6 ms·

Firefox 29 beta arrives with easy Sync tool....

39 points by kumarrahul 13y ago

Firefox 29 beta arrives with easy Sync tool, customization mode and Chrome-like user interface Australis

dagurp 13y ago
So.. can I disable australis somehow?
- moystard 13y ago
  Have you at least tried it or are you simply change averse? I have done the move a few weeks back, and I don't regret my decision. The toolbar and my add-ons located there still work very well, also the new menu gives a quick access to useful features.
  - shock 13y ago
    I, for one, have tried it and it makes things I do frequently, more difficult: there's no longer available a bookmark button to open the bookmarks sidebar, there's no longer a menu item to show all bookmaks, when I bookmark something I click the bookmarks star twice in order to enter tags but the second click is only sometimes registered. For me, the previous theme worked much better than australis. I struggle to see the improvements in australis.
    - moystard 13y ago
      Opening the bookmarks toolbar takes indeed two clicks now (but you can use the keyboard shortcut CMD + B to open it instantly). Regarding your second point, the double click works great, and the bookmark details overlay appears.
      - shock 13y ago
        I'm on Ubuntu, if that makes a difference about the double click on the bookmark star so perhaps it's a platform issue. But I was referring to the bookmarks sidebar not toolbar. How do you open the sidebar?
        SquareWheel 13y ago
        On Windows Ctrl+B opens the bookmark sidebar, and ctrl+shift+b opens the "library" popup with bookmarks selected.
        shock 13y ago
        My point is that there used to be a button that you could place in a toolbar and clicking the button would open the bookmarks sidebar. That button is now gone. I'm sure that in time I'll get used to the changes in australis but I think it would have been better if they would have been introduced gradually. As it was introduced, lots of things stopped working at once the way I was used to. For me, this is friction and it's not good.
  - dagurp 13y ago
    I have tried Chrome and I didn't like it.
  - coffeeaddicted 13y ago
    As nightly-build user I've worked with it a few weeks. I got used to everything - except the tab's on top (more mouse-movement and they just don't make sense, I don't get why they removed that option). But now working with classic theme restorer, so as long as they don't break that plugin everything's fine.
  - zanny 13y ago
    I got the Australis updates yesterday, tried it for half an hour. Never use the menu, want my tab real estate back, so I got the addon to fix it. The shiny gloss over everything is still annoying, and they made the RSS icon monochrome rather than the normal RSS icon when you can sub to feeds, but otherwise I can just get rid of the menu I'd never use and have my old UX back.
    - keeperofdakeys 13y ago
      If by tab real estate, you mean the amount of tabs that can be shown at once, you only lose 1/8th of a tab http://i.imgur.com/uT0oHl3.png http://i.imgur.com/uT0oHl3.png
- shock 13y ago
  There's an extension called Classic Theme Restorer that aims to do it, as well as customize australis.
  - userbinator 13y ago
    The fact that such an extension exists, and that it may get broken again in later versions, says a lot about what Mozilla really think of customisation.
    - veeti 13y ago
      > says a lot about what Mozilla really think of customisation. Oh? And what is that? "Customization is great and you should have the option to do so"? Try having a "classic theme restorer" with Chromium. > it may get broken again in later versions Future changes may cause incompatibilities in any project. That is why such changes are released in major new versions so that add-on developers have plenty of time to make adjustments and fixes.
      - hackinthebochs 13y ago
        It's different when breaking changes are infrequent and optional. This is no longer the case with firefox: breaking changes can come at any time and you generally don't have the option to upgrade (although I do recall there being an option to turn off auto updating, I'm not sure this is a good solution though).
