29 ms·

How to make a better default Firefox UI

389 points by black7375 3y ago

black7375 3y ago
I'm the author of Lepton, a popular theme for Firefox. You can see how I made various decisions from my perspective and how I improved on some of Mozilla's less-than-stellar decisions. I think that might explain how we improved it and made it popular. This article is part of a series. - https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/wiki/%5BArticle%5D-0.-Firefox-UI-UX-history https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/wiki/%5BArticle%...
- jraph 3y ago
  I would not usually customize too much my UIs and just try to get used to stuff instead. It's just less friction, and it's nice to be able to install something and be used to the defaults. Your Firefox UI customization are so good and easy to setup that this is an exception. Thanks for making them. And they feel maintained, which is an important point. I didn't know you wrote extensively on this, it looks interesting and it looks like it is well documented, I'll be sure to read this. Thanks again!
- tetris11 3y ago
  How I find Lepton? In the addons store there's nothing listed under themes for that name. Or is Lepton a previous generation UI for Firefox that no longer exists except on old releases? Sorry if these are stupid questions, I did read the article but I may have missed some things.
  - black7375 3y ago
    Since Mozilla does not allow it as an add-on, you must download and install it yourself. Yes. I know it's really uncomfortable. Nevertheless, the fact that it was this popular is also proof that the existing UI was inconvenient. https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/wiki/Installation-Guide https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/wiki/Installatio...
    - iruoy 3y ago
      It takes 2 minutes and the instructions are very clear. Should not be a problem. This is the first time I've heard of Lepton. Now I've installed it I don't think I will go back. Thanks! I don't care about the tabs being buttons though. Mainly the huge amount of space the new design uses. And the lack of icons.
    - user_7832 3y ago
      Do you know how lepton would interact with the various firefox css themes (like those on the r/firefoxcss subreddit)? Some of them look really good but I'd imagine there might be conflicts and resulting instabilities. Btw thanks for posting this, I remember using lepton a long time back, I need to switch from edge soon haha
- AlienRobot 3y ago
  That's very interesting, specially that telemetry is being used to justify removing interface items. In my opinion the address bar is so incredibly large you could put 10 buttons in there and you would still have space, so I can't imagine a reason to bother removing things besides wanting to remove everything until there is nothing you can remove left. You seem to be knowledgeable about UI/UX. May I ask you a question? I have a theory that monochrome icons are worse than colored icons. Do you know if there are studies about this or if there's any consensus? Thanks in advance.
  - black7375 3y ago
    In the middle of the article, there is a brief discussion about icons and colors. I also think that well-coordinated color icons are good for readability and usability. https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/wiki/%5BArticle%5D-1.-How-to-make-a-better-default-Firefox-UI#clearly--accessibility https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/wiki/%5BArticle%... However, it is difficult to apply it universally to support a variety of colors. If it is similar to the background color, it is difficult to distinguish and there may be contrast issues depending on the light/dark theme. I think it's just the ease of development of a solid color icon that matches the color of the text.
    - AlienRobot 3y ago
      Oh, I missed that. It's satisfying to see what I assumed to be true to be laid out so concretely as data points. I just wish it was something more 3D and "skeuomorphic" instead of just making a flat gray arrow into a flat green arrow. For example, if Chrome used a yellow star instead of a white star outline, I bet a lot of people would say it looks ugly as hell and sticks out like a sore thumb, but I'd prefer it. I can barely tell these monochrome icons apart.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    > the address bar is so incredibly large you could put 10 buttons in there and you would still have space, so I can't imagine a reason to bother removing things Space isn't the only issue. Fewer options generally (very generally) yields better design - it's easier to find things, less distraction, cleaner, etc.
- 12345hn6789 3y ago
  thank you for your work. The installation process was very easy. I would recommend though, to simply outline the steps and move the advanced section to the bottom completely. ``` 1. Run script in your OS cmd line. 2. Navigate to `about:support` and click clear startup cache. ```
silon42 3y ago
The first thing that I do is to enable standard WM title bar.
- badsectoracula 3y ago
  Same, also show the menu bar. And use a custom userChrome.css that makes the UI a bit more to my liking[0] (after an update the tab shading got a bit wrong and that red line showed up - i'm certain that one comes from the theme because this red color also appears in Thunderbird and i haven't customized that - but it hasn't bothered me enough yet to track it down). I might dislike how Firefox looks out of the box but at the same time i think it is the most customizable browser, so i stick with it. Also, not shown in the shot, but my userChrome.css puts the search bar (Ctrl+F) at the top of the viewport instead of at the bottom. [0] https://i.imgur.com/VNghjFA.png https://i.imgur.com/VNghjFA.png
yoavm 3y ago
If anyone is interested, I've worked on creating a cleaner interface for Firefox with sidebar tabs here: https://github.com/bjesus/fireside https://github.com/bjesus/fireside
- black7375 3y ago
  Oh, it looks pretty neat.
- rekado 3y ago
  This is very nice. I'm using [Sidebery](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sidebery/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sidebery/) for vertical sidebar tabs. How does fireside differ?
  - yoavm 3y ago
    You can use Sidebery with Fireside. Fireside doesn't really care what extension you're using for your tabs sidebar, but you might need to adjust some spacing. Fireside isn't an extension - it's a userChrome customization to hide the tabs, and move the location bar to the left so it's feel "merged" with the sidebar.
- tvshtr 3y ago
  This is great
vdaea 3y ago
This is the same problem that modern Windows has: these systems are designed by 20-something year old designers who wear specs with thick coloured frames and who only use Mac and Safari. They don't give a shit because they don't have to use these systems ever; for them these systems are something they screenshot and put in their portfolios.
- dudefeliciano 3y ago
  > these systems are designed by ... I don't understand what you're referring to, this firefox addon? Or standard firefox? I'd image that firefox developers actually use it as their browser too..
  - vdaea 3y ago
    Standard Firefox. >I'd image that firefox developers actually use it as their browser too.. The graphic design of Firefox is not made by developers, it's made by designers who don't use Firefox.
    - Yaina 3y ago
      Citation needed, I'd say.
      - a_gnostic 3y ago
        vdaea just said it
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
thecosmicfrog 3y ago
Is anyone else not at all bothered by the tabs "being buttons"? I feel like I'm the only one sometimes. Are they really that jarring for first-time users?
- badsectoracula 3y ago
  Tabs being buttons doesn't really bother me and if anything this is such a common alternative to tab appearance that even Windows 95's tab control has a mode to make tabs look like buttons (AFAIK it was used in the original task bar). It was also used for, e.g. switching channels/windows on mIRC since the 90s too. However personally i do not like how these particular "tab buttons" look like and if nothing else (they remind me of those long pills that often feel hard to swallow :-P), i am used to them looking like tabs and see no reason for that change (fortunately Firefox allows you to customize its look and i have a userChrome.css that makes it look more to my liking).
- ihateolives 3y ago
  It bothers me because it's different enough from everything else with tabs that I have (not only browsers, file managers, editors etc) and I just can't jibe with it. Why throw all semantics out of the window? It looks like a button but doesn't behave like one.
  - pndy 3y ago
