Firefox 89's user interface will be leaner and less convoluted

Martin Brinkmann
Feb 16, 2021
Firefox
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105

Mozilla is working on a refresh of the user interface of its Firefox web browser under the codename Proton. As it stands, Proton will land in desktop versions of the web browser in May 2021 when Firefox 89 gets released.

Work is ongoing and many things are not final at this stage in development. We previewed the modernized tabs interface and the new main menu of Firefox already. While not final, it is clear that Mozilla is not just changing the color scheme or making light interface modifications.

If you take a look at the main menu and compare it to the current one, you will notice quite a few changes. Many of which are designed to make Firefox leaner and look less convoluted.

firefox proton redesign

The new design throws out most of the icons in the menu that are displayed currently in all versions of Firefox for the desktop, but that is not the only change. You may notice that some menu items are missing: there is no "sign-in to Firefox" button at the top anymore, the link to the Protections Dashboard is gone, as are Send to Device, Open File and Save Page in Pocket, and the Edit row of options as well as the customize link may not be displayed anymore either in the main menu or context menu. Web Developer options are moved under the More Tools menu.

Some menu options are not gone entirely, but they appear only if certain conditions apply according to Sören Hentzschel, e.g. if a user is signed-in to Pocket, the option to save the page there is shown. Similarly, the Edit options are displayed if text is selected on a site, and send to device is active if Sync is activated.

Mozilla changed the order of elements, and added a "new tab" option to the menu. One of the main ideas behind the changes is to improve the usability; some options are scarcely used in the menu, mainly because they are also accessible elsewhere. Others, like the constant reminder to sign-in to Firefox irritate users who don't want to do that.

The change may be confusing at first, as users may wonder if Mozilla removed the options entirely.

The new context menu, which supports black and light modes, comes in a new look as well. Not all Firefox users will get the new menu. On Windows, it is limited to Windows 10. Mac OS X users will get a native context menu with support for the operating system's dark mode.

firefox context menu redesign

Some of the menu items that are still shown right now will be removed before the final release or only displayed if conditions are met.

Mozilla's optimizations don't end there. The organization plans to remove some elements from the main Firefox toolbar. The Home button, for example, will be removed for Firefox users who are using the default Firefox startpage and have not used the button. It will still be possible to add the button manually again, and everyone else will still have it displayed in the toolbar. Firefox users who modify the startpage will have the button placed in the toolbar automatically.

Similarly, sidebar and library buttons will be removed if they have not been used by the user. The removed options are displayed in the first level of the main menu now; previously, they were listed under library in the main menu.

Mozilla plans to remove the three dots menu in the address bar of the browser. Most of the options are available elsewhere already, some will get a dedicated icon instead that users may use once the changes land.

Closing Words

Redesigns are often problematic, especially when it comes to software that is used by hundreds of millions of users. There will certainly be some users who won't like some of the changes. Generally speaking, Firefox will become leaner and less convoluted once the changes land in Firefox Stable.

Ideally, users would get options to customize the menus to their liking. Vivaldi introduced support for editing menus recently, and Firefox supported this as well in the past through the use of browser extensions such as Custom Menu, Menu Filter 2, or Menu Editor. All of these are no longer compatible with recent versions of the browser because of the changes made to the extensions system.

Now You: Which menu items do you consider essential?

Summary
Firefox 89's user interface will be leaner and less convoluted
Article Name
Firefox 89's user interface will be leaner and less convoluted
Description
Mozilla plans to launch a redesigned interface in Firefox 89 that will make the user interface leaner and cleaner, and less convoluted.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. segoii said on June 11, 2021 at 5:34 pm
    Reply

    Firefox 89 is a piece of garbage. Coinmarketcap.com doesn´t work any more. Popup blockers don´t work any more. In general pages sometimes just don´t load. What a piece of crap. But YAYYYY the buttons and icons look different. REALLY ?
    Who developed this shit ? Every 3 or 4 years, they come around with a totally new version that wants to make everything better and fails at the most basic things. Mozilla, just stop it.

  2. ES said on June 6, 2021 at 12:54 am
    Reply

    Adding more than 50% whitespace in menus and making tabs look like buttons is not “leaner and less convoluted”

  3. Anonymous said on June 6, 2021 at 12:53 am
    Reply

    Increasing the whitespace by >50% in menus and making tabs look like buttons is not at all “leaner and less convoluted”

  4. DigNap15 said on June 5, 2021 at 10:27 am
    Reply

    I really dislike the new icons.
    They look like the are a copy of the ones Micrsoft is using in Offcie 365
    They look like the are desinged by a 5 year old!
    Terrible.

  5. Rob said on June 3, 2021 at 2:07 pm
    Reply

    You neglected to mention that it would suck hugely, loose much-desired functionality, and once again screw up the necessary userChrome.css coding to achieve the extremely popular and much more intiuitive “Tab Bar Below Address and Bookmarks” bar format.

    Why does Mozilla keep making Firefox worse, less user-friendly, less customizable and less functional? Why force “cleaner, more streamlined” UIs on the many of us who want more functional, more informative and more customizable User Interfaces? It’s damned inconsiderate, as far as I’m concerned, and it’s pissing off a significant percentage of once-loyal Firefox users.

    I mean, what’s so horrible about bringing back drag-and-drop toolbars, or letting us add custom toolbars instead of using the Overflow menu?

    And what the heck happened to the 3-dot menu in the address field? I used that every single day, many, many times! How to I quickly copy the URL I’m on to paste somewhere else without having to drag-to-select and CTRL+C?