        kevingadd 13y ago
        Mozilla periodically releases 'ESRs', or extended service releases, that are exactly what you complain they don't offer: the ability to lock yourself to a given release without being forced to upgrade (the most recent ESR gets security updates, IIRC.)
      - userbinator 13y ago
        What used to be possible with the stock browser, without any extensions, now needs one or more. They're not quite at the level of Google, but it looks like they're heading in that general direction.
- pix64 13y ago
  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemer...
userbinator 13y ago
In this new version, Mozilla presents a major user interface overhaul Australis that makes it easy to customize your browser. The amount of doublespeak Mozilla has been putting out recently is astounding. Read the comments here for example (I don't know if they've changed anything since then, but I doubt it): https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2013/11/australis-is-landing-in-firefox-nightly/ https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2013/11/australis-is-landing-in-... All they appear to be doing is chasing Chrome's design decisions.
- rquirk 13y ago
  I worry that desktop Firefox will go the way of the Android version or the neutered Firefox OS browser, where you cannot install the vital security add-on NoScript due to the incompatible add-on model that the mobile versions use. That used to work on Android, but no longer (and it seems the noscript dev is not a fan of the mobile platform). There are many more add-ons that only work on the desktop version. They should all be cross-platform and not desktop specific :(
  - Ygg2 13y ago
    While I agree, Australis only breaks visual add-ons like Vertical Tabs, and the like. Not sure where NoScript comment is coming from?
    - rquirk 13y ago
      For now Australis only breaks visual add-ons, but I can see a drive to align, i.e. remove features from, the desktop version so it is more like the mobile versions. The thinking being - Australis is visually more like the Android version of Firefox, why not make its add-on model more like the Android add-on model? i.e. Neutered. The NoScript comment is because that is the "killer app" for Firefox for me, and on mobile Firefox it is not available. There's the amusingly titled "NSA" addition - http://noscript.net/nsa/ http://noscript.net/nsa/ - but as you can see from that page it is pretty much dead. A forum post from November 2013 (1) indicates that the author is aware of the problem, but the diverging code bases I guess make it difficult to maintain. 1: http://forums.informaction.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=17687&sid=579082bb6448130609947fa1f466eed5 http://forums.informaction.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=17687&si...
SquareWheel 13y ago
Australis is such an improvement that I'm tempted to come back from Chrome. Everything feels very fluid and fast. I'd be curious to see the latest benchmarks on startup time, Javascript performance and such.
- moystard 13y ago
  I don't know how long you have been a Chrome user, but Firefox has felt snappy and responsive for a few months now. Australis re-design shows that often speed is more a matter of impression than benchmark results.
  - SquareWheel 13y ago
    I switched from Firefox to Chrome the week it came out. So maybe 5 years? I've kept Firefox installed for testing web development and such though. You're absolutely right that perception of speed is largely about experience. The animations are smooth, it doesn't jump around. But I can tell that the boot times are much faster now as well. Both teams have done an excellent job. Seeing this release has encouraged me to finally donate to Mozilla. They do a lot of good for the web.
  - kevingadd 13y ago
    IIRC, modern Australis is actually tuned for better rendering performance; older themes used more gradients and alpha transparency in UI elements, which made them more complicated to render. Australis makes lighter use of these elements and this has a measurable impact on how much CPU time gets spent repainting tabs/address bars/etc.
