocomplete, but won't take you to an address if you put one in it. (it takes you to a search for the address) In my opinion, they need to think this through a bit more. Each input bar is crippled in some way (one won't autocomplete, the other won't go to addresses), and it's all driven by wanting to keep incomplete searches private (until Enter gets hit). Do users realize that the search bar in Firefox is not private, whereas the address bar is? I'm betting not. Do users expect them to be? Chrome assumes not. In my opinion, if the privacy thing is so important, they'd still be better off having just one input with autocomplete off by default, and easily toggled to on. I doubt that users understand the current setup as "address bar is private, search bar is not".
  - Ankaios 13y ago
    Well, I'm a Firefox user, and I understand the difference, and I use the input fields differently depending on whether I mind particular information leaking to a search company. So, I personally strongly prefer leaving things the way they are. I'd actually vote for one change, though: I'd prefer the URL field didn't default to falling back to querying a search engine. One of my pet peeves is mistyping a URL and having my input sent by my system to Google. (That's easy enough for me to change, though, and the Firefox developers seem to be concerned enough about privacy and security to leave the ability to change it intact.)

doe88 13y ago

Is it merged in today's build? It seems not to be available in the 28.0a1 (2013-11-18) OS X build/update.

simanyay 13y ago
It will either be in tomorrow's Nightly or we will do an extra build of Nightly in the afternoon.
- doe88 13y ago
  Ok, great. edit: a new update is now available with the new changes, I _like_ it! edit': a minor quibble though, I preferred the star button when it was directly integrated in the url bar. I find it too excentred from the url for my eyes, I often give a quick look to check if an url is already starred or not.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

sanyi 13y ago

It looks even more like chrome now. DISCLAIMER: I don't like chrome.

tete 13y ago
I agree. It's still more beautiful in my opinion though. I don't like Chrome either, but a few parts of it are nice. The thing I dislike most about recent Firefox releases is that the selected search engine influences URL bar search, which is rather annoying in my opinion, but then I removed the search feature from the URL bar, making them at least somewhat distinct again.
- evilpie 13y ago
  I wrote an addon for that issue: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/keywordurl-hack/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/keywordurl-ha...
untog 13y ago
But there is a reason why Chrome looks like Chrome. Ironically, it's the lack of Chrome - the UI is unobtrusive and gets out of the way. I see the new Firefox UI in the same way.
- sanyi 13y ago
  I don't understand how curved tabs are supposed to get "out of the way". The new design seems to use less standard UI elements to push it's own (WinXP / Fisher-Price) agenda: I don't see any gains here and I reckon they just want to appeal to the chrome crowd.
  - untog 13y ago
    And I can't fathom why you'd focus in on curved tabs in this UI redesign. It's one of the smallest details.
    - 13y ago

MLR 13y ago

I really, really dislike that the bookmark button has been taken out of the address bar, that's my biggest pet peeve, along with the slightly less customisable look.

kibwen 13y ago

Hooray! Been waiting for this for a long time. I'll be especially happy if Mozilla can manage to improve the default look of Firefox on Linux, where it's just absolutely dreadful (and where I'm usually forced to resort to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fxchrome/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fxchrome/ to preserve my sanity).

mixmastamyk 13y ago
Mine looks great on Ubuntu, what are your issues?
mhurron 13y ago
It looks like every other app. What is wrong with that?
- alexanderchr 13y ago
  Assuming we are talking about ubuntu - a lot.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- riquito 13y ago
  For example I'd like to have the Firefox button at top left orange, not gray. And slimmer (not as tall as a tab). It's clearly less polished than the Windows version. And yet I thanks them everyday for the browser
silon3 13y ago
That looks much better than Australis (I _really_ don't like rounded tabs).
latortuga 13y ago
Huge agreement from a regular Chrome user on Linux here. I watched the video and the design is great. I'm really looking forward to this landing in a stable release.

vaadu 13y ago

Can it be disabled? Not everyone is going to like it or it may break a useful extension.