    Overall, another DOWNGRADE from Mozilla with Firefox 89.

  6. CarpetGuy said on June 2, 2021 at 12:08 am
    Reply

    FF89 is UGLY! The shortcut icons are half the size and look like going from a 1080p video down to 240p…

  7. SzymonL said on June 1, 2021 at 4:17 pm
    Reply

    FF89 is ugly as shit.

  8. Pat said on May 31, 2021 at 11:40 pm
    Reply

    Looks like we’re back to being dumb-downed in 89.0 just like tiles instead of menu text/tables in windows 10

  9. Pat said on May 31, 2021 at 9:30 pm
    Reply

    I just tried 89.0 64-bit release (now available from /pub/firefox/releases/) and I don’t like it. Over the years (beginning with Netscape 2.1 to end then Firefox from 1.0.3 to 89.0) this one of the teams’ “simplifying” attempts alike the new Win 10 change to the Start button-menu and it will get good reviews from beginners to intermediate+ level users but advanced-experienced+++ customized browser types like me will prefer 88.0.1.

  10. Meh said on May 10, 2021 at 12:42 am
    Reply

    Go to address bar > type in about:config > search for proton and simply simply disable everything that says proton.

    Close your browser and open it again welcome back to classic Firefox!

  11. ravewulf said on February 27, 2021 at 2:57 am
    Reply

    The one thing I absolutely love is Bookmarks, History, and Downloads finally returning to the main menu instead of being hidden under that ridiculous “Library” submenu that they added. I’m not 100% sure on the rest but as long as I can keep using customized userChrome.css files to take the place of the “complete themes” that they axed, I’ll be happy enough.

  12. Anonymous_of_course said on February 24, 2021 at 5:18 am
    Reply

    Ref: You should start using Chromium browsers for like a week and not use Firefox just to see the difference

    Some of us who are Physically Superior(Human Perfectus & Superius) and in the Highest IQ range, despite our perfections and also because of our perfections we have developed severe irreversible allergies to anything googlish. The most sleezy dissonest, disrespectul, evil, manipulative, creepy organization in the history of man- kind. Makes Stazi look like a needle in a haystack in a million barns.

    At work we look down at Staff who use chrome. We treat them fair but we perceive them as bimbos. Do yourself a favor to avoid being metaphotically birthmarked amongst your peers as one of those million inferior humans called googloids.

    As for Firefox it s@cks, but less than all others, but it is modifiable to one’s preferences. No major problems with Rendering though has relatively high mem requirments if you have lots of tabs open. And to be fair it is remarkably stable.

    I agree 100% with the folks who say that Firefox’s main and only problem are the idiots who manage it and probably a percentage of their engineers both about their (lack of) skills and their enduring stupid mentality ESPECIALLY the UI. Enduring stupidity which eventually might bring down the Mozilla organization.

    Please none to be offended by the human superiority claims above; there are there just to humurusly emphasize that anything google is just for the masses and for stupid people, not that some of us are trully so amazingly superior !

  13. Anon said on February 23, 2021 at 2:23 pm
    Reply

    Firefox is getting worse.

  14. max3 said on February 21, 2021 at 4:14 am
    Reply

    I don’t understand what this whole wanting to eliminate the “convoluted” look of Firefox is all about. From the top down I have 1) the title bar which displays the title of the page, 2) the tabs bar, 3) the address bar, with back/forward and a few extensions on each side of it, 4) the bookmarks bar with about ten shortcuts and seven folders, 5) the main window and 6) NO FREAKING STATUS BAR (thank you for taking that away, Mozilla! /s). I have removed all the icons like pocket, bookmark, download, etc from the address bar. I use Dark Background an Light Text with stock settings. I never use the hamburger menu on the right and if I could remove it I would. I wish the scroll bar was wider and darker so I didn’t have to grope for it. My tabs are square and ugly but I ignore them. I see no reason to replace my convoluted look! As a matter of fact, I kinda like it.

  15. Bub said on February 19, 2021 at 10:48 am
    Reply

    = Firefox Telemetry Slice & Dice, in Linux
    https://pastebin.com/raw/anZCprac

    1. Heydrich said on February 20, 2021 at 4:22 am
      Reply

      @Bub: Thank you for an additional list of preferences to double-check.

    2. m3city said on February 19, 2021 at 9:28 pm
      Reply

      It’s a very nice, clean list. But I can’t really see why should I not send telemetry to FF. It’s a way to have it improved.

  16. nealis said on February 19, 2021 at 12:06 am
    Reply

    Lateral move by Mozilla again. What a joke of a company and browser. Do any of these “engineers” actually use their own products? Basic functions like scrolling on android Firefox is still a janky mess and their desktop browser especially the rendering engine has stagnated. Someone other than Mozilla need to get into the browser game and create a competitive alternative browser rendering engine.

  17. Anonymous said on February 18, 2021 at 5:54 pm
    Reply

    The original anon here.

    @Real_Anonymous @Jones

    Spreading propaganda? May I ask if reciting randomly from some obscure website on the interwebz iz propaganda: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2016/03/14/webextensons-whats-in-it-for-developers/

    In the first paragraph: “They [XUL add-ons] are fabulously powerful, as powerful as the browser itself. However, with that power comes security risk…”

    In the second paragraph: “The [WebExtensions] Add-on SDK was introduced to provide a stable abstraction API above browser internals to reduce extension compatibility issues between versions of Firefox and make it easier to review extensions for security.”