- pix64 13y ago
  http://arewefastyet.com/ http://arewefastyet.com/
spindritf 13y ago
You can always use Aurora which is Firefox two versions ahead of release. So you would have had those features about a month ago. I was for a long time hesitant thinking that it would be unstable, or cause compatibility issues with my favourite extensions... Nothing like that. At least in my experience. New sync worked completely flawlessly. I now use it on both Ubuntu[1] and Android[2] almost exclusively. On Android it's faster than Chrome beta, perhaps partly due to AdBlock, and it has a nicer interface, especially closing tabs is much easier. It's not available from Google Play but it updates itself so you only need to download the .apk manually once (make sure you do it over ssl). On desktop some changes brought by Australis are, let's say, not to my taste. Of course, there's already an addon to fix it[3]. You can keep whatever you like from the new UI, and revert whatever you don't. For example, I like the drawer but didn't like the inability to move back and forward buttons to the right of the url bar. They're back on the right[4]. Same goes for rounded corners of tabs, or any other control issue. [1] https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mozilla-daily/+archive/firefox-aurora https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mozilla-daily/+archive/firefox... [2] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mobile/aurora/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mobile/aurora/ [3] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemer... [4] http://i.imgur.com/LE8UZHY.png http://i.imgur.com/LE8UZHY.png
josteink 13y ago
I've been using it for quite a while (as "Aurora"), and it is quite a significant improvement over regular stable Firefox builds.
morsch 13y ago
So now I need to give them my email address plus remember yet another password for sync? Do not want. I always thought the old model with the sync keys was pretty sweet. Is the synced data end-to-end encrypted? It better be!
- dewey 13y ago
  In times of free and secure password managers "remembering passwords" should really be a non-issue.
  - dingdingdang 13y ago
    Let's just plug KeyPass here since its open source and brilliant: http://keepass.info/ http://keepass.info/ Also for the linux and co (incl osx & win too actually) users: https://www.keepassx.org/news/ https://www.keepassx.org/news/
- dingaling 13y ago
  You can run your own Firefox sync server, but it's a pain to implement. http://docs.services.mozilla.com/howtos/run-sync.html http://docs.services.mozilla.com/howtos/run-sync.html Once it's up and running, though, it's seamless. Edit: Hmm. Looks like they're happy to break this: " Some unknown proportion of the user base uses their own Sync servers ... [Asa] I don't think we should worry too much about this group. If we can identify them and message them that'd be sufficient for my concerns." https://services.etherpad.mozilla.org/sync-migration https://services.etherpad.mozilla.org/sync-migration Well, thanks. Here's a code-dump of the new Firefox Account server. Not sure yet if I can implement this: https://github.com/mozilla/fxa-auth-server https://github.com/mozilla/fxa-auth-server
  - reedlaw 13y ago
    That's not a very reassuring attitude. Hopefully the new Firefox Accounts authentication server will be easy enough to deploy and configure as an alternative to private Sync servers.
- veeti 13y ago
rootuid 13y ago
"In addition, Firefox Sync is also upgraded so that all current users will need to create new account" Seriously, NO! How to alienate your existing customers.
- sp332 13y ago
  I'm not sure that part of the article is correct. I've been using my old sync account in Nightly builds (now up to version 31) and it's still working fine. Edit: I just checked with a clean install, and there's a button that says "Using an older version of sync?" It brings you to this page https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-to-update-to-the-new-firefox-sync?redirectlocale=en-US&as=u&redirectslug=how-sync-works-old-version-firefox&utm_source=inproduct https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-to-update-to-the-ne... which basically says "unlink all your devices and re-link them." So I guess adding new devices to your old account doesn't work.