yeukhon 13y ago
I think so, haven't tried to be honest, but this article http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-disable-australis-in-firefox-and-get-back-the-classic-interface/ http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-disable-australis-in-firefox-... Also this only affects the nightly and add-on developers should be testing nightly anyway so they should prepare to update their add-ons in the future to adopt to the new UI.
at-fates-hands 13y ago
Technically speaking, the Nightly Build is only for testing purposes and is the most unstable version of FF available. Here's a brief explanation: In order of development - some new features may come and go from channel to channel. Nightly - Under heavy development. Least stable/secure. First tests of new changes/features; some changes/features introduced in Nightly may be removed before Release and other versions. Only for testing. Should only be used by very experienced users/testers. Aurora - Still under development. More stable/secure than Nightly. Some bugs may still be present that need resolution. Should be used by experienced users only who can post/report reproducible problems and work around issues. Beta - Final development stage before Release. Usually good stability/security. Major bugs resolved. Working out final bugs. Preview of what Release version will most likely contain in the way of changes/features, though some changes/features can still disappear before Release. Release - Final channel released to public for everyday use. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/970739 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/970739

pcx66 13y ago

Been using this on the UX branch for a while now, loving it. Been very stable, excited to see this is finally merged.

johnernaut 13y ago

This is awesome news. One thing that I'm still hoping the Firefox team would integrate is the ability to clear all downloads from the dropdown menu once they're finished instead of having to open the downloads window.

mauricioc 13y ago
Try right-clicking any download from the dropdown menu. There should be a "Clear List" option.
- johnernaut 13y ago
  I had no idea that existed - thanks!

conradfr 13y ago

I hate this tab design so much. I hate it with a passion since the first release of Chrome. And I don't even know why :) So I'm quite sad to see it landing in Firefox.

kbrosnan 13y ago
So use a complete theme. May take a bit for some to get updated as they need to overlay the current UI elements. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/complete-themes/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/complete-themes/
- conradfr 13y ago
  I try to use softwares as vanilla as possible (especially with multiple computers not all synced) but thanks for pointing that out, we'll see.

mixmastamyk 13y ago

Do not want. I'm happy with the tabs provided with my OS theme and do not want each app to have tabs with a custom shape and wasted space. Do not want a rainbow in my title bar and have not met anyone > 12 that does. What is it with these people and their obsession with skinz! and constant rearranging of buttons?

untog 13y ago
Do not want a rainbow in my title bar and have not met anyone > 12 that does. You do realise that's an add-on skin, right? The entire point of that system is that people can do whatever the hell they like and you aren't affected by it.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
Watabou 13y ago
The rainbow is a Persona theme that you can optionally add. It's not the default.
WizzleKake 13y ago
Concur. The design people in Firefox lost me as a user when they decided to re-arrange an interface that had looked the same for the better part of a decade. Re-arrange, not improve. Apparently years of users' visual + muscle memory means nothing to these UX guys. I persevered with it for a while but eventually I just gave up and switched browsers. Shame, since I'd been using Firefox since its first release (called Phoenix back then, later Firebird, finally Firefox). FWIW, here's the "original" user interface: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Mozilla_Firefox_1.0_front_page_screenshot.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Mozilla_F...
- Watabou 13y ago
  Well design is always subjective. I think before Firefox 4, the browser looked really stale and old (as does your screenshot) And I don't think they really changed it much anyways. Many of the GUI elements are in the same position as before, there's nothing new to learn. A lot of them have been integrated, which is nice and reduces the unnecessary chrome. I like Australis. To me, it looks more modern, even if it does look like Chrome. It feels like a step in the right direction. I also don't mind them changing the UI of Firefox because most of the time, this is what I look at: http://d.pr/i/iEtP http://d.pr/i/iEtP

jcutrell 13y ago

"Modern, clean, and comfortable." Design terms like these, when juxtaposed with the "curvy tab" language, get way under my skin. What is a "comfortable" design, exactly? I suppose a better question would be, what made the other design "uncomfortable"? What is a clean design? Do you really mean "modern" instead of "clean"? Wouldn't it be better to say the interface elements are more defined, or there are less textures, or whatever? Perhaps this is Janet Murray speaking through me (GaTech), but using vague terms to describe minuscule changes is somewhat bombastic. Instead, use appropriately narrow and descriptive terms. I guess the rant is here because the changes aren't really that big of a deal. It's pretty much a nod to Chrome, run through a few iterations, am I right? Or maybe I'm being short sighted.

nsmartt 13y ago

Firefox has looked awful on Linux for a long time. I'm excited to see a consistent design on every OS, and I've been primarily using the UX build for months. A lot of people say this looks a lot like Chromium, but I don't find that to be the case at all. The background tabs aren't rounded at all, while tabs are shown to be rounded on mouse-over. It's a significant improvement over Chromium's approach. I'm not a tremendous fan of the rounded design, but it's certainly an improvement over the previous design.