    > Why throw all semantics out of the window? Almost everything nowadays is designed with mobile-first in mind approach - whether it's a smartphone or tablet, or desktop software. That throw all semantics out of the window - look what happen to e.g. Gnome over the years. What's worse I'd say, is that the lack of clear differentiation between types of interface elements made easier to hide options within GUI under various dark patterns (active element vs static information etc.) - whenever its required to do so. As for Firefox GUI changes: Mozilla ask their users for feedback many times and the feedback was given - often strongly criticizing the upcoming changes but they ignored it and introduced changes anyway. I did submitted mine when they were about to rollout Australis but I didn't bother myself to say anything when Proton was about to be introduced because I knew that the corporate facet of Mozilla doesn't care and they'll do whatever they like.
ihateolives 3y ago
Ever since Firefox borked their tabs I've given up on it as my default browser. Every now and then I open it up for testing and when I still see buttons instead of tabs I make a mental note of trying again in half a year or so. Light theme is especially insulting with white buttons on light-light gray. It even doesn't repsect Windows' system theme settings, because in Windows you can have apps keep light theme but apply colors to taskbar, Start menu and title bars. Edge gets it, Chrome doesn't, but at least there's enough contrast, Firefox completely misses the mark.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  I use Firefox as my alternate browser. And whenever I fire it up it needs first to get in my way and interrupt me to tell me about the new changes and features it has implemented since the last time I opened it like Pocket, VPN, etc. God, stop it, just let me start browsing what I came here for, stop imitating Microsoft and their dark patterns of shoving Office 365 and Gamepass in your face between updates. Go and advertise your features to people who don't yet have Firefox installed, but I'm already your "customer", so stop bugging me. This is why I'm mainly on Chrome. It may be inferior and spying on me but it never gets in my way.
  - hobs 3y ago
    Damn that new tab must pop up for me like... once a month! What a distraction! I guess giving all my data to Google is probably worth it.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      Joke all you want but Firefox's market share agrees with me as most users value convenience above all else. At least Google knows not to be intrusive and not fuck with the UI so often. Chrome looks almost exactly like it did over 10 years ago. Why can't Firefox imitate that quality of life feature? It's not that hard to not change shit at the surface. They've been bleeding market share for years including faithful long time users who enjoyed the 'old, boring' Firefox but don't agree with the current direction of imitating Chrome at every step. Old Firefox = Windows 7 New Firefox = Windows 11
tomxor 3y ago
The main issue I've had with their new UI is the massive size of everything, it's fair enough for fat finger phone displays but is annoyingly wasteful for any regular sized desktop. This is partly due to the increased padding as per the article, but also because they removed the "compact" UI density option. However you can bring this back under about:config browser.compactmode.show Then go to menu > more tools > customize toolbar ... "density" at the bottom. The option is labelled "not supported", but it's been like that for years.
- jasonjayr 3y ago
  Is there any insight as to why do they mark it as "not supported" ?
  - marionauta 3y ago
    It's corporate talk for "if it breaks, don't complain"
    - arboles 3y ago
      It's also a sneaky strategy to deal with features you've decided to remove, because users are that fucking stupid. 1. Instead of just removing the feature, hide the feature and call it unsupported so the users who remember the feature can't complain yet. 2. Then finally remove the feature in the next update, with justification that it was an unsupported option and used by few people, so users can't complain. Frog boiled. With each update the company seems to be acting rationally on "metrics" and principles, but the decision was set internally before that.
      - micromacrofoot 3y ago
        never remove features: “product is too bloated” remove features: “product is tricking us”
        arboles 3y ago
OJFord 3y ago
Whenever I see someone using (or a screenshot of) horizontal tabs I'm just shocked that people put up with it, or perhaps even more so that it's still the default in all major (and minor?) browsers. I recommend Sidebery, but more than that I just recommend something to get your tabs listed vertically in a sidebar, so they don't squash each other up as you add more until you can't tell what's what at a glance, the width is fixed, and you can always read the title. Which probably means implicitly 'I recommend FF', since I imagine Safari/Chrome/Edge don't let you make that kind of modification? FF actually doesn't even need an add-on for it, I used to do it just with a userChrome tweak I copied from somewhere, but Sidebery has a nice 'panels' (like tabs of tabs to switch between that the sidebar shows) feature, and you can bind them to the built-in 'container tabs' (which I always think should surely be called 'tab containers'?) so that work stuff opens in your work panel, for example.
- mvdtnz 3y ago
  Edge has vertical tabs out of the box. And yeah we get it, because vertical tabs people and tree tabs people are the vegans of browser discussions. Please, we get that you like vertical tabs. No need to keep going on about it.
  - medstrom 3y ago
    Please, don't perpetuate the myth that vegans "keep going on about things" unless you've seen someone do it in real life.
    - mvdtnz 3y ago
      I have.
    - a_gnostic 3y ago
      Most vegans I know use Edge.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
alex3305 3y ago
Brave browser recently also introduced buttons. I was a tad annoyed with it, but accepted it. Until my wife recently saw the new look while I was working and asked how I could even put up with this. She argued that tabs should look like tabs and not buttons. Fortunately for Brave the rollback is quite easy with a flag in `brave://flags` where you can disable the `brave-horizontal-tabs-update` feature.
- kilroy123 3y ago
  Yes, I don't love it either. However, they FINALLY have truly pinned tabs that don't go out of sight, like Firefox. So I'm happy with the change.
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  The downside of using hidden flags like this is that most of the time you're just delaying the inevitable, as opposed to just biting the bullet now. Up to you to decide which is the least worst.
  - alex3305 3y ago
    You are right. However sometimes a change can be so bad, that there is no other option. For instance when Chrome changed the way zoom worked in their Android browser. I had to revert, otherwise it was unusable for me. 1. https://old.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/143ynrk/text_scaling_removed_from_android_chrome/jndd6pb/ https://old.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/143ynrk/text_scalin...
BMSR 3y ago
I use Grasshopper for vertical tabs. It has a lot of stuff including 182 commands and 253 settings. You can assign commands to different actions including mouse gestures. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/grasshopper-urls/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/grasshopper-u...
etiam 3y ago
Anybody aware of corresponding damage mitigations for Thunderbird after the start of version 115 ?
Astraco 3y ago
The same happens with Thunderbird. The new UI is a mess I can't find anything now. I fear when the rename K9 mail for Android to Thunderbird they break the UI too.
- amelius 3y ago
  Rule number #1 of interface design: don't change the interface!
- thrdbndndn 3y ago
  It's (almost) every major software. I mainly use Chrome, and in their newest M121 release they made not one, but three major UI changes and I hate every single one of them. For the curious, they are (together with my rant): 1. the new "simplified" bookmark save flow which is more complicated than the old one; 2. loss of the ability to disable system notification (i.e. to use Chrome's built-in one, which I prefer); 3. loss of the ability to disable "copy to highlight" context menu option via a command line argument, which I never use and it just messes up my muscle memory for right click -> copy.* * Seriously, why is it so tough for software in the CURRENT YEAR to just offer fully customizable context menus? How hard is that? Funnily enough, this used to be a staple feature in nearly all the popular freeware back in the 2000s and 2010s. It feels like the whole UI/UX scene has taken a nosedive lately.
  - KTibow 3y ago
    If I had to guess why they might not let you customize it - the people who make the software don't know or don't care about the other way you want it - it adds a bit more complexity / sometimes code debt to let that thing be customized - the design might be a specific way that they don't want to change
  - encom 3y ago