grandpoobah 13y ago
I've been patiently waiting for Firefox to fix their ugly UI, I look forward to finally ditching Chrome and returning to a browser made by a company whose primary concern isn't accumulating data on its users.
- maaaats 13y ago
  If it's only the UI holding you back you could have found an extension/theme long ago.
  - skrowl 13y ago
    If it's only the UI holding you back then you having been following the NSA spying / Google cooperation stories lately.
- hackinthebochs 13y ago
  FXChrome solved the problem for me (chrome-like theme for firefox, its perfect). I am glad someone finally told them their last design iteration was horrendous. Honestly, who makes these decisions over there?
  - Pacabel 13y ago
    Lots of people tell Mozilla that their recent UI changes are bad. Just read the comments of any blog post Mozilla makes about such changes. Mozilla never listens. Their current approach is always deemed the "correct" one, even if it's seen as totally wrong a mere 3 to 4 months later, and subsequently reworked in some significant way. These recent moves to imitate Chrome to an even greater extent are not welcomed, even if Mozilla forces them on its remaining Firefox users. Many people use Firefox these days precisely because its UI still retains a few of the vestiges of the more more usable UIs of its pre-4.0 releases. Getting rid of these makes Firefox even less appealing. Perhaps the only thing keeping people on Firefox is that the UIs of the other browsers have gotten far worse (like in the case of the new versions of Opera and IE), or were never very good to being with (like in the case of Chrome).
dingdingdang 13y ago
The real strength of Firefox vs Chrome is in FF's real (as in not android-"open-source") open source philosophy which makes forked projects like Palemoon possible (I personally prefer Palemoon at the moment due to more conservative release cycle and UI plus strong security focus)
- kevingadd 13y ago
  I agree that the freedom to actually maintain viable forks like Palemoon is excellent. On the other hand, I wish Palemoon didn't exist: It's a compatibility nightmare for anyone trying to build HTML5 apps or games using recent APIs. All his changes tend to cause mysterious memory usage/cpu usage issues or simply break things, and 'use a different browser' is not a great answer to have to give a customer. I don't know how you could consider Palemoon security focused unless everyone using it is building it from source and they've carefully examined his changelists. At least with trunk Firefox you know the commits are exhaustively reviewed and tested (perhaps too exhaustively; some FF contributors find the extensive review process stifling). EDIT: Removed complaint about Pale Moon builds not being reproducible; he used to have a big angry rant about how he wouldn't share his build settings with anyone, but he's apparently removed it. Nice move!
ctb_mg 13y ago
In the linked markup, the difference between the bookmark star when the page is bookmarked (vs not bookmarked) is that the star is filled in grey rather than an outline. I think this is a subtle design problem that doesn't easily show "bookmarked" vs "not bookmarked" state. I think users may have come to expect the typical yellow star when bookmarking a page. Usually if I want to bookmark a page I glance at the star to see if it's already bookmarked, and the outline vs. grey states don't make that clear.
Spiritus 13y ago
There's still some stuff before I can consider switching from Chrome, most are OS X specific-ish: - No swipe animation for going back/forward in history. - Doesn't have that native feel for "over-scrolling". You know when you try to scroll beyond the page and see that grey linen stuff. - No Keychain integration (yes I know there's an addon, but I would rather see this integrated). - Even though there's been plenty of improvements, the dev tools in Chrome feels more polished and feature complete.

