Firefox 34 to ship with lightweight theme suggestions

Martin Brinkmann
Aug 23, 2014
Firefox
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The Firefox web browser supports two types of themes: lightweight themes which were formerly known as Personas and are now commonly referred to as background themes or simply themes, and as a second type complete themes.

The difference between the two is that lightweight themes are limited in to what they can change in the browser. This means that you usually get a new background image for the browser but that is about it while complete themes may change icons and other user interface elements as well.

Users interested in themes can download them from the official Mozilla Add-ons repository where you find themes and complete themes listed.

Mozilla plans to launch five lightweight themes with Firefox 34 as part of the organizations move to integrate themes into the browser's customization mode.

Note: Only the most recent version of the Nightly channel has access to the feature at the time of writing. It will take some weeks before Firefox Aurora, Beta and Stable users will be able to access the feature in their versions.

The browser's new customization mode was launched alongside Firefox 29, the version of Firefox that launched with the new Australis interface design.

firefox themes customize

When you open the feature with a click on the Hamburger menu at the top and the selection of customize from the context menu, you find the new Themes option listed there.

A click on it displays five recommended themes that Mozilla plans to renew in regular intervals. All themes can be previewed by hovering the mouse over them.

Doing so will apply the theme temporarily to Firefox so that you can see it in action in the browser. As soon as you move the cursor away, the current theme is displayed again.

To change to a theme simply click on it to do so. The default theme is always listed here so that you can change back to it easily using the customize menu or the appearance menu under about:addons which is opened when you click on the manage  button.

The five themes that Mozilla has selected are the following ones:

Closing Words

Integration of theme switching options in Firefox's customization mode makes sense as it is related to that.  While I'm personally not a fan of lightweight themes at all, it will certainly have its appeal to users who never came into contact with Firefox themes before or like lightweight themes and therefore the recommendations.

What's your take on this? Gimmick or useful feature? (via Sören)

Summary
Firefox 34 to ship with lightweight theme suggestions
Article Name
Firefox 34 to ship with lightweight theme suggestions
Description
Mozilla will integrate options into Firefox's customization menu to switch themes. Theme recommendations will be part of this.
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Comments

  1. mucinch said on August 24, 2014 at 9:36 am
    Reply

    They should rather put these developer resources into finishing e10s and other performance optimizations. Only way to beat Chrome is to make it light and screaming fast.

    1. xxhudkhv said on September 15, 2014 at 9:24 pm
      Reply

      Chrome is light – worst stupidity claim of the decade. Chrome SWALLOWS ALL resources on your machine, whatever it is, starting with CPU all through to PSU. You’re a MORON! Not to mention it STEALS your net, even when is NOT open.

    2. Nawfel said on August 25, 2014 at 8:15 am
      Reply

      I don’t think that all mozilla’s employees are C++ developpers

  2. ZzzZombi said on August 23, 2014 at 11:42 pm
    Reply

    It’s an end-user thing. Firefox has gotten more end-user friendly in recent years. Good for those. I don’t really like to see bars set at end-user’s height but I guess this is the world we live in now.

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