    >fully customizable context menus? How hard is that? It's not hard at all, Vivaldi does it. I consider Vivaldi the least worst browser.
  - DonHopkins 3y ago
paol 3y ago
The Lepton theme looks good. If I'd known about it I may not have bothered to cook up my own userchrome hacks. I'm pretty happy with the current results[0] though so I'll be sticking with them for the time being. [0] https://draic.org/scratch/ffoxuserchrome.png https://draic.org/scratch/ffoxuserchrome.png
vikeri 3y ago
Will try it out. Regardless of if I’ll use it or not I think this project is a great example of the rare type of engineering craft that seems to be a pre-requisite to build truly great software. A great signal if I were hiring.
jFriedensreich 3y ago
Instead of losing the basics of usability I whish firefox would embrace new directions that have been shown by arc browser or at least allow the level of customiziation it used to. I made a prototype but the step to fork just to modify the ui seems ridiculous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxE8CD4dylQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxE8CD4dylQ
Yaina 3y ago
I don't know, this post wants to convince readers that there are UX rules from which the theme author created an objectively better Firefox theme, yet most of the changes strike me as personal preferences. It's obviously well made and maintained, but personally I don't think it's visually very appealing and looks in parts more cluttered. So I think people have different preferences, Firefox went with one design but they also enable support to make these changes, and that's all nice. But I find the post to a bit silly, in that the author wants to prove that their preferences are empirically right.
- black7375 3y ago
  The UI is definitely a matter of taste, which is why I created the distribution in three different shapes. However, it was confusing that when muting, there was no indication that it was loading or there was no tab separator.
  - Yaina 3y ago
    yeah, all the things that happen in the Korean version seem like bugs that should be filed IMO!
qwertox 3y ago
Where can I vent about that "upgraded"-page which wants me to click through many dialog boxes of stuff I don't want to know about? A bigger problem with it is that it unfocuses from the last used/selected tab to this newly added tab so that it's hard to find where I left off, which can get a bit hard when using many nested tabs in Sidebery because the tab gets appended at the very end.
- KTibow 3y ago
  I've never seen any page like that (I'm on Fedora) > A bigger problem with it is that it unfocuses from the last used/selected tab to this newly added tab so that it's hard to find where I left off Often Firefox remembers the last tab you were at when you do ctrl+w, not sure if it works for this though
pxoe 3y ago
the real UI/UX nightmare of firefox is the legacy cruft. it's like every single basic browser function opens in it's own kind of a different view. settings - browser tab. history - a sidebar. actually that's just when you hit ctrl+h, manage history? ctrl+shift+h? that's a separate window. bookmarks, downloads - also that window. (that Library window that seems to be dragged up all the way from firefox 3/4.) downloads have their own little popup, but ctrl+j and manage downloads open that window. bookmarks - ctrl+shift+o opens that window, but ctrl+b opens a sidebar. profiles? just kidding, there isn't really a user-facing user-usable profile function, but there is a what looks like a legacy interface hidden at about:profiles. passwords? browser tab, with it's own look that doesn't really correspond to anything. there's one bit of cohesion - settings and addons are both browser tabs and even have links to each other. everything else, an absolute mish mash of browser tabs, windows, sidebars, popouts, different uis everywhere. and it's been a mess like this for a while, and seems like it will be like that for a while still, because there is just no singular vision and no real effort to straighten that out. they added a firefox view thing recently - and it just seems to be a yet another thing that piles on to those different uis with a yet another different ui. (it has history there, so there's like three different ways to view history, which is at least one too much.) one could guess that maaaybe they are trying to fix it with that, and maybe port functionality from Library window to View tab, but at this point in time, it's just adding to the mess. to a degree this is an exaggeration, cause well, other browsers have recently taken a liking to sidebars and have their popups and menu things as well. but the real sticking out thing is (legacy? it looks legacy) Library window that pops up here and there, and how that contrasts with some functions (settings, addons, passwords) that open in a browser tab. it ends up making opening browser functions somewhat unpredictable as to what kind of thing it'd open, definitely so at first and with just a persisting feeling of 'everything opens up differently just because'. you get used to it, but it's still a mess.
- jwells89 3y ago
  I think it’s fine for some things to have a popover and window, but it needs to be implemented intelligently. Like in Safari, downloads are a popover by default, but the popover can be “torn off” to become a window. Use cases for both are served, yet consistency is maintained. Firefox could use a good dose of this thinking.
lopkeny12ko 3y ago
My greatest "unnecessary Firefox UI change gripe" is the removal of browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll 4 years ago. And as you might expect, Mozilla does not care. If you read the bug report, this literally cannot be explained by anything except user hostility. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1621570 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1621570 Literally no other text field in any UI behaves like this. I cannot fathom why Mozilla chose to both ship this "feature" AND remove the option to opt out of it. Some users prefer it. And that's fine! But don't take away my god damn option and force it down my throat.
- _notreallyme_ 3y ago
  Actually their argument was that all other major browsers behaved like that. You can check with chrome, and indeed it behaves like firefox. For the user hostility, there argument was that people who dislike the new behavior do not have telemetry enabled, and thus they do not deserve to have the features they want. It's quite ironic considering firefox main advantage is their privacy oriented model...
  - lopkeny12ko 3y ago
    > Actually their argument was that all other major browsers behaved like that Yes, I understand, and that's true. But no other native text field behaves like this; only other browsers. In fact, one of the formerly big selling points of Firefox over Chrome for me, at the time, was that in Firefox, interacting with the URL bar didn't select all (read: it behaved like all other GTK text fields). "Making Firefox behave more like Chrome" is an anti-feature when most of your users aren't using Chrome precisely because of asinine behaviors like this.
  - Yaina 3y ago
    I don't find it ironic at all. The purpose of telemetry is to be able to obtain information about the user population at large. It's anonymous and the data only flows one way (i.e. you don't see personalized ads based on telemetry data), but of course some data about your browsing behavior is being sent somewhere, yes. It's a trade-off: You sent some anonymous usage data but in turn that contributes to decisions made about the product. If you opt-out of sending this data, obviously, it does not contribute to the pool of data from which decisions are being made. Now, that a small group of people with very specific opinions and preferences is the same that disproportionally also opt out of sending telemetry... I don't see how that is Mozilla's problem. You can't have your cake and eat it too, as the saying goes.
giamma 3y ago
On MacOS in my opinion this theme makes the experience much better: https://github.com/ideaweb/firefox-safari-style https://github.com/ideaweb/firefox-safari-style
nyx_land 3y ago
The worst thing about the Proton UI that I never hear anyone talk about is that it is objectively a massive downgrade if you're not using a modern 1080p (or higher res) monitor. My laptop is an old X220 Thinkpad, so that change actually affected my ability to work efficiently by pointlessly wasting a ton of screen space, and it's part of the same trend in software engineering of user-hostile decisions that impact people who either can't afford or don't want to use newer hardware for whatever reason. Except in this case it's not even something like making everything a bloated Electron or React app, it was just changing the UI to something that looks way worse for no reason other than to create the superficial impression that Mozilla still cares about Firefox. I run a customized userchrome because Proton sucks so much for me to use.
bloopernova 3y ago