39 points by kumarrahul 13y ago

Firefox 29 beta arrives with easy Sync tool, customization mode and Chrome-like user interface Australis

dagurp 13y ago

So.. can I disable australis somehow?

moystard 13y ago
Have you at least tried it or are you simply change averse? I have done the move a few weeks back, and I don't regret my decision. The toolbar and my add-ons located there still work very well, also the new menu gives a quick access to useful features.
- shock 13y ago
  I, for one, have tried it and it makes things I do frequently, more difficult: there's no longer available a bookmark button to open the bookmarks sidebar, there's no longer a menu item to show all bookmaks, when I bookmark something I click the bookmarks star twice in order to enter tags but the second click is only sometimes registered. For me, the previous theme worked much better than australis. I struggle to see the improvements in australis.
  - moystard 13y ago
    Opening the bookmarks toolbar takes indeed two clicks now (but you can use the keyboard shortcut CMD + B to open it instantly). Regarding your second point, the double click works great, and the bookmark details overlay appears.
    - shock 13y ago
      I'm on Ubuntu, if that makes a difference about the double click on the bookmark star so perhaps it's a platform issue. But I was referring to the bookmarks sidebar not toolbar. How do you open the sidebar?
      - SquareWheel 13y ago
        On Windows Ctrl+B opens the bookmark sidebar, and ctrl+shift+b opens the "library" popup with bookmarks selected.
        shock 13y ago
        My point is that there used to be a button that you could place in a toolbar and clicking the button would open the bookmarks sidebar. That button is now gone. I'm sure that in time I'll get used to the changes in australis but I think it would have been better if they would have been introduced gradually. As it was introduced, lots of things stopped working at once the way I was used to. For me, this is friction and it's not good.
- dagurp 13y ago
  I have tried Chrome and I didn't like it.
- coffeeaddicted 13y ago
  As nightly-build user I've worked with it a few weeks. I got used to everything - except the tab's on top (more mouse-movement and they just don't make sense, I don't get why they removed that option). But now working with classic theme restorer, so as long as they don't break that plugin everything's fine.
- zanny 13y ago
  I got the Australis updates yesterday, tried it for half an hour. Never use the menu, want my tab real estate back, so I got the addon to fix it. The shiny gloss over everything is still annoying, and they made the RSS icon monochrome rather than the normal RSS icon when you can sub to feeds, but otherwise I can just get rid of the menu I'd never use and have my old UX back.
  - keeperofdakeys 13y ago
    If by tab real estate, you mean the amount of tabs that can be shown at once, you only lose 1/8th of a tab http://i.imgur.com/uT0oHl3.png http://i.imgur.com/uT0oHl3.png
shock 13y ago
There's an extension called Classic Theme Restorer that aims to do it, as well as customize australis.
- userbinator 13y ago
  The fact that such an extension exists, and that it may get broken again in later versions, says a lot about what Mozilla really think of customisation.
  - veeti 13y ago
    > says a lot about what Mozilla really think of customisation. Oh? And what is that? "Customization is great and you should have the option to do so"? Try having a "classic theme restorer" with Chromium. > it may get broken again in later versions Future changes may cause incompatibilities in any project. That is why such changes are released in major new versions so that add-on developers have plenty of time to make adjustments and fixes.
    - hackinthebochs 13y ago
      It's different when breaking changes are infrequent and optional. This is no longer the case with firefox: breaking changes can come at any time and you generally don't have the option to upgrade (although I do recall there being an option to turn off auto updating, I'm not sure this is a good solution though).
      - kevingadd 13y ago
        Mozilla periodically releases 'ESRs', or extended service releases, that are exactly what you complain they don't offer: the ability to lock yourself to a given release without being forced to upgrade (the most recent ESR gets security updates, IIRC.)
    - userbinator 13y ago
      What used to be possible with the stock browser, without any extensions, now needs one or more. They're not quite at the level of Google, but it looks like they're heading in that general direction.
pix64 13y ago
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemer...

userbinator 13y ago

In this new version, Mozilla presents a major user interface overhaul Australis that makes it easy to customize your browser. The amount of doublespeak Mozilla has been putting out recently is astounding. Read the comments here for example (I don't know if they've changed anything since then, but I doubt it): https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2013/11/australis-is-landing-in-firefox-nightly/ https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2013/11/australis-is-landing-in-... All they appear to be doing is chasing Chrome's design decisions.

rquirk 13y ago
I worry that desktop Firefox will go the way of the Android version or the neutered Firefox OS browser, where you cannot install the vital security add-on NoScript due to the incompatible add-on model that the mobile versions use. That used to work on Android, but no longer (and it seems the noscript dev is not a fan of the mobile platform). There are many more add-ons that only work on the desktop version. They should all be cross-platform and not desktop specific :(
- Ygg2 13y ago
  While I agree, Australis only breaks visual add-ons like Vertical Tabs, and the like. Not sure where NoScript comment is coming from?
  - rquirk 13y ago
    For now Australis only breaks visual add-ons, but I can see a drive to align, i.e. remove features from, the desktop version so it is more like the mobile versions. The thinking being - Australis is visually more like the Android version of Firefox, why not make its add-on model more like the Android add-on model? i.e. Neutered. The NoScript comment is because that is the "killer app" for Firefox for me, and on mobile Firefox it is not available. There's the amusingly titled "NSA" addition - http://noscript.net/nsa/ http://noscript.net/nsa/ - but as you can see from that page it is pretty much dead. A forum post from November 2013 (1) indicates that the author is aware of the problem, but the diverging code bases I guess make it difficult to maintain. 1: http://forums.informaction.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=17687&sid=579082bb6448130609947fa1f466eed5 http://forums.informaction.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=17687&si...