    Fourth paragraph: “The introduction of WebExtensions isn’t an arbitrary change—it stands to improve the stability and security of Firefox for users. It also has a number of advantages for developers.”

    Here is a more technical one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Add-on_(Mozilla)#Restrictions , check the WayBack machine PDF.

    Of course, this could all be a coordinated effort by the elites to spread propaganda in order to trick the sheeple around to world to let their guard down. But all those billions funneled into the brainwashing campaign could not foresee the threat that is you guys, sitting behind those keyboard and uncovering the global conspiracies.

    While that is possible, it is very unlikely. What is more likely however is that you guys have no idea what it means to develop and maintain a software that is made up of millions lines of code while being a non-profit. All the while maintaining an add-on interface that doesn’t break add-ons as the browser evolves. Especially since Mozilla were making big changes to the browser back then.

    1. Anonymous said on February 19, 2021 at 6:42 pm
      Reply

      The original here.

      @Real_Anonymous
      Mozilla is anti free speech? Anti Conservatives? The foundation takes donations? What does that have to do with WebExtensions? Who is really running propaganda here? If you are replying to me, try doing so by address my arguments. Do it for everyone’s sake, so we can actually learn something about technology.

      (DRM? Don’t like it? Don’t install it. You have the choice.)

      @Iron_Heart
      I was using that point as a reminder that their resources are limited, even though it’s half a billion. If WebExtensions reduces the security related work and increases the developmental efficiency, which frees up money that can be spent on other projects, why wouldn’t they do that switch? Your argument was focusing on something in the periphery of my actual arguments, but whatever. I’m giving you attention :)

      @Jones
      Not all of your arguments were political. Bravo. You get a little golden star *

      As for your “arguments”:

      – “Webextensions are like multiprocessor a hell hole for security related bugs.” … So what you are saying is that XUL based extensions that had full access to the entire browser did not pose any more thread to the user than WebExtensions interface which limits add-ons? Do you, kind of understand what you are saying here?

      – “Webextensions can be also as much abused like XUL creations. Same way like every code can be attacked and abused.” … So if a technology shift doesn’t mitigate 100% of all possible security risks, it isn’t worth implementing?

      – “So yeah, Mozilla security reasons are myth and propaganda, to minimize the backlash from their users.” … See this statement of yours? It’s utterly worthless. It’s worthless because that is your YOUR opinion. Don’t get me wrong. It’s okay to have opinions. I am in support of opinions. Except… except, when people try to use their (or someone elses) opinions as facts. Or did you maybe think that your other unsubstantiated claims I addressed prior to this one were some kind of facts? Please understand that I’m not disagreeing with your opinion because I hold a different opinion. I disagree with you because provide no factual arguments to support anything you say or counterarguments to what I’m saying. You don’t even have to provide technical arguments, just point me to a credible source that says that WebExtensions are as insecure as XUL extensions were.

      – “Only Mozilla employees or die hard fans who always fall for Mozilla lies are actually believing the security aspect which is just an excuse for the real dominating reason… Becoming as close as possible to Chrome to get its users” … Ugh, what an opinion-fest. Show me the facts Jones. SHOW ME THE FACTS!

    2. Real_Anonymous said on February 19, 2021 at 10:14 am
      Reply

      @Anonymous We speak about Mozilla with the “oh so honest intentions”

      Who wants to restrict free-speech and cracks down on a legal polticial direction (Conservatives):

      https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/?utm_source=desktop-snippet&utm_medium=snippet&utm_campaign=mozblog-jan2021&utm_term=24460&utm_content=

      Mozilla being speech police and removes “offensive named code parts to not offend certain people:

      http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3067471

      Just 2 examples of how crazy and stupid Mozilla has become. A developer should NOT get involved in politics, especially not so-called “woke” politics.

      Also… Mozilla who added blackbox DRM into the browser….

      Mozilla is in so many ways an enemy today. All of that was not present before they became loyal followers of Google Chrome. They adopted Googles political ideology, their development concept. They want to be so badly like Chrome and yet fail in so many ways.

    3. Jones said on February 19, 2021 at 9:09 am
      Reply

      @Anonymous

      Security is today the same trigger word like the term thrift – both used as excuse to make everything simple and minimalist.

      Webextensions are like multiprocessor a hell hole for security related bugs. Webextensions can be also as much abused like XUL creations. Same way like every code can be attacked and abused.

      Mozilla just shifted around 2013 from a customizable product to a now minimalist and simplistic browser like Chrome. That was done intentionally – to broaden their user-base and also because of greed and Mozilla being jealous of the massive success of Chrome.

      Before Chrome was getting traction Mozilla believed in features, choice and customization options, a belief which changed after Chrome skyrocketing in success.

      So yeah, Mozilla security reasons are myth and propaganda, to minimize the backlash from their users.

      In the end Mozilla sold their power users for Chrome ones. Which did not work out at all. Only Mozilla employees or die hard fans who always fall for Mozilla lies are actually believing the security aspect which is just an excuse for the real dominating reason… Becoming as close as possible to Chrome to get its users

    4. Iron Heart said on February 19, 2021 at 12:10 am
      Reply

      @Anonymous

      > while being a non-profit

      The Mozilla Corporation, which is 100% in charge of Firefox development, is for-profit.

      The Mozilla Foundation (which doesn’t develop Firefox) is a non-profit.

      You also make it sound like Mozilla Corp. is short of money – might be news for you: They get half a billion $$$ annually from Google, they are not short of money at all.