Better browser UX, in my strongly-held opinion, starts with vertical tabs. With horizontal tabs, you can have maybe 6 to 8 tabs open before things tabs get difficult to manage or track. With vertical, nested tabs; links that open in a new tab are automatically made a child tab. From that you can infer structure and context more easily than horizontal tabs. Then you add colours to indicate different sites and now you see tab groups more easily. On top of that you can bookmark tab trees, thus saving progress of your research, documentation, etc etc. My CSS file and a couple of screenshots are here: https://gist.github.com/aclarknexient/88673880d373864eee19279218c04e6a https://gist.github.com/aclarknexient/88673880d373864eee1927... (I need to add a screenshot with nested and coloured tabs, will add that once I submit this comment)
- dmix 3y ago
  Plus looking at the screenshots of the "controversial" FF89 one of the biggest changes seems to be redesigning the tabs w/ more padding. I didn't even notice that change because I have the top tab bar hidden and use Tree Style Tab that has a design which blends nicely with FF. I don't like FF in particular but the tab tree is 100% enough of a UX gain vs all the small details chrome/safari does slightly better that I don't think twice (besides dev panel, I use chrome for frontend work).
  - stevage 3y ago
    I use FF primarily, but sometimes Chrome for debugging, on macOS. I literally cannot tell them apart.
- FeepingCreature 3y ago
  > Better browser UX, in my strongly-held opinion, starts with vertical tabs. With horizontal tabs, you can have maybe 6 to 8 tabs open before things tabs get difficult to manage or track. TabMixPlus! Dynamic width vertically scrollable fully customizable multirow tab bar. I have 50 tabs open, 22 on screen, and perfect overview. It still technically runs on current Firefox, but you have to engage in some very vigorous modding. See the README https://github.com/onemen/TabMixPlus https://github.com/onemen/TabMixPlus but be aware that this will completely disable extension signature validation. (I blame Mozilla.)
jchw 3y ago
I like the Photon-style version of this, looks pretty good. If anyone is using Nix + Home Manager, I lazily set it up with my Librewolf configuration by just manually porting the preferences and then @importing from the Git repository. Could probably be done better (is there a good way to import other JS files from the user.js file?) but it works. Much smaller (and better looking) tabs, and yeah, the addition of icons back to the menus is an improvement for sure. https://github.com/jchv/nixos-config/commit/d3db419ff44347a80d250a318fce913796d23bb4 https://github.com/jchv/nixos-config/commit/d3db419ff44347a8...
j1elo 3y ago
Everyone is writing their pet peeves, so here are mine: * Having a large tree of bookmark folders, navigating it to add a new bookmark is horrible in the small pop-up that is the "Add Bookmark" UI. * The Bookmarks sidebar allows to search by name but not to find where they are. A bookmark search add-on (Bookmark search plus 2) solves this, but it shouldn't be needed. EDIT: I've been told about right-click -> Show in Folder. This is great! Not the best UI, though (the mentioned add-on is still much more intuitive) * Cannot have multiple sidebars. So you cannot have Tree Style Tabs opened (for vertical tab handling) and the bookmarks folders & search at the same time. Bonkers. Actually, that's all. Mostly it's about handling of bookmarks! Not sure if the rest of the UI is just fine or that I got used to it and I'm now blind to its quirks, but I feel pretty comfortable with Firefox. I never felt a strong need to complain about style redesigns, like some other people do.
- yorwba 3y ago
  Do you perhaps have muscle memory for the Ctrl+Shift+B shortcut that used to open a large side panel but now just shows a narrow horizontal bar? I do and I'm certainly annoyed by this redesign, but I discovered the "manage bookmarks" shortcut Ctrl+Shift+O that opens a larger pop-up window with your bookmarks, which so far seems almost as comfortable as the old side panel. It also lets you search for bookmarks and right-clicking to select "show in folder" in the context menu shows you where in the hierarchy it is. (Though all my bookmarks are in "other bookmarks", so I don't expect to be using this much.)
  - j1elo 3y ago
    No, I don't have muscle memory, and in fact you have introduced me to the Ctrl+Shift+B shortcut to show or hide the Bookmarks Toolbar! :-D I won't use it though, because I have it visible and it's not something one typically changes a lot. With "side panels" I mean what strictly speaking Firefox calls "Sidebar": menu View -> Sidebar -> choose ONE among Bookmarks, History, Synced Tabs, Bookmark search plus 2, or Tree Style Tab. Why the hell I cannot have e.g. Tree Style Tab AND a Bookmarks sidebars on the left, at the same time? Seems silly to me. Ages ago I worked with Qt and made desktop applications that could have detachable panels (QDockWidget), or their native equivalents such as palettes on Windows, that could be placed anywhere on a main window; but now that we're living in the future it seems we went backwards on what our UIs are able to do.
stainablesteel 3y ago
look, if you guys aren't using vertical tabs you're living in the past
amon22 3y ago
I love Firefox but my biggest issue with it is that "History" fucking sucks. It's comically bad.
- jraph 3y ago
  In which ways? Please entertain us :-) In my case it has done its job of helping me find stuff when I needed it, occasionally.
- asadotzler 3y ago
  I find the Ctrl+Shift+H history History Manager window to be the best in the browser game after a couple of decades of use.
genericacct 3y ago
My 2c: i spend 8 hrs+ a day in a vnc session to a remote computer where browsers are running. In the last months firefox has begun crashing every few hours, apparently because of an xsystem exception. on the other hand chrome after a few minutes from starting will stop accepting return keypresses along with a few others (pressing 5 not only will not work, but sometimes causes unexpected behavior) i suspect my non english keyboard layout doesnt help
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
medstrom 3y ago
This thread is discussing tabs a lot. So I want to ask why do tabs need to be visible constantly in the first place? https://edstrom.dev/wgfjk/no-tabs-in-firefox https://edstrom.dev/wgfjk/no-tabs-in-firefox
wafriedemann 3y ago
Catering to these types of hardcore fans makes any progress basically impossible. This dude writes a PhD thesis, because the top bar became like 5 pixels bigger some 40 versions ago.
- 12345hn6789 3y ago
  Does reinventing the wheel every 3 years count as progress?
Slashbot3 3y ago
[flagged]
Slashbot3 3y ago
[flagged]
hendersoon 3y ago
I find the new default UI usable with the compact mode enabled. I did prefer the old one with the blue highlight line on the active tab, though.
butz 3y ago
Thanks for saving the animals. Illustrations were great touch and added so much needed whimsy to usually boring error pages. Another improvement that is a must - removable "Add-ons" button. I understand why "Menu" button is not allowed to be removed (although, it would be neat experiment to move it around toolbar), but "Add-ons" is just taking up space. And considering, that other browsers allow to hide their variant of "Add-ons" button, there should be no excuses for Firefox. Customization is a rare feature in browsers these days, and huge pro considering other browsers.
pndy 3y ago
I'm pretty sure that Waterfox fork uses Lepton already for quite some time
maverick74 3y ago
With all those changes to GUI (such as tabs on bottom) i have to ask why can't i put Bookmarks above the Tabs Bar (and URL bar)??? I mean, in a tab it's included the URL bar, but the bookmarks toolbar has nothing to do with the page we're at. It should be above Tabs!
maverick74 3y ago
also, take a look at: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/make-address-bar-placeable-to-the-tab-header/idc-p/21004/highlight/true#M11063 https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/make-address-bar-placea...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Dwedit 3y ago
Thank you very much for making Firefox UI Fix. I wish we didn't need it.
cassepipe 3y ago
Ho wow, it's good to read what you were thinking about the new UI from the beginning. It was so easy to install. And it looks fantastic.
yashasolutions 3y ago
Well, honestly since I have found Tridactyl, I have fixed the UI with guiset_quiet gui none it remove all the problems. Literally.
nubinetwork 3y ago
I wish applications would stop changing their UIs for the sake of being hip and trendy. The new thunderbird, Firefox, and the desktop applications of O365 come to mind.
Log_out_ 3y ago
How about a non default configurable shortkeys one, so that we can undo atrocities like right click t not always opening a new tab.
bathwaterpizza 3y ago
I'm still amazed at how Firefox history view is atrocious compared to Chrome.