SquareWheel 13y ago

Australis is such an improvement that I'm tempted to come back from Chrome. Everything feels very fluid and fast. I'd be curious to see the latest benchmarks on startup time, Javascript performance and such.

moystard 13y ago
I don't know how long you have been a Chrome user, but Firefox has felt snappy and responsive for a few months now. Australis re-design shows that often speed is more a matter of impression than benchmark results.
- SquareWheel 13y ago
  I switched from Firefox to Chrome the week it came out. So maybe 5 years? I've kept Firefox installed for testing web development and such though. You're absolutely right that perception of speed is largely about experience. The animations are smooth, it doesn't jump around. But I can tell that the boot times are much faster now as well. Both teams have done an excellent job. Seeing this release has encouraged me to finally donate to Mozilla. They do a lot of good for the web.
- kevingadd 13y ago
  IIRC, modern Australis is actually tuned for better rendering performance; older themes used more gradients and alpha transparency in UI elements, which made them more complicated to render. Australis makes lighter use of these elements and this has a measurable impact on how much CPU time gets spent repainting tabs/address bars/etc.
pix64 13y ago
http://arewefastyet.com/ http://arewefastyet.com/

spindritf 13y ago

You can always use Aurora which is Firefox two versions ahead of release. So you would have had those features about a month ago. I was for a long time hesitant thinking that it would be unstable, or cause compatibility issues with my favourite extensions... Nothing like that. At least in my experience. New sync worked completely flawlessly. I now use it on both Ubuntu[1] and Android[2] almost exclusively. On Android it's faster than Chrome beta, perhaps partly due to AdBlock, and it has a nicer interface, especially closing tabs is much easier. It's not available from Google Play but it updates itself so you only need to download the .apk manually once (make sure you do it over ssl). On desktop some changes brought by Australis are, let's say, not to my taste. Of course, there's already an addon to fix it[3]. You can keep whatever you like from the new UI, and revert whatever you don't. For example, I like the drawer but didn't like the inability to move back and forward buttons to the right of the url bar. They're back on the right[4]. Same goes for rounded corners of tabs, or any other control issue. [1] https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mozilla-daily/+archive/firefox-aurora https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mozilla-daily/+archive/firefox... [2] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mobile/aurora/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mobile/aurora/ [3] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemer... [4] http://i.imgur.com/LE8UZHY.png http://i.imgur.com/LE8UZHY.png

josteink 13y ago

I've been using it for quite a while (as "Aurora"), and it is quite a significant improvement over regular stable Firefox builds.

morsch 13y ago

So now I need to give them my email address plus remember yet another password for sync? Do not want. I always thought the old model with the sync keys was pretty sweet. Is the synced data end-to-end encrypted? It better be!

dewey 13y ago
In times of free and secure password managers "remembering passwords" should really be a non-issue.
- dingdingdang 13y ago
  Let's just plug KeyPass here since its open source and brilliant: http://keepass.info/ http://keepass.info/ Also for the linux and co (incl osx & win too actually) users: https://www.keepassx.org/news/ https://www.keepassx.org/news/
dingaling 13y ago
You can run your own Firefox sync server, but it's a pain to implement. http://docs.services.mozilla.com/howtos/run-sync.html http://docs.services.mozilla.com/howtos/run-sync.html Once it's up and running, though, it's seamless. Edit: Hmm. Looks like they're happy to break this: " Some unknown proportion of the user base uses their own Sync servers ... [Asa] I don't think we should worry too much about this group. If we can identify them and message them that'd be sufficient for my concerns." https://services.etherpad.mozilla.org/sync-migration https://services.etherpad.mozilla.org/sync-migration Well, thanks. Here's a code-dump of the new Firefox Account server. Not sure yet if I can implement this: https://github.com/mozilla/fxa-auth-server https://github.com/mozilla/fxa-auth-server
- reedlaw 13y ago
  That's not a very reassuring attitude. Hopefully the new Firefox Accounts authentication server will be easy enough to deploy and configure as an alternative to private Sync servers.
veeti 13y ago

rootuid 13y ago

"In addition, Firefox Sync is also upgraded so that all current users will need to create new account" Seriously, NO! How to alienate your existing customers.