      1. Real_Anonymous said on February 19, 2021 at 12:35 pm
        Reply

        @Iron Heart The most loved way of “Mozilla(-fa)” supporters to argument… They are so poor, they have no money…

        As you said, they are getting a big paycheck by Google and also donations.

        And what are they doing with the money? Paying their managers, public-relations-guys and (PR)-damage-control guys… Spending tons of money to mimic/copy everything Google related.

        I miss the time where Mozilla created something on their own instead of hijacking components, ideas and designs from other projects (Chrome) to look more like the mentioned competitor.

        Mozilla today is a copy-paste company with a serious non-healty Google complex.

      2. Iron Heart said on February 19, 2021 at 2:08 pm
        Reply

        @Real_Anonymous

        > and also donations

        See, that’s another major issue. The Mozilla Corporation, as a for-profit entity, can’t legally accept donations in the U.S. When you donate to “Mozilla”, you are actually donating to the Mozilla Foundation. The money then goes to various (for the most part, highly politicized) groups which the Mozilla Foundation in turn supports. Not a single penny of the money goes to Firefox development (which, as said, is conducted by the Mozilla Corporation):

        https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/a98gmi/donations_to_mozilla_foundation_are_not_used_for/

        They never clear that one up on the donations page, however, leaving people with the erroneous assumption that they are in fact donating to Firefox development. They only clear that up in the FAQ which I personally consider the fine print, as you have to specifically access it apart from the main donations page. Probably millions of $$$ were donated to Mozilla under the wrong assumption of supporting Firefox with that money. This has the potential to be a huge scandal, but I do not expect anybody here (including the ones running this website here) to have the guts to call it out.

      3. Jones said on February 19, 2021 at 1:06 pm
        Reply

        @real_anonymous

        I guess you mean with the term “Mozilla-Fa” actually Antifa, right?

        That’s exactly the core issue of Mozilla today. Supporting fringe extremist groups and their crazy ideology while discarding sane and normal people who want a unique developer who does not only believe in copy-paste and that it’s necessary to make a totalitarian mob happy with cleaning up the code from “insults” – aka supporting the same people who are responsible to destroy for example the life of Gina Carano, who was fired from Disney because of the very same people which are today the major part of the Firefox userbase.

        Utterly insanity!

      4. real_anonymous said on February 19, 2021 at 1:46 pm
        Reply

        @Jones I guess you meant something like

        ———————
        people who want a unique developer who does not believe in copy-paste and believe instead that it’s not necessary to make a totalitarian mob happy with cleaning up the code from “insults”
        ———————

        Otherwise your comment makes no sense.

        Anyway, fully agreeing with this. Hits the nail 100% – That are the very same people who attack and insult the deceased radio host Rush Limbaugh – Mozilla should not at all be happy to have adopted such an ideology and attracting that special kind of people who inflict damage onto others on purpose – who constantly cross the line with destroying other peoples life and career and make fun of them once they are dead.

        I mean, that leaves a pretty shallow taste of Mozilla as a developer.

        Attacking other people, silencing and cancelling others is NOT right at all. And as developer you should draw the line and say no to such people instead of supporting them.

        We are living in insane times. And it is so sad to see zero chance that Mozilla grows up again and regains a part of their long lost sanity and common sense.

  18. Randall said on February 17, 2021 at 7:14 pm
    Reply

    Another one bites the dust. RIP Firefox 2002-2021.

    It seems UX designers no longer use the product they are redesigning. Same issue with Windows 10, new imdb site, basically any responsive redesign… They don’t listen to user feedback. Its so frustrating.

    1. Jürgen A. Erhard said on June 4, 2021 at 8:40 am
      Reply

      Please, “responsive” is a trigger word for me.
      It’s not “responding” to you actual platform, it’s generally just the mobile version that adjust to screen size… it handles desktop browsers badly if at all.
      I *hate* “responsive design”, both the (non-)philosophy and the term and the implementation.

  19. Anonymous said on February 17, 2021 at 6:05 pm
    Reply

    @Some person
    XUL was abandoned because of security reasons. With XUL it was like every software on your computer had unrestricted rights and access to everything. In today’s world where the browser is used for shopping, banking, sending e-mails more than any other time before, the practice of selling add-ons is far more prevalent, I shouldn’t have to remind you what that would mean if XUL technology was still in use. Mozilla would have to spend reviewing every single add-on, not only new ones, but all add-ons with every update. It is not feasible.

    NPAPI was predominantly used for Flash. Flash had more security holes than a fishing net. As HTML5/CSS were making progress decisions to abandon it were obvious.

    about:config still remains on the desktop. I really hope they don’t remove it.

    I didn’t use Pocket, those that did, good for them. Mr Robot was a bad experiment.

    “Spyware telemetry” is everywhere. Windows has it, development platforms have it, and Firefox has it. If you don’t like it in Firefox, it is easy to disable. Telemetry can be good in this case, especially if you trust Mozilla. As far as I know, they use the telemetry to collect anonymous information about your add-ons and the settings you’ve made. This is why I leave it on. It communicates to Mozilla how we are using Firefox. If everybody disabled their Firefox telemetry, their decisions would be pure guesswork.

    As for people that say “Uugh … Mozilla is copying Google.” If people thought like you, we’d still have people stuck at the stone age waiting to discover fire. I.e. there is nothing wrong with copying if the thing being copied it good. Apple copies, Microsoft copies, Adobe copies, Google copes and guess what so does Mozilla.