389 points by black7375 3y ago

I'm the author of Lepton, a popular theme for Firefox. You can see how I made various decisions from my perspective and how I improved on some of Mozilla's less-than-stellar decisions. I think that might explain how we improved it and made it popular. This article is part of a series. - https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/wiki/%5BArticle%5D-0.-Firefox-UI-UX-history https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/wiki/%5BArticle%...

jraph 3y ago
I would not usually customize too much my UIs and just try to get used to stuff instead. It's just less friction, and it's nice to be able to install something and be used to the defaults. Your Firefox UI customization are so good and easy to setup that this is an exception. Thanks for making them. And they feel maintained, which is an important point. I didn't know you wrote extensively on this, it looks interesting and it looks like it is well documented, I'll be sure to read this. Thanks again!
tetris11 3y ago
How I find Lepton? In the addons store there's nothing listed under themes for that name. Or is Lepton a previous generation UI for Firefox that no longer exists except on old releases? Sorry if these are stupid questions, I did read the article but I may have missed some things.
- black7375 3y ago
  Since Mozilla does not allow it as an add-on, you must download and install it yourself. Yes. I know it's really uncomfortable. Nevertheless, the fact that it was this popular is also proof that the existing UI was inconvenient. https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/wiki/Installation-Guide https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/wiki/Installatio...
  - iruoy 3y ago
    It takes 2 minutes and the instructions are very clear. Should not be a problem. This is the first time I've heard of Lepton. Now I've installed it I don't think I will go back. Thanks! I don't care about the tabs being buttons though. Mainly the huge amount of space the new design uses. And the lack of icons.
  - user_7832 3y ago
    Do you know how lepton would interact with the various firefox css themes (like those on the r/firefoxcss subreddit)? Some of them look really good but I'd imagine there might be conflicts and resulting instabilities. Btw thanks for posting this, I remember using lepton a long time back, I need to switch from edge soon haha
AlienRobot 3y ago
That's very interesting, specially that telemetry is being used to justify removing interface items. In my opinion the address bar is so incredibly large you could put 10 buttons in there and you would still have space, so I can't imagine a reason to bother removing things besides wanting to remove everything until there is nothing you can remove left. You seem to be knowledgeable about UI/UX. May I ask you a question? I have a theory that monochrome icons are worse than colored icons. Do you know if there are studies about this or if there's any consensus? Thanks in advance.
- black7375 3y ago
  In the middle of the article, there is a brief discussion about icons and colors. I also think that well-coordinated color icons are good for readability and usability. https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/wiki/%5BArticle%5D-1.-How-to-make-a-better-default-Firefox-UI#clearly--accessibility https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/wiki/%5BArticle%... However, it is difficult to apply it universally to support a variety of colors. If it is similar to the background color, it is difficult to distinguish and there may be contrast issues depending on the light/dark theme. I think it's just the ease of development of a solid color icon that matches the color of the text.
  - AlienRobot 3y ago
    Oh, I missed that. It's satisfying to see what I assumed to be true to be laid out so concretely as data points. I just wish it was something more 3D and "skeuomorphic" instead of just making a flat gray arrow into a flat green arrow. For example, if Chrome used a yellow star instead of a white star outline, I bet a lot of people would say it looks ugly as hell and sticks out like a sore thumb, but I'd prefer it. I can barely tell these monochrome icons apart.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  > the address bar is so incredibly large you could put 10 buttons in there and you would still have space, so I can't imagine a reason to bother removing things Space isn't the only issue. Fewer options generally (very generally) yields better design - it's easier to find things, less distraction, cleaner, etc.
12345hn6789 3y ago
thank you for your work. The installation process was very easy. I would recommend though, to simply outline the steps and move the advanced section to the bottom completely. ``` 1. Run script in your OS cmd line. 2. Navigate to `about:support` and click clear startup cache. ```

silon42 3y ago

The first thing that I do is to enable standard WM title bar.

badsectoracula 3y ago
Same, also show the menu bar. And use a custom userChrome.css that makes the UI a bit more to my liking[0] (after an update the tab shading got a bit wrong and that red line showed up - i'm certain that one comes from the theme because this red color also appears in Thunderbird and i haven't customized that - but it hasn't bothered me enough yet to track it down). I might dislike how Firefox looks out of the box but at the same time i think it is the most customizable browser, so i stick with it. Also, not shown in the shot, but my userChrome.css puts the search bar (Ctrl+F) at the top of the viewport instead of at the bottom. [0] https://i.imgur.com/VNghjFA.png https://i.imgur.com/VNghjFA.png

yoavm 3y ago

If anyone is interested, I've worked on creating a cleaner interface for Firefox with sidebar tabs here: https://github.com/bjesus/fireside https://github.com/bjesus/fireside

black7375 3y ago
Oh, it looks pretty neat.
rekado 3y ago
This is very nice. I'm using [Sidebery](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sidebery/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sidebery/) for vertical sidebar tabs. How does fireside differ?
- yoavm 3y ago
  You can use Sidebery with Fireside. Fireside doesn't really care what extension you're using for your tabs sidebar, but you might need to adjust some spacing. Fireside isn't an extension - it's a userChrome customization to hide the tabs, and move the location bar to the left so it's feel "merged" with the sidebar.
tvshtr 3y ago
This is great

vdaea 3y ago

This is the same problem that modern Windows has: these systems are designed by 20-something year old designers who wear specs with thick coloured frames and who only use Mac and Safari. They don't give a shit because they don't have to use these systems ever; for them these systems are something they screenshot and put in their portfolios.

dudefeliciano 3y ago
> these systems are designed by ... I don't understand what you're referring to, this firefox addon? Or standard firefox? I'd image that firefox developers actually use it as their browser too..
- vdaea 3y ago
  Standard Firefox. >I'd image that firefox developers actually use it as their browser too.. The graphic design of Firefox is not made by developers, it's made by designers who don't use Firefox.
  - Yaina 3y ago
    Citation needed, I'd say.
    - a_gnostic 3y ago
      vdaea just said it

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

thecosmicfrog 3y ago

Is anyone else not at all bothered by the tabs "being buttons"? I feel like I'm the only one sometimes. Are they really that jarring for first-time users?

badsectoracula 3y ago
Tabs being buttons doesn't really bother me and if anything this is such a common alternative to tab appearance that even Windows 95's tab control has a mode to make tabs look like buttons (AFAIK it was used in the original task bar). It was also used for, e.g. switching channels/windows on mIRC since the 90s too. However personally i do not like how these particular "tab buttons" look like and if nothing else (they remind me of those long pills that often feel hard to swallow :-P), i am used to them looking like tabs and see no reason for that change (fortunately Firefox allows you to customize its look and i have a userChrome.css that makes it look more to my liking).
ihateolives 3y ago
It bothers me because it's different enough from everything else with tabs that I have (not only browsers, file managers, editors etc) and I just can't jibe with it. Why throw all semantics out of the window? It looks like a button but doesn't behave like one.
- pndy 3y ago
  > Why throw all semantics out of the window? Almost everything nowadays is designed with mobile-first in mind approach - whether it's a smartphone or tablet, or desktop software. That throw all semantics out of the window - look what happen to e.g. Gnome over the years. What's worse I'd say, is that the lack of clear differentiation between types of interface elements made easier to hide options within GUI under various dark patterns (active element vs static information etc.) - whenever its required to do so. As for Firefox GUI changes: Mozilla ask their users for feedback many times and the feedback was given - often strongly criticizing the upcoming changes but they ignored it and introduced changes anyway. I did submitted mine when they were about to rollout Australis but I didn't bother myself to say anything when Proton was about to be introduced because I knew that the corporate facet of Mozilla doesn't care and they'll do whatever they like.

