I have been working with the latest builds of Firefox 4 for the last two months. The browser has changed tremendously, both interface wise but also under the hood. The interface changes will likely split the Firefox user base. This article is for users who prefer the “old” interface and way of working the web browser. It looks at each change and offers alternatives or options to undo it. That obviously depends on the change at hand, and there may be changes that cannot be undone at all.
Lets start with a look at the new interface of the web browser:
Firefox 3 users should see differences right away. The Firefox / Minefield button at the top, tabs on top of the address bar, new icons in the header, no page title information in the top toolbar and no status bar. Other changes become only visible after working with the browser for some time. Link hover information are now displayed at the right side of the address bar, and not in the status bar. There is also a new add-on manager and the Panorama feature.
Firefox / Minefield button
The Firefox button has replaced the whole menubar. It displays access to several menubar items but not all of them.
As you can see, the menu has been reduced, and a lot of options have been removed in the process. Others have been nested into menus. To spawn a new window users would have to move the mouse over the arrow at the New Tab entry and select the opening New Window option from the selection. The menu items are clickable and have an arrow that leads to more options, which could be highly confusing to some users in the beginning.
It is possible to revert to the old Firefox menu. The fastest way of switching to the old Firefox menu is to click the Minefield button, move the mouse over the arrow next to Options and click on Menu Bar. This removes the Minefield / Firefox button and displays the standard File menu again with all its entries. A side effect of this is that the title bar is displaying the page title again.
Tabs On Top
Some users prefer their tabs below the address bar. Could be because they are used to this, or that they want to run an add-on that uses multiple rows for tabs or that they prefer quicker access to the tabs than the address bar.
A click on View > Toolbars > Tabs On Top moves the tabs below the address bar. The View menu is obviously only available if the Firefox / Minefield button has been removed. Users with the button need to click the button, move the mouse over the arrow next to Options and click the Tabs On Top option there.
Missing status bar
The status bar is missing in Firefox 4. The so called Add-on Bar has been created as a replacement. The new toolbar is not active by default. Users who run add-ons that place icons in the status bar area need to activate the Add-on bar so that the add-on icons and information are displayed. This is again done by clicking on View > Toolbars > Add-On Bar if the old menu is shown in the browser, or Minefield / Firefox > arrow next to options > Add-On Bar if the single button menu is displayed.
The status bar / add-on bar is not displaying link destinations when the mouse hovers over a link in the browser. These information are now displayed in the address bar instead.
That works for short web addresses but is problematic as the space is limited. It happens that the current url is cut off to make enough room for the link destination url. And the link destination is not displayed fully as well if the space is not sufficient. Take a look at the following example.
Both urls are not displayed fully anymore. There does not seem to be an option or switch to move the link destination information from the address bar to the status bar. There is however the add-on Status 4 Evar (full review at Firefox 4, Display Link Destinations In The Add-On Bar) which can display the link information in the new Add-on bar. The information are still displayed in the address bar as well though.
Firefox Panorama
Panorama is a new feature that adds tab management capabilities to Firefox 4. It is triggered by the the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-e, by pressing the Group your tabs button in the Firefox tabbar or by clicking on View > Tab Groups.
There is no option to disable Panorma at this point. Why would you want to disable it? See Please Mozilla, Let Me Disable Firefox Panorama for pointers.
Some users want to change the hotkey with which Panorama is triggered. Sandeep left a comment in Many Companies Do Not Seem To Care Anymore mentioning that the Firefox add-on keyconfig can change the key.
Verdict
Firefox 4 will continue to be my browser of choice. I do however see an alarming trend that the developers try to change features that have been working for years or even decades. It is their product and they have the right to do that, but it would help if they would add options to undo and modify the changes to avoid alienating part of their user base.
Have you tested a Firefox 4 version? What’s your verdict so far?
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What a piece of CRAP! I’m actually going to start using Internet Exploder instead of this.
How do I UNINSTALL v4!??? I REFUSE to spend my time ‘reconfiguring’ to make it look like v3 – to clean up YOUR mess…..
What buttmonkeys.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html
I agree that FF4 has basically meant that I now have to have 10 addons installed simply to have the same functionality as FF3!
It is a MASSIVE leap backwards. The only positive to come out of it is the tab grouping feature, however this has also been bungled with the panorama tool. To see how painfully slow the panorama tool is compared to a more sensible approach, have a look at the “Tabgroups Menu” addon.
I have used Firefox since it first came out and I too thought that they were just doing security changes, so I went with the update…what a shock!
I installed 4…lasted 4 days…My oldest brother always told me if it ain’t broke don’t f with it. FF should have had him around!
I am back to the old version and will stick with it until they tell me I can no longer use it…then I’m gone. I hate anything to do with IE so will be looking for a new browser!
Why did they have to move so much of the standard layout!
Thanks for making life harder unnecessarily Mozilla.
Thanks for the fixes. I HATED the tabs on top. It’s like putting a tabbed folder in a top file drawer for information that is located in the bottom file drawer. Completely counter-intuitive, non user friendly and unusable for English speaking society which reads from left to right, not up and down.
I was about to change to Opera browser…and may still do so I’m so peeved. Absolutely annoyed that the back browser button no longer shows what I’ve been to for easy re-access to websites I was looking at.
I had to redownload my yahoo toolbar, which I use non stop. Was dreading of adding all my links back into it, but mercifully, they popped right back up. (Lucky for you Firefox! If I had to spend my one precious day off re-doing this, you would be getting an earful!)
Firefox 4 = EPIC FAIL!!!
Yep, will simply have to bin Firefox 4. I made the mistake of installing it after the latest version of 3.x became unstable. The lack of a status bar is mission critical to me. I have a slow and unreliable internet connection, and I need to know what’s going on…but I’ve lost that now.
I’m finding it’s having serious problems displaying older webpages too…like all the IMG SRC tags don’t seem to work!
Firefox, I’ve enjoyed your product for many, many years, but now it’s time to find another default browser.
Please, please, please fire the SOB that thought this version of Firefox was a good idea. What the hell were you people thinking???!
Everyone who is unhappy with FF4 needs to go to the official FF forums and complain there.
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=49
But be prepared to be attacked by the the FF fanboys, aggressively defending the purity and honor of FF and the developer gods who make all the decisions..
Is not that always the case when you complain on official forums ;)
I will be looking for an old version 3 to reinstall. I HATE the changes to F4.
HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT.
I don’t have time to be f’ing around looking for shit. If I can’t find an old version 3 to reinstall, I’m OUT. I would actually prefer IE over this CRAP, and might even consider Google Chrome.
It’s a splendid piece of shit, that’s what it is. Last one was perfect. -This one has an unchangeable new layout, which pisses me off,
-is slow as fuck, compared to the older version
- They find it was necessary to change every little fucking detail, like for example, saving your tabs when you logout is no longer possible (without manual configuration, which is unecessary)
- The Add-ons, the thing that made firefox exclusive, don’t work on this version. I used adblock, flashblock, and pdf downloader; NONE are compatible with this shitty version. Instead, I had to waste my time seraching for equivalents, so I can get it closer to the older version- Makes sense??
Not to me it doesn’t. I didn’t downgraded immediatelly becuase I read that some people had lost their bookmarks, and I have some important stuff there. But you can bet that when I decide to waste a day revamping browsers, I will shit on this new piece of shit and tryout Chrome. This idiots will lose lots of people to chrome and opera, thanks to their redundant and shitty modifications that betrayed everything people liked about firefox.