    Some of you mentioned that icons are more suited for navigation. That is more true when few icons are being used and the application is new and the icons are based on natural visual cues (or previously conditioned ones). Getting all of these right is extremely complex, i.e. it’s much easier to get it wrong than right. So don’t worry about the lack of icons. With fewer options in the new menu and more space between the remaining ones: when you use a browser on a daily basis, your muscle memory takes over after a month or two.

    And finally. Iron Heart. What’s your deal? We get it that you think Brave is better than Firefox. And it probably is, FOR YOU. The problem is that we’ve known it for months now, maybe even a year. You repeat the same arguments over and over again in every Firefox article. Stop embarrassing that alias or stay on the topic.

    1. Jones said on February 19, 2021 at 12:56 pm
      Reply

      @Anonymous

      “there is nothing wrong with copying if the thing being copied it good”

      If you keep your own features and offer additionally what you copied THAT is fine.

      It is not fine if you copy a whole different concept (minimalist and simple) and throw out your own (feature-rich and customizable) and sacrifice your own core users and theme or add-on developers for a different target group and not even issue an official apology.

      This is a case of lacking morals, honesty and integrity. Something past-Mozilla had but is missing with present-Mozilla.

      Mozilla today is a horrible and disgusting company additionally involved in progressive politics which intentionally excludes a big part of the user-base. The days where Mozilla believed in true diversity and free speech and more importantly originality are over. They are gone and a dead past!

      “Do no evil” – this should apply also to Mozilla. Does not matter if you use Google or Mozilla today – both are the exact evil same. And neither Chrome or Firefox should be used.

      My reason for using Pale Moon and Vivaldi. These guys do value creativity and true diversity, unlike Google and Googlezilla

    2. Mystique said on February 18, 2021 at 4:15 pm
      Reply

      @Anonymous1
      I don’t think I have to say much in regards to the comment about XUL because there is adequate replies to suggest that you are incorrect in your assertions that it was a decision based on security. In doing what they have done they have eviscerated the browser completely and handed us a much weaker alternative that can barely be built upon. There are many extension developers that stand tall and strong in the face of malware and buyers (such as the developer of sponsorblock and ublock origin), these are developers of integrity and not developers of circumstance or opportunist, they are cut from the same cloth that firefox was once built upon.
      There is absolutely no excuse for Mozilla to leave their current webextension API a crippled mess and not improve it in order to allow valuable and dedicated developers to do what they once did. Mozilla should have taken them under their wing and embraced them and not carelessly cast them aside without any gratitude for helping to make their browser attractive and usable to the point that it pushed the browser into the spotlight.

      In regards to the sentiment about spyware being everywhere so we should embrace it that’s like saying there are murderers out there, there always will be so we may as well just embrace murderers and perhaps join them.
      Somebody has to stand up to these garbage practices and once upon a time mozilla was that company, they came in and saw how badly the browser market was and how badly it was needed so they came in and embraced the values we as users hold onto and care about. They embraced the community and stood WITH us and not AGAINST us.
      Mozilla seems to be doing a good enough job of missing the point regardless of telemetry being on or off, they aren’t blind… I’m assuming they aren’t stupid and I also assume they can read so why are they ignoring the very people that want to and do use their browser. They need to get out of this safe little bubble they have placed themselves in and stand WITH us again.

      Actually imitation may be flattering but it doesn’t always result in innovation in fact it is the opposite of developmental innovation. Taking inspiration or building upon concepts is fine but that is not what Mozilla is doing and if it is they are simply taking the (to take your stone age example) stone and dragging it through evolution. Chrome is not brilliant! Innovating and building based on your own talents and skills is. Mozilla had a good base and a keen understanding of what works and what doesn’t (not to mention so much more) but they chose to turn their back on that and simply take a platform that was made popular by less than honest and noble methods.
      Chrome is not good… its a marketing tool designed to propagate their marketshare and extract as much information from you as possible whilst allowing its own properties such as their search engine and analytics to do so.
      It was foisted upon society through various methods and people lapped it up like a bucket of chum. One such example is how deeply woven chrome is in android which is pretty much in similar way to how Microsoft and IE became villain but Oh it’s Google… the “Don’t be evil” company so that slogan truly makes them the good guys right… right? Wrong!
      Anyone here remember the Google toolbar? It cleverly targeted the weak minded browser users of IE and appealed to their stupidity upon many levels and eventually bamboozled users to installing it as a PUP in the google toolbar installation. A stroke of evil genius wouldn’t you say?

      I personally am not a fan of BRAVE, it still fails in many aspects. I toss it in the alpha/beta basket of browsers that have winched their development upon Chrome which is a completely gimped system. They’d have been far better to stick with mozilla as base or take the lead development into their own hands and build what they know needs to be done. They aren’t stupid. They know Chrome sucks but they are choosing it as a necessary evil to build upon.

      The browser market is too splintered these days. Developers are spending far too much time imitating rather than innovating and developing their own platform.
      In the current climate I cannot see a browser renaissance happening again… the WAR is over and now all we have as users is the task of scrapping together the spoils of war and choosing the lesser evil and not what is the victor and the better of us.
      The browser wars were great because it was kinda a case of the good, the bad and the ugly. You knew where they stood and you chose accordingly but that isn’t the case now we just have b*st&rd child of all of them and that’s it… the lesser evil complete with compromises and disappointments.

      I’m not going to discredit everything that was said because you’re entitled to your opinion but sometimes I feel like we also must take a broader and historical look at things to see where we are today and why.

      1. Real_Anonymous said on February 19, 2021 at 10:00 am
        Reply

        @Mystique Fully correct. Chrome is not brilliant, the only reason one can pick Chrome and Google as role-model is when you only look at the usernumber, influence and wealth categories.