ihateolives 3y ago

Ever since Firefox borked their tabs I've given up on it as my default browser. Every now and then I open it up for testing and when I still see buttons instead of tabs I make a mental note of trying again in half a year or so. Light theme is especially insulting with white buttons on light-light gray. It even doesn't repsect Windows' system theme settings, because in Windows you can have apps keep light theme but apply colors to taskbar, Start menu and title bars. Edge gets it, Chrome doesn't, but at least there's enough contrast, Firefox completely misses the mark.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
I use Firefox as my alternate browser. And whenever I fire it up it needs first to get in my way and interrupt me to tell me about the new changes and features it has implemented since the last time I opened it like Pocket, VPN, etc. God, stop it, just let me start browsing what I came here for, stop imitating Microsoft and their dark patterns of shoving Office 365 and Gamepass in your face between updates. Go and advertise your features to people who don't yet have Firefox installed, but I'm already your "customer", so stop bugging me. This is why I'm mainly on Chrome. It may be inferior and spying on me but it never gets in my way.
- hobs 3y ago
  Damn that new tab must pop up for me like... once a month! What a distraction! I guess giving all my data to Google is probably worth it.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Joke all you want but Firefox's market share agrees with me as most users value convenience above all else. At least Google knows not to be intrusive and not fuck with the UI so often. Chrome looks almost exactly like it did over 10 years ago. Why can't Firefox imitate that quality of life feature? It's not that hard to not change shit at the surface. They've been bleeding market share for years including faithful long time users who enjoyed the 'old, boring' Firefox but don't agree with the current direction of imitating Chrome at every step. Old Firefox = Windows 7 New Firefox = Windows 11

tomxor 3y ago

The main issue I've had with their new UI is the massive size of everything, it's fair enough for fat finger phone displays but is annoyingly wasteful for any regular sized desktop. This is partly due to the increased padding as per the article, but also because they removed the "compact" UI density option. However you can bring this back under about:config browser.compactmode.show Then go to menu > more tools > customize toolbar ... "density" at the bottom. The option is labelled "not supported", but it's been like that for years.

jasonjayr 3y ago
Is there any insight as to why do they mark it as "not supported" ?
- marionauta 3y ago
  It's corporate talk for "if it breaks, don't complain"
  - arboles 3y ago
    It's also a sneaky strategy to deal with features you've decided to remove, because users are that fucking stupid. 1. Instead of just removing the feature, hide the feature and call it unsupported so the users who remember the feature can't complain yet. 2. Then finally remove the feature in the next update, with justification that it was an unsupported option and used by few people, so users can't complain. Frog boiled. With each update the company seems to be acting rationally on "metrics" and principles, but the decision was set internally before that.
    - micromacrofoot 3y ago
      never remove features: “product is too bloated” remove features: “product is tricking us”
      - arboles 3y ago

OJFord 3y ago

Whenever I see someone using (or a screenshot of) horizontal tabs I'm just shocked that people put up with it, or perhaps even more so that it's still the default in all major (and minor?) browsers. I recommend Sidebery, but more than that I just recommend something to get your tabs listed vertically in a sidebar, so they don't squash each other up as you add more until you can't tell what's what at a glance, the width is fixed, and you can always read the title. Which probably means implicitly 'I recommend FF', since I imagine Safari/Chrome/Edge don't let you make that kind of modification? FF actually doesn't even need an add-on for it, I used to do it just with a userChrome tweak I copied from somewhere, but Sidebery has a nice 'panels' (like tabs of tabs to switch between that the sidebar shows) feature, and you can bind them to the built-in 'container tabs' (which I always think should surely be called 'tab containers'?) so that work stuff opens in your work panel, for example.

mvdtnz 3y ago
Edge has vertical tabs out of the box. And yeah we get it, because vertical tabs people and tree tabs people are the vegans of browser discussions. Please, we get that you like vertical tabs. No need to keep going on about it.
- medstrom 3y ago
  Please, don't perpetuate the myth that vegans "keep going on about things" unless you've seen someone do it in real life.
  - mvdtnz 3y ago
    I have.
  - a_gnostic 3y ago
    Most vegans I know use Edge.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]

alex3305 3y ago

Brave browser recently also introduced buttons. I was a tad annoyed with it, but accepted it. Until my wife recently saw the new look while I was working and asked how I could even put up with this. She argued that tabs should look like tabs and not buttons. Fortunately for Brave the rollback is quite easy with a flag in `brave://flags` where you can disable the `brave-horizontal-tabs-update` feature.

kilroy123 3y ago
Yes, I don't love it either. However, they FINALLY have truly pinned tabs that don't go out of sight, like Firefox. So I'm happy with the change.
madeofpalk 3y ago
The downside of using hidden flags like this is that most of the time you're just delaying the inevitable, as opposed to just biting the bullet now. Up to you to decide which is the least worst.
- alex3305 3y ago
  You are right. However sometimes a change can be so bad, that there is no other option. For instance when Chrome changed the way zoom worked in their Android browser. I had to revert, otherwise it was unusable for me. 1. https://old.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/143ynrk/text_scaling_removed_from_android_chrome/jndd6pb/ https://old.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/143ynrk/text_scalin...

BMSR 3y ago

I use Grasshopper for vertical tabs. It has a lot of stuff including 182 commands and 253 settings. You can assign commands to different actions including mouse gestures. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/grasshopper-urls/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/grasshopper-u...

etiam 3y ago

Anybody aware of corresponding damage mitigations for Thunderbird after the start of version 115 ?

Astraco 3y ago

The same happens with Thunderbird. The new UI is a mess I can't find anything now. I fear when the rename K9 mail for Android to Thunderbird they break the UI too.

amelius 3y ago
Rule number #1 of interface design: don't change the interface!
thrdbndndn 3y ago
It's (almost) every major software. I mainly use Chrome, and in their newest M121 release they made not one, but three major UI changes and I hate every single one of them. For the curious, they are (together with my rant): 1. the new "simplified" bookmark save flow which is more complicated than the old one; 2. loss of the ability to disable system notification (i.e. to use Chrome's built-in one, which I prefer); 3. loss of the ability to disable "copy to highlight" context menu option via a command line argument, which I never use and it just messes up my muscle memory for right click -> copy.* * Seriously, why is it so tough for software in the CURRENT YEAR to just offer fully customizable context menus? How hard is that? Funnily enough, this used to be a staple feature in nearly all the popular freeware back in the 2000s and 2010s. It feels like the whole UI/UX scene has taken a nosedive lately.
- KTibow 3y ago
  If I had to guess why they might not let you customize it - the people who make the software don't know or don't care about the other way you want it - it adds a bit more complexity / sometimes code debt to let that thing be customized - the design might be a specific way that they don't want to change
- encom 3y ago
  >fully customizable context menus? How hard is that? It's not hard at all, Vivaldi does it. I consider Vivaldi the least worst browser.
- DonHopkins 3y ago

paol 3y ago

The Lepton theme looks good. If I'd known about it I may not have bothered to cook up my own userchrome hacks. I'm pretty happy with the current results[0] though so I'll be sticking with them for the time being. [0] https://draic.org/scratch/ffoxuserchrome.png https://draic.org/scratch/ffoxuserchrome.png

vikeri 3y ago

Will try it out. Regardless of if I’ll use it or not I think this project is a great example of the rare type of engineering craft that seems to be a pre-requisite to build truly great software. A great signal if I were hiring.