truhd 13y ago

Looks like Australis "borrows" a lot from Chrome UI. It has pinned tabs with an icon, chrome like tab shape, chrome like options (3 horizontal bar) icon, chrome like simple settings and even chrome like icons (incognito, bookmarks).

icegreentea 13y ago
shrug. Firefox already had pinned tabs with an icon, and the icons for incognito/private and bookmarks aren't much different from the current ones either. I'll grant you the tab shape and the option icon.
- asadotzler 13y ago
  http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3696/8994445994_c0939b83ca_o.png http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3696/8994445994_c0939b83ca_o.p... But I won't grant you the tab shape, unless you're the kid that couldn't figure out square pegs and round holes.

nly 13y ago

Maybe I'm blind, but it looks basically the same on Linux as it does now except the tabs are curved (and possibly take up more space!) I notice the tabs aren't sitting up in to the window manager in their Linux screenshot (understandable). I've already hidden the menu bar, then killed the window decorations for FF in KWin, so my tabs touch the top of the screen. In fact, Chrome actually uses a few more pixels than FF for me.

dangrossman 13y ago
Maybe it's your OS? They look very different to me on Windows. The orange Firefox top menu is gone, the tabs have gained an "x" button, the "+" no longer has a border, the padding above the tabs is reduced, there are 3 new buttons on the search bar which is now larger and lost its colored background, and the forward button is gone. It looks more like Chrome than it does old Firefox. http://i.imgur.com/Y3ZFcD4.png http://i.imgur.com/Y3ZFcD4.png
- nly 13y ago
  Yes, It has always looked different on Linux. Here's how Firefox 25 looks on KDE for me right now (entire screen). http://i.imgur.com/bYDqi2L.png http://i.imgur.com/bYDqi2L.png with the exception of adblock on the right, that's the default layout. Fyi, I also liked the orange button on Windows :(
  - _delirium 13y ago
    The OSX version also looks closer to that than the Windows version. There is no orange "Firefox" bar, and tabs already have x's on them.

lsv1 13y ago

How about we get a Firefox that doesn't use a gig of RAM for 10 tabs? Or perhaps isn't slower than IE9 in jscript?

21echoes 13y ago
Firefox has consistently been shown to use less RAM than all other browsers: http://media.bestofmicro.com/L/5/390857/original/memuse.png http://media.bestofmicro.com/L/5/390857/original/memuse.png
- nly 13y ago
  Not only that, it's faster as well. Try closing a session of Chrome with 20 tabs open and then reopening it. On both Windows and Linux, Chrome can be extremely unresponsive in this scenario. FF lazy loads tabs so doesn't care to reload everything in the background when you restart your session.
  - lsv1 13y ago
    I've noticed the reverse with Firefox, closing an instance with 20 tabs takes quite some time. However I've yet to notice Chrome take any time in opening 20 tabs.
pwnna 13y ago
Yeah. Chrome has been consistently using more RAM, CPU, and power for me than firefox over the last year or so.
Watabou 13y ago
People still seem to make the statement that Firefox uses more RAM, when in fact, since Firefox 20, it has consistently used LESS ram than all the other browsers. I have 40 tabs open now, and it's using 1.16 GB which is awesome. I actually want it to take up more because I have 6GB of free RAM not being used, which is a waste. Compare that to chrome. Using the same number of tabs and it can easily take up more than 3GB of ram on my system, which is expected since each tab is a different process. I wonder when Firefox's tabs will run on their own separate process. I'm looking forward to that. I think I saw some updates a month ago but I can't find that now. (fwiw, I have 16GB of RAM)

ahoge 13y ago

Looks pretty wasteful. I prefer how it currently looks on my machine: http://i.imgur.com/PvlTZ3k.png http://i.imgur.com/PvlTZ3k.png My tabs can get as small as the pinned ones on the left (which is the default behavior of every other browser). There used to be a about:config setting for minimum tab width, but one(!) Firefox developer decided to remove it, because: "Users can override this using userChrome.css if they absolutely want it. I don't think the prefs are worth it."[1] Now I have to use a custom user chrome CSS file and disable the tab animations to get the same effect. I really hope this pointless update won't make me jump through a dozen hoops again. I'm tired of it. [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=574654 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=574654