        Mozilla has forgotten that nobody is willing to use a second class copy and rather switches to the origin product instead in such a case.

        Even more of undeniable evidence that Mozilla just wanted to get rid of customization and features is that one can still add it in the way like Vivaldi has done it – building a fully customizable script based UI – Mozilla could have done the same way, but they refused in doing so – even if it would be more “secure” as they argue what was the “problem with XUL” – for the simple fact… they became Chrome cheerleaders.

        The security aspect only for the removal of XUL and most customization features is debunked since a long time. Next on their chopping block is userchrome.css – as Chrome does not have it either and it is another one of the customization features which “stop Mozilla from absorbing all the Chrome users”

        Mozilla is one of the biggest hypocritical developer possible these days. Getting involved in politics even if a browser developer should avoid that, constant PR problems… they are constantly damaging themselves with stupid actions.

        Mozilla is a lost cause in so many ways. And worst… they lied to their users, used power users, add-on and theme developers and have thrown them out on their way without an apology.

    3. Jones said on February 18, 2021 at 10:01 am
      Reply

      @anonymous

      Sorry, wrong. The main reason why XUL was removed was that Mozilla wanted the Google web extensions add-on technology, as they believed that featuring the same features (while removing their own like UI modification options) would make Chrome users consider using Firefox instead.

      It is a typical strategy, Mozilla tried to create a better “flavor” of Chrome without using The Chromium engine. Security is just an excuse to not anger too many people.

      And with Mozilla actively betraying their own users for the benefit of the user base of a competing and actually dominating product they became sell-outs.

      And it is good to see that more and mir more people actually start to realize what for a shameful developer Mozilla actually is.

    4. Real_Anonymous said on February 18, 2021 at 9:38 am
      Reply

      @Anonymous Mozilla removed XUL as they bowed down to Chrome and simple users. To gain all the Chromes market share which did not work out as people rather uses originals and not a cheap copy.

      Only this was the reason why XUL and customization was removed, not security reasons. Only someone truly blind falls for Mozillas lies and deceptions.

      It was all for finding a way to attract the most simple users so Mozilla would feel relevant again. All bc of greed for relevance and money. And people have not been falling for this idotic daydream of a developer who sold out their power users for users which never have used and never will use Firefox.

      So please, stop spreading your propaganda which is not true at all.

    5. Iron Heart said on February 17, 2021 at 6:35 pm
      Reply

      @Anonymous

      Dude, I stayed on topic. None of my comments under this article were “bashing” Firefox. Stop being such a whiner, seriously (this is embarrassing, you know). People in this comment thread in particular criticize Mozilla heavier than I do.

      Anyways, please understand that I don’t care about Firefox fanboi opinions. However, you were either ignorant or lying here:

      > If you don’t like it in Firefox, it is easy to disable.

      Having to know about hidden about:config entries and out-of-browser telemetry (that needs to be turned off at the system level) is not “easy to disable”, my man.

      https://www.ghacks.net/2018/09/21/mozilla-wants-to-estimate-firefoxs-telemetry-off-population/

      https://www.ghacks.net/2020/04/09/mozilla-installs-scheduled-telemetry-task-on-windows-with-firefox-75/

      1. Texas said on February 19, 2021 at 12:03 am
        Reply

        FF telemetry doesn’t “need to be turned off at the system level”, as a frequent anti-FF poster incorrectly claims above. If telemetry is turned off in the browser settings (Options-Privacy-Data Collection), it’s off.

        If you prefer using another browser to FF, why not just go use it? Don’t you think that would be a more productive use of your time than repetitively hate-posting about a free product that you proudly don’t use?

      2. Iron Heart said on February 19, 2021 at 8:35 am
        Reply

        @Texas

        I was talking about the scheduled telemetry task which doesn’t seem to respect the settings for in-browser telemetry.

        > hate-posting

        No more than Firefox users here do so for other browsers. Fact.

      3. Carl Gustav said on February 19, 2021 at 2:46 pm
        Reply

        @Iron Heart

        You’re spreading deliberate lies as usual, my dear Heart. Hatred obscures your eyes so much that you are not even able to read what is on your own link:

        > Firefox users who opted-out of Telemetry are good, they don’t need to make any change as the new Telemetry data is not sent to Mozilla

        The telemetry question is the first thing that happens on the first start of the browser.

        If the task was created despite the disabled telemetry, there was no evidence that it was sending something bypassing the settings.

      4. Iron Heart said on February 19, 2021 at 3:54 pm
        Reply

        @CG

        > deliberate lies

        *Yawn* There is no post in which you don’t accuse me of this. Getting old.

        > The telemetry question

        …doesn’t include the coverage ping (which is collected to evaluate how many people have disabled telemetry) and the system level telemetry task.

        > evidence that it was sending something

        Wireshark is your friend. Spoiler: It does send pings.

      5. Carl Gustav said on February 20, 2021 at 7:45 pm
        Reply

        @Iron Heart

        > evidence?
        > prove it yourself

        >Telemetry *data*
        >pings

        Zero proofs, twisting of meaning and misleading, even in one sentence, good ol’ classic Heart.

        * [Editor: removed, keep it polite]

      6. Iron Heart said on February 21, 2021 at 7:14 am
        Reply

        @CG

        Your accusations are part and parcel of your posts, as is your lack of understanding. Zero arguments presented.

      7. Carl Gustav said on February 21, 2021 at 10:09 am
        Reply

        @Iron Heart

        We’re not talking about my posts, don’t try to change the subject.