jFriedensreich 3y ago

Instead of losing the basics of usability I whish firefox would embrace new directions that have been shown by arc browser or at least allow the level of customiziation it used to. I made a prototype but the step to fork just to modify the ui seems ridiculous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxE8CD4dylQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxE8CD4dylQ

Yaina 3y ago

I don't know, this post wants to convince readers that there are UX rules from which the theme author created an objectively better Firefox theme, yet most of the changes strike me as personal preferences. It's obviously well made and maintained, but personally I don't think it's visually very appealing and looks in parts more cluttered. So I think people have different preferences, Firefox went with one design but they also enable support to make these changes, and that's all nice. But I find the post to a bit silly, in that the author wants to prove that their preferences are empirically right.

black7375 3y ago
The UI is definitely a matter of taste, which is why I created the distribution in three different shapes. However, it was confusing that when muting, there was no indication that it was loading or there was no tab separator.
- Yaina 3y ago
  yeah, all the things that happen in the Korean version seem like bugs that should be filed IMO!

qwertox 3y ago

Where can I vent about that "upgraded"-page which wants me to click through many dialog boxes of stuff I don't want to know about? A bigger problem with it is that it unfocuses from the last used/selected tab to this newly added tab so that it's hard to find where I left off, which can get a bit hard when using many nested tabs in Sidebery because the tab gets appended at the very end.

KTibow 3y ago
I've never seen any page like that (I'm on Fedora) > A bigger problem with it is that it unfocuses from the last used/selected tab to this newly added tab so that it's hard to find where I left off Often Firefox remembers the last tab you were at when you do ctrl+w, not sure if it works for this though

pxoe 3y ago

the real UI/UX nightmare of firefox is the legacy cruft. it's like every single basic browser function opens in it's own kind of a different view. settings - browser tab. history - a sidebar. actually that's just when you hit ctrl+h, manage history? ctrl+shift+h? that's a separate window. bookmarks, downloads - also that window. (that Library window that seems to be dragged up all the way from firefox 3/4.) downloads have their own little popup, but ctrl+j and manage downloads open that window. bookmarks - ctrl+shift+o opens that window, but ctrl+b opens a sidebar. profiles? just kidding, there isn't really a user-facing user-usable profile function, but there is a what looks like a legacy interface hidden at about:profiles. passwords? browser tab, with it's own look that doesn't really correspond to anything. there's one bit of cohesion - settings and addons are both browser tabs and even have links to each other. everything else, an absolute mish mash of browser tabs, windows, sidebars, popouts, different uis everywhere. and it's been a mess like this for a while, and seems like it will be like that for a while still, because there is just no singular vision and no real effort to straighten that out. they added a firefox view thing recently - and it just seems to be a yet another thing that piles on to those different uis with a yet another different ui. (it has history there, so there's like three different ways to view history, which is at least one too much.) one could guess that maaaybe they are trying to fix it with that, and maybe port functionality from Library window to View tab, but at this point in time, it's just adding to the mess. to a degree this is an exaggeration, cause well, other browsers have recently taken a liking to sidebars and have their popups and menu things as well. but the real sticking out thing is (legacy? it looks legacy) Library window that pops up here and there, and how that contrasts with some functions (settings, addons, passwords) that open in a browser tab. it ends up making opening browser functions somewhat unpredictable as to what kind of thing it'd open, definitely so at first and with just a persisting feeling of 'everything opens up differently just because'. you get used to it, but it's still a mess.

jwells89 3y ago
I think it’s fine for some things to have a popover and window, but it needs to be implemented intelligently. Like in Safari, downloads are a popover by default, but the popover can be “torn off” to become a window. Use cases for both are served, yet consistency is maintained. Firefox could use a good dose of this thinking.

lopkeny12ko 3y ago

My greatest "unnecessary Firefox UI change gripe" is the removal of browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll 4 years ago. And as you might expect, Mozilla does not care. If you read the bug report, this literally cannot be explained by anything except user hostility. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1621570 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1621570 Literally no other text field in any UI behaves like this. I cannot fathom why Mozilla chose to both ship this "feature" AND remove the option to opt out of it. Some users prefer it. And that's fine! But don't take away my god damn option and force it down my throat.

_notreallyme_ 3y ago
Actually their argument was that all other major browsers behaved like that. You can check with chrome, and indeed it behaves like firefox. For the user hostility, there argument was that people who dislike the new behavior do not have telemetry enabled, and thus they do not deserve to have the features they want. It's quite ironic considering firefox main advantage is their privacy oriented model...
- lopkeny12ko 3y ago
  > Actually their argument was that all other major browsers behaved like that Yes, I understand, and that's true. But no other native text field behaves like this; only other browsers. In fact, one of the formerly big selling points of Firefox over Chrome for me, at the time, was that in Firefox, interacting with the URL bar didn't select all (read: it behaved like all other GTK text fields). "Making Firefox behave more like Chrome" is an anti-feature when most of your users aren't using Chrome precisely because of asinine behaviors like this.
- Yaina 3y ago
  I don't find it ironic at all. The purpose of telemetry is to be able to obtain information about the user population at large. It's anonymous and the data only flows one way (i.e. you don't see personalized ads based on telemetry data), but of course some data about your browsing behavior is being sent somewhere, yes. It's a trade-off: You sent some anonymous usage data but in turn that contributes to decisions made about the product. If you opt-out of sending this data, obviously, it does not contribute to the pool of data from which decisions are being made. Now, that a small group of people with very specific opinions and preferences is the same that disproportionally also opt out of sending telemetry... I don't see how that is Mozilla's problem. You can't have your cake and eat it too, as the saying goes.

giamma 3y ago

On MacOS in my opinion this theme makes the experience much better: https://github.com/ideaweb/firefox-safari-style https://github.com/ideaweb/firefox-safari-style

nyx_land 3y ago

The worst thing about the Proton UI that I never hear anyone talk about is that it is objectively a massive downgrade if you're not using a modern 1080p (or higher res) monitor. My laptop is an old X220 Thinkpad, so that change actually affected my ability to work efficiently by pointlessly wasting a ton of screen space, and it's part of the same trend in software engineering of user-hostile decisions that impact people who either can't afford or don't want to use newer hardware for whatever reason. Except in this case it's not even something like making everything a bloated Electron or React app, it was just changing the UI to something that looks way worse for no reason other than to create the superficial impression that Mozilla still cares about Firefox. I run a customized userchrome because Proton sucks so much for me to use.