bcj 13y ago
I also use a very minimal setup (http://imgur.com/NoCafoH http://imgur.com/NoCafoH). On OSX, Australis will actually be thinner (once they fix https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=938985 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=938985) because the window buttons are now on the same level as the tabs.
- super_mario 13y ago
  Firefox 25 is currently quite good (with Pentadactyl I hide the address and search bar altogether) http://imgur.com/pSzvcAi http://imgur.com/pSzvcAi This update will make it worse it seems and waste more vertical space (apart from the really ugly aliased curved tabs).
  - rizumu 13y ago
    Checkout the pentadactyl plugin "buftabs" for maximum vertical space and a friendly tab bar: http://www.leighbicknell.com/pentadactyl-setup/ http://www.leighbicknell.com/pentadactyl-setup/
    - super_mario 13y ago
      Thanks. I don't know this existed. Can you control the width of the tabs? Right now the URL in the tab is clipped, which can be dangerous and makes you susceptible to fishing attacks when you browse casually.

wbharding 13y ago

So Firefox is now Chrome plus IE's back button? Doesn't seem like the most inspired way to differentiate your product.

quarterto 13y ago
Firefox has had that back button since 3. http://www.megaleecher.net/uploads/firefox3_beta3.jpg http://www.megaleecher.net/uploads/firefox3_beta3.jpg

Osiris 13y ago

One interesting feature is the ability to customize the layout of the UI. Opera had some really great features for customization of UI and it's nice to see another browser doing it. One thing I still haven't seen except in Opera: Tabs on the left or right. With widescreen monitors, I prefer my tabs on the left. Even better, tabs with thumbnails.

Narretz 13y ago
I hope they don't make it harder for add-ons to have the tabs on the left / right side. It's such a no-brainer to have the tabs there. Viewport is still big enough, and you can see the tab content mor easily.

dubcanada 13y ago

Is this Mozilla's responsive to Chrome's Aura? I'm a little confused with what benefit this offers over the previous one.

Taylorious 13y ago

Why is Mozilla trying so hard to make Firefox exactly like Chrome? I have been using Firefox since like 1.5, if I wanted it to be like Chrome I would use Chrome.

mikevm 13y ago
Because Chrome is superior.
- Watabou 13y ago
  The look of it, certainly.
  - mikevm 13y ago
    The look _and_ the performance. I used to be a die-hard Firefox fan. Then I moved to Opera because it was faster. Then I moved to Chrome because Opera was buggy. I tried using Firefox again a while ago and I went right back to Chrome. Overall, Firefox feels more sluggish than Chrome. In part, whenever pages are loading in Firefox, it seems to make the whole browser feel sluggish -- something which doesn't happen in Chrome.
    - Watabou 13y ago
      I have not noticed this. I'm using the Nightly version of Firefox though. For me, since Firefox 23/24, it has performed comparably to Chrome. And believe me I have LOTS of tabs (sometimes > 50) open. Firefox handles them much more nicely than Chrome, uses less memory and doesn't crash, EVER. Chrome is just too happy to show me the sad face randomly during page loads.
    - isaacremuant 13y ago
      And, as always with browser wars. This is your anecdotal opinion. Different users and configs have different experiences and the memory or speed issues are something from the past even if the features were comparable (You can't beat the amount and quality of FF's addons). A concerning issue about FF is that it might be drifting away from one of the things that makes it great. The ability to customize. Disclaimer: Chrome, Firefox, Opera are all great browsers and people should use whatever they like but if you start pushing a case for your subjective choice, be prepared to deal with arguments.

super_mario 13y ago

When is this curved tab experiment going to end already. I hated it in every peace of software that ever used it, and it always forces me to find ways to get rid of it. Why not just stick with native tab implementation?

krelian 13y ago

So nitpickers might point out differences but you cannot deny that the basic tab looks just like Chrome's. When Chrome came out with this it was new and innovative. Now it looks like a copy. When this blatant copying happens (and it happens in many places; it's no wonder all phones look like a variation of the original iphone) I always wonder if the designers really did convince themselves that their design is different or they tried but just couldn't come up with anything better than their inspiration.

asadotzler 13y ago
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3696/8994445994_c0939b83ca_o.png http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3696/8994445994_c0939b83ca_o.p... I recommend you take another look. They're not really the same at all. Firefox's designers were not going for the angular and mechanical chrome look at all. They were designing something softer, rounder and more human.
- aroch 13y ago
  They're also pretty much the next evolution of the FF tab design as things go "minimalist". The current tabs are curvy as well.
- gresrun 13y ago
  Personally, I like the rounded edges but just adding a corner radius isn't exactly falling far from the Chrome tree.
  - jasonlotito 13y ago
    Good thing that's not all they are doing.
    - coldtea 13y ago
      Bad thing there's not much other changes.