        1. You were asked about the evidence to your statement—you have nothing to show. “Zero arguments presented,” that’s for sure.
        2. The subject is the telemetry data—you answering about pings.

        ∴ Zero is the weight of your unsubstantiated claim and word playing.

        /It’s funny how you are afraid to even mention my name in full, tryin’ to have the last word here without answering simple questions straight, what a joke/

      8. Iron Heart said on February 22, 2021 at 5:20 pm
        Reply

        @Carl Gustav

        Another useless post of yours:

        > You were asked about the evidence to your statement—you have nothing to show.

        Are you blind? I have provided evidence above by linking to it – the two gHacks articles.

        > The subject is the telemetry data—you answering about pings.

        The transmission (attempts) of Firefox, in which telemetry data is being transmitted, are called “pings”. Big fat *facepalm*

        You don’t even understand very basic terms.

      9. Anonymous said on February 18, 2021 at 10:11 am
        Reply

        different anonymous here

        scheduled telemetry task is not hidden, it is governed by the master telemetry UI switch in preferences

        coverage ping (1% of users) sends nothing more than the OS, Firefox version and whether or not telemetry is on, big deal

        why not fact check when you can ignore facts and spread lies
        why not be polite when you can attack others with fanboi names and rant like a crazy person

      10. Iron Heart said on February 18, 2021 at 2:22 pm
        Reply

        @Anonymous No. 2

        > scheduled telemetry task is not hidden,

        I didn’t say it is, you can find it in the registry settings of Windows. Though it is not exactly obvious to users either, if you didn’t read articles on gHacks, you likely wouldn’t know about it at all. “Hidden” was said by me regarding the about:config coverage ping setting.

        > coverage ping (1% of users)

        Source that it is only 1% of users? I can reproduce a related connection being established across multiple fresh installations.

        > big deal

        The “big deal” is that telemetry remains active after it was supposedly deactivated by the user, and that the setting to fully turn it off is hidden by default.

        > spread lies

        Sure thing, bro. Never gets old.

        > rant like a crazy person

        I don’t know what your definition of a “rant” is, but my comments are certainly not “rants”. Especially not the ones in this particular thread here. Though an actual rant would certainly be justified considering that you just called me a liar for no reason at all.

        Again, I don’t care about the usual Firefox fanboi opinions, and your comment just reaffirms this stance.

      11. Anonymous said on February 18, 2021 at 7:34 pm
        Reply

        > Source that it is only 1% of users

        your own fucking link

        > Mozilla created the Telemetry Coverage system add-on and distributed it to 1% of the Firefox population. The add-on is automatically installed and designed to inform Mozilla whether Telemetry is enabled in the browser.

      12. Iron Heart said on February 19, 2021 at 8:32 am
        Reply

        @Anonymous

        It is no longer a system add-on, the coverage ping is enabled by default and has been for quite some time now. Bad news for you.

        It was initially a system add-on for 1% of users, yeah. Initially.

  20. ho said on February 17, 2021 at 5:04 pm
    Reply

    Waste time on making it “more win10”? Stop it pls. thanks.

  21. Some person said on February 17, 2021 at 2:23 am
    Reply

    First Mozilla abandoned XUL and addons,
    then they rid Firefox of NPAPI support and full about:config access

    Meanwhile, they pushed bloatware like Pocket and Mr Robot,
    and they added spyware “telemetry” and “experiments”.

    Now even the tabs are gone??? Mozilla has really gone to s*** since Eich left.

  22. Anonymous said on February 16, 2021 at 10:41 pm
    Reply

    Firefox UI is regressing once again. Icons on menu help with eye coordination. Whoever thought this was a good idea should be fired. Final nails are being put in this half dead browser. No one will be left using it once they push a way all their loyal users with this kind of nonsense.

  23. Loxia said on February 16, 2021 at 7:12 pm
    Reply

    Firefox menu right now is convoluted, mixing things together in an almost random way. Hope they will do a clean up to create a more clean and intuitive interface. But they HAVE to keep the menu bar.

    1. Herman Cost said on February 17, 2021 at 8:52 pm
      Reply

      I agree. I’ve kept Firefox around for a long time, although I am now using alternatives more and more. But if the menu bar goes, I am out.

  24. Bobby Phoenix said on February 16, 2021 at 6:56 pm
    Reply

    I so love this new look! I can’t wait for it. Don’t get me wrong I don’t mind the current look, but it does seem a little outdated with most things these days have smoother/rounded and more spaced out stuff. Good job Mozilla. Thank you.

  25. Stakeout said on February 16, 2021 at 5:51 pm
    Reply

    if it ain’t broke.. leave it the heck alone.. they will eventually destroy FF–no doubt about it.. what a shame

  26. sigh said on February 16, 2021 at 5:33 pm
    Reply

    im gonna quit firefox if that hideous thing land on stable, been patient for few year already.
    im still mad at their webextension bs(i get why they want to drop old extension but this “new” webextension api is still incomplete/mess is what grind my gear, its been few year already since quantum release).

    it baffles me that some of the bugzilla about those api are around 5 year old & probably ignored.

    recent news about firefox going woke & their ceo bs also give bad impression about ff future.

    the only thing held me back from going back to chrome right now is because i has not found any equivalent (1:1) of ff multi-acc container add-on, otherwise im gonna go back to chrome. the reason im sticking to firefox in the first place was because of those powerful addon especially tabmixplus (open popup in tab is a lifechanger at that time, cant believe how fast i can close those malicious popup by middle clicking my mouse scroll button on those tab, adblock are pretty weak with popup at those time).