sp332 13y ago
I'm not sure that part of the article is correct. I've been using my old sync account in Nightly builds (now up to version 31) and it's still working fine. Edit: I just checked with a clean install, and there's a button that says "Using an older version of sync?" It brings you to this page https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-to-update-to-the-new-firefox-sync?redirectlocale=en-US&as=u&redirectslug=how-sync-works-old-version-firefox&utm_source=inproduct https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-to-update-to-the-ne... which basically says "unlink all your devices and re-link them." So I guess adding new devices to your old account doesn't work.

grandpoobah 13y ago

I've been patiently waiting for Firefox to fix their ugly UI, I look forward to finally ditching Chrome and returning to a browser made by a company whose primary concern isn't accumulating data on its users.

maaaats 13y ago
If it's only the UI holding you back you could have found an extension/theme long ago.
- skrowl 13y ago
  If it's only the UI holding you back then you having been following the NSA spying / Google cooperation stories lately.
hackinthebochs 13y ago
FXChrome solved the problem for me (chrome-like theme for firefox, its perfect). I am glad someone finally told them their last design iteration was horrendous. Honestly, who makes these decisions over there?
- Pacabel 13y ago
  Lots of people tell Mozilla that their recent UI changes are bad. Just read the comments of any blog post Mozilla makes about such changes. Mozilla never listens. Their current approach is always deemed the "correct" one, even if it's seen as totally wrong a mere 3 to 4 months later, and subsequently reworked in some significant way. These recent moves to imitate Chrome to an even greater extent are not welcomed, even if Mozilla forces them on its remaining Firefox users. Many people use Firefox these days precisely because its UI still retains a few of the vestiges of the more more usable UIs of its pre-4.0 releases. Getting rid of these makes Firefox even less appealing. Perhaps the only thing keeping people on Firefox is that the UIs of the other browsers have gotten far worse (like in the case of the new versions of Opera and IE), or were never very good to being with (like in the case of Chrome).

dingdingdang 13y ago

The real strength of Firefox vs Chrome is in FF's real (as in not android-"open-source") open source philosophy which makes forked projects like Palemoon possible (I personally prefer Palemoon at the moment due to more conservative release cycle and UI plus strong security focus)

kevingadd 13y ago
I agree that the freedom to actually maintain viable forks like Palemoon is excellent. On the other hand, I wish Palemoon didn't exist: It's a compatibility nightmare for anyone trying to build HTML5 apps or games using recent APIs. All his changes tend to cause mysterious memory usage/cpu usage issues or simply break things, and 'use a different browser' is not a great answer to have to give a customer. I don't know how you could consider Palemoon security focused unless everyone using it is building it from source and they've carefully examined his changelists. At least with trunk Firefox you know the commits are exhaustively reviewed and tested (perhaps too exhaustively; some FF contributors find the extensive review process stifling). EDIT: Removed complaint about Pale Moon builds not being reproducible; he used to have a big angry rant about how he wouldn't share his build settings with anyone, but he's apparently removed it. Nice move!

ctb_mg 13y ago

In the linked markup, the difference between the bookmark star when the page is bookmarked (vs not bookmarked) is that the star is filled in grey rather than an outline. I think this is a subtle design problem that doesn't easily show "bookmarked" vs "not bookmarked" state. I think users may have come to expect the typical yellow star when bookmarking a page. Usually if I want to bookmark a page I glance at the star to see if it's already bookmarked, and the outline vs. grey states don't make that clear.

Spiritus 13y ago

There's still some stuff before I can consider switching from Chrome, most are OS X specific-ish: - No swipe animation for going back/forward in history. - Doesn't have that native feel for "over-scrolling". You know when you try to scroll beyond the page and see that grey linen stuff. - No Keychain integration (yes I know there's an addon, but I would rather see this integrated). - Even though there's been plenty of improvements, the dev tools in Chrome feels more polished and feature complete.