davb 13y ago

I much prefer how it looks for me currently (Firefox 26.0b5 on XFCE, Greybird/Numix styles): http://i.imgur.com/XXzCFQZ.png http://i.imgur.com/XXzCFQZ.png It seems like change for the sake of making things "glossier". That inactive tabs have no top border bothers me. As does the fact it seems to completely ignore my native window toolkit tab/widget styles.

diaz 13y ago
Very similar configuration as mine: http://imgur.com/PiehG1V http://imgur.com/PiehG1V I have simplified and totally removed the search bar. Some tweaks to get just an icon for the menu in the top left and also remove the close buttons in each tab. Probably something else I don't remember. I thought this australis revision would make firefox look better integrated in the environment, not less, it seems they want to make it look the same in all plataforms... I'm not a huge fan of that, but I'll wait to see if it can be integrated better of not.

fjk 13y ago

It's live :) My knee-jerk reaction is that I like the old UI better... I do feel that the tab layout is preferable to Chrome's tab layout because the inactive tabs are faded and not round. http://grab.by/s8ne http://grab.by/s8ne

Systemic33 13y ago
When I look at your screenshot, it really doesn't look like Chrome at all. Well as much as any browser looks the same with url bar, etc.

Dirlewanger 13y ago

And still no mention of shrinking tab headers...Jesus christ.

oblio 13y ago
That's a feature, not a bug. Yay! (Chrome) I have 40 tiny tabs and I don't know what any of them are! At least Firefox + tabs provides real tab management options: scroll bar, Tree Style Tabs, Panorama, etc.

Nux 13y ago

I hope they preserve the addon-bar.

wjoe 13y ago
They haven't. It's been removed, and as far as I can tell, there's now no way to add a bar to the bottom of the window.
- Nux 13y ago
  Fuck. Opened https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=940773 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=940773

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

oinksoft 13y ago

So is this the death of the browser.tabs.onTop setting? Everybody has to use tabs on top now?

HelloTiago 13y ago

Sadly Firefox's developer tools are still inferior to those of Chrome... I've been trying to switch from Chrome, but when I'm developing stuff I keep going back to it...

piyush_soni 13y ago

So Australis means "more Chrome like"? Why?

hardwaresofton 13y ago

So I just updated from the nightly PPA, but for some reason, I still haven't gotten the UX changes... Anyone know why this is? Building tarball right now to see if the changes are there

hardwaresofton 13y ago
NVM, posted too fast -- UX is working in the tarball but not in the PPA-updated version for some reason...

DigitalSea 13y ago

I don't care if they've taken heavy inspiration from Chrome. I love the UI of Chrome and I am glad Firefox aren't embarrassed or afraid to take such obvious inspiration from a great looking browser and build upon it. This is exactly what Firefox has needed, a properly designed UI.

rurounijones 13y ago

Unselected tabs blend into the chrome? No border? Eugh. That seems silly.

zobzu 13y ago
i got a border, on windows and linux. i kinda found it odd still,then after 5min i decided i actually like it more.
- rurounijones 13y ago
  Hmm, maybe the screenshots I have seen are incorrect. I shall keep my mouth shut until I have the thing in front of me.

derleth 13y ago

As long as the themes I use keep working, great. One of the best parts of Firefox (which Chrome seems incapable of picking up) is that themes work: You can change the whole look and feel to what you want, as opposed to it being what some self-styled UI expert thinks you should want.

da_n 13y ago

I love Firefox and I tried the Australis build for a few weeks, I found myself not very keen ultimately, it is OK but not mind blowing. The rounded corner thing is inefficient, I think they have only done this so it doesn't look too much like Chrome. The most annoying thing though is that Linux has the full menu bar stuck on top, wish they could integrate it better like on Windows/Mac.

nXqd 13y ago

It's great that you use pentadactyl and you don't have to worry about these changes :v Btw, I don't find that the menu list looks nice. The way it shows history just doesn't fit.

Mikeb85 13y ago

Running Firefox Nightly on Ubuntu (with Unity), Australis looks great. Big improvement on the old interface.