bloopernova 3y ago

Better browser UX, in my strongly-held opinion, starts with vertical tabs. With horizontal tabs, you can have maybe 6 to 8 tabs open before things tabs get difficult to manage or track. With vertical, nested tabs; links that open in a new tab are automatically made a child tab. From that you can infer structure and context more easily than horizontal tabs. Then you add colours to indicate different sites and now you see tab groups more easily. On top of that you can bookmark tab trees, thus saving progress of your research, documentation, etc etc. My CSS file and a couple of screenshots are here: https://gist.github.com/aclarknexient/88673880d373864eee19279218c04e6a https://gist.github.com/aclarknexient/88673880d373864eee1927... (I need to add a screenshot with nested and coloured tabs, will add that once I submit this comment)

dmix 3y ago
Plus looking at the screenshots of the "controversial" FF89 one of the biggest changes seems to be redesigning the tabs w/ more padding. I didn't even notice that change because I have the top tab bar hidden and use Tree Style Tab that has a design which blends nicely with FF. I don't like FF in particular but the tab tree is 100% enough of a UX gain vs all the small details chrome/safari does slightly better that I don't think twice (besides dev panel, I use chrome for frontend work).
- stevage 3y ago
  I use FF primarily, but sometimes Chrome for debugging, on macOS. I literally cannot tell them apart.
FeepingCreature 3y ago
> Better browser UX, in my strongly-held opinion, starts with vertical tabs. With horizontal tabs, you can have maybe 6 to 8 tabs open before things tabs get difficult to manage or track. TabMixPlus! Dynamic width vertically scrollable fully customizable multirow tab bar. I have 50 tabs open, 22 on screen, and perfect overview. It still technically runs on current Firefox, but you have to engage in some very vigorous modding. See the README https://github.com/onemen/TabMixPlus https://github.com/onemen/TabMixPlus but be aware that this will completely disable extension signature validation. (I blame Mozilla.)

jchw 3y ago

I like the Photon-style version of this, looks pretty good. If anyone is using Nix + Home Manager, I lazily set it up with my Librewolf configuration by just manually porting the preferences and then @importing from the Git repository. Could probably be done better (is there a good way to import other JS files from the user.js file?) but it works. Much smaller (and better looking) tabs, and yeah, the addition of icons back to the menus is an improvement for sure. https://github.com/jchv/nixos-config/commit/d3db419ff44347a80d250a318fce913796d23bb4 https://github.com/jchv/nixos-config/commit/d3db419ff44347a8...

j1elo 3y ago

Everyone is writing their pet peeves, so here are mine: * Having a large tree of bookmark folders, navigating it to add a new bookmark is horrible in the small pop-up that is the "Add Bookmark" UI. * The Bookmarks sidebar allows to search by name but not to find where they are. A bookmark search add-on (Bookmark search plus 2) solves this, but it shouldn't be needed. EDIT: I've been told about right-click -> Show in Folder. This is great! Not the best UI, though (the mentioned add-on is still much more intuitive) * Cannot have multiple sidebars. So you cannot have Tree Style Tabs opened (for vertical tab handling) and the bookmarks folders & search at the same time. Bonkers. Actually, that's all. Mostly it's about handling of bookmarks! Not sure if the rest of the UI is just fine or that I got used to it and I'm now blind to its quirks, but I feel pretty comfortable with Firefox. I never felt a strong need to complain about style redesigns, like some other people do.

yorwba 3y ago
Do you perhaps have muscle memory for the Ctrl+Shift+B shortcut that used to open a large side panel but now just shows a narrow horizontal bar? I do and I'm certainly annoyed by this redesign, but I discovered the "manage bookmarks" shortcut Ctrl+Shift+O that opens a larger pop-up window with your bookmarks, which so far seems almost as comfortable as the old side panel. It also lets you search for bookmarks and right-clicking to select "show in folder" in the context menu shows you where in the hierarchy it is. (Though all my bookmarks are in "other bookmarks", so I don't expect to be using this much.)
- j1elo 3y ago
  No, I don't have muscle memory, and in fact you have introduced me to the Ctrl+Shift+B shortcut to show or hide the Bookmarks Toolbar! :-D I won't use it though, because I have it visible and it's not something one typically changes a lot. With "side panels" I mean what strictly speaking Firefox calls "Sidebar": menu View -> Sidebar -> choose ONE among Bookmarks, History, Synced Tabs, Bookmark search plus 2, or Tree Style Tab. Why the hell I cannot have e.g. Tree Style Tab AND a Bookmarks sidebars on the left, at the same time? Seems silly to me. Ages ago I worked with Qt and made desktop applications that could have detachable panels (QDockWidget), or their native equivalents such as palettes on Windows, that could be placed anywhere on a main window; but now that we're living in the future it seems we went backwards on what our UIs are able to do.

stainablesteel 3y ago

look, if you guys aren't using vertical tabs you're living in the past

amon22 3y ago

I love Firefox but my biggest issue with it is that "History" fucking sucks. It's comically bad.

jraph 3y ago
In which ways? Please entertain us :-) In my case it has done its job of helping me find stuff when I needed it, occasionally.
asadotzler 3y ago
I find the Ctrl+Shift+H history History Manager window to be the best in the browser game after a couple of decades of use.

genericacct 3y ago

My 2c: i spend 8 hrs+ a day in a vnc session to a remote computer where browsers are running. In the last months firefox has begun crashing every few hours, apparently because of an xsystem exception. on the other hand chrome after a few minutes from starting will stop accepting return keypresses along with a few others (pressing 5 not only will not work, but sometimes causes unexpected behavior) i suspect my non english keyboard layout doesnt help

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medstrom 3y ago

This thread is discussing tabs a lot. So I want to ask why do tabs need to be visible constantly in the first place? https://edstrom.dev/wgfjk/no-tabs-in-firefox https://edstrom.dev/wgfjk/no-tabs-in-firefox

wafriedemann 3y ago

Catering to these types of hardcore fans makes any progress basically impossible. This dude writes a PhD thesis, because the top bar became like 5 pixels bigger some 40 versions ago.

12345hn6789 3y ago
Does reinventing the wheel every 3 years count as progress?

Slashbot3 3y ago

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Slashbot3 3y ago

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hendersoon 3y ago

I find the new default UI usable with the compact mode enabled. I did prefer the old one with the blue highlight line on the active tab, though.

butz 3y ago

Thanks for saving the animals. Illustrations were great touch and added so much needed whimsy to usually boring error pages. Another improvement that is a must - removable "Add-ons" button. I understand why "Menu" button is not allowed to be removed (although, it would be neat experiment to move it around toolbar), but "Add-ons" is just taking up space. And considering, that other browsers allow to hide their variant of "Add-ons" button, there should be no excuses for Firefox. Customization is a rare feature in browsers these days, and huge pro considering other browsers.

pndy 3y ago

I'm pretty sure that Waterfox fork uses Lepton already for quite some time

maverick74 3y ago

With all those changes to GUI (such as tabs on bottom) i have to ask why can't i put Bookmarks above the Tabs Bar (and URL bar)??? I mean, in a tab it's included the URL bar, but the bookmarks toolbar has nothing to do with the page we're at. It should be above Tabs!

maverick74 3y ago

also, take a look at: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/make-address-bar-placeable-to-the-tab-header/idc-p/21004/highlight/true#M11063 https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/make-address-bar-placea...

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Dwedit 3y ago

Thank you very much for making Firefox UI Fix. I wish we didn't need it.

cassepipe 3y ago

Ho wow, it's good to read what you were thinking about the new UI from the beginning. It was so easy to install. And it looks fantastic.

yashasolutions 3y ago

Well, honestly since I have found Tridactyl, I have fixed the UI with guiset_quiet gui none it remove all the problems. Literally.

nubinetwork 3y ago

I wish applications would stop changing their UIs for the sake of being hip and trendy. The new thunderbird, Firefox, and the desktop applications of O365 come to mind.

Log_out_ 3y ago

How about a non default configurable shortkeys one, so that we can undo atrocities like right click t not always opening a new tab.

bathwaterpizza 3y ago

I'm still amazed at how Firefox history view is atrocious compared to Chrome.