    1. Mystique said on February 18, 2021 at 3:27 pm
      Reply

      @sigh

      You sir/madam win the internets!

      Seriously, I totally agree with you. I don’t think there is much I can add to this really because you are spot on.

      Mozilla needs to get working on the webextensions API and fast!!! It’s lightyears behind where it should be. The very fact that they seem satisfied with its current functionality suggest that they are either completely ignorant or being willfully ignorant.
      Fantastic extensions such as Tabmix plus, downloadthemall, session manager, etc etc have been left in the dust with absolutely no progress being made to allow these extensions access to a more powerful API to achieve basic tasks that were once handled very well by the respective addons.
      Try having a tab open up next to the current tab one and at best you will have an extension that haphazardly opens it at the end of the tab bar then automatically drags it next to the current tab… laughable yet this is all that developers can muster up because you guessed it the webextension API is trash.
      Extensions can only save to the default downloads folder and nothing else it seems.

      There are tons of reasons why its bad but who wants to spend their entire life detailing it when its completely fruitless when Mozilla has chosen to be willfully ignorant and have not chosen to do anything about much of this for a number of years… seriously its been YEARS!!

  27. semce said on February 16, 2021 at 5:30 pm
    Reply

    Can’t please everybody. I use Firefox because I don’t trust Google or Chrome and although I may not be completely happy with the new design, I’ll probably still use Firefox.

    1. Jürgen A. Erhard said on June 4, 2021 at 8:34 am
      Reply

      Why would I trust Mozilla Corporation (they who for quite some time claimed, and might still claim, that Mozilla Foundation was/is the head entity, which of course always was a lie).

      Corporations do as corporations do. Mozilla might try (successfully?) to trick you into thinking they’re a charity, but they’re not.

    2. Iron Heart said on February 16, 2021 at 7:02 pm
      Reply

      @semce

      > I don’t trust Google

      Ungoogled versions of Chromium are a thing, you know… Bromite, Vivaldi, Ungoogled Chromium, Brave. Firefox establishes more connections to Google than any of those:

      – FF has Google SafeBrowsing enabled (non-proxied)
      – FF uses Google’s location service
      – FF uses Google as the default search engine
      – FF uses Google Analytics for the internal add-ons website and for Activity Stream
      – FF on Android literally comes with a Google Ad ID and a Google Analytics tracker baked in (consider using Fennec F-Droid to mitigate this)

      1. semce said on February 17, 2021 at 12:05 am
        Reply

        I have all those issues mittigated, e.g. I use Qwant as default search engine, Google Analytics is blocked by an add on, etc. I use Brave as a back up on occasion but I believe I have my FF fairly secured. Also I use a paid VPN.

      2. Anonymous said on February 19, 2021 at 12:48 am
        Reply

        “Google Analytics is blocked by an add on”

        No, what your add-on blocks is Google Analytics on ordinary websites. But do not forget that we are talking about Mozilla here (hundreds of millions of dollars from Google each year, corrupt overpaid leaders). Exactly like Google, systematic deception and broken privacy expectations. In that case,

        1) Privacy extensions that should block Google Analytics are disabled by Firefox on some of Mozilla sites (for your own “security”, Google not being considered as a threat for your privacy at Mozilla).

        2) The above is bad enough but some time ago the Firefox internal add-on page was in fact their embedded site and so had Google Analytics in it (not sure if still there) and this could not be blocked by an extension. Users filed bugs to protest and were not listened to by Mozilla as usual.

        3) Not sure how the one in Activity Stream works but probably embedded in the browser and not blockable either by an extension (thanks to the new “webextension” system that Mozilla copied from their greatest inspirational and financial source Google Chrome and that for your own “security” is now forbidden to block Mozilla’s own spyware and ads)

        4) The Google Analytics tracker in some Android versions is also embedded in the browser and cannot be blocked by an extension either

        5) From time to time I hear about a new unexpected place where Firefox happens to have metastasis of Google Analytics code ; do not assume that you know them all and that the number of these locations will not increase even more later.

        It’s Mozilla. Every little thing in your computing that you naively trust and cherish as still safe from nefarious external influences is for them nothing but an appetizing prey that they are just waiting for the right time to kill. Often, like here, the prey is already dead from multiple wounds and you just do not know it yet.

      3. ShintoPlasm said on February 17, 2021 at 8:05 am
        Reply

        @semce:

        How do you block Google Analytics by an add-on? Do you mean using uBlock? Or an external app like AdGuard?

      4. max3 said on February 21, 2021 at 4:36 am
        Reply

        I am on a Mac and block all the Google addresses (google.com, googleapis.com, googletagmanager,com, googletagservices.com, pki.goog, googlevideo.com) with LittleSnitch at the system level. No application on my computer can connect to anything Google unless I say so. I have a similar ruleset for all the Mozilla addresses and one for all the Apple addresses, too. I don’t know if Windows has anything similar.

      5. ShintoPlasm said on February 17, 2021 at 3:32 pm
        Reply

        Thanks, didn’t know about this one.

      6. Iron Heart said on February 17, 2021 at 8:03 am
        Reply

        @semce

        You are doing OK, I was just pointing out that Google Chrome is not the only way of using Chromium, thought you were unaware. :)

  28. Justplainbob said on February 16, 2021 at 4:11 pm
    Reply

    Firefox was my default browser for many years. They lost me some time ago. I see that their decline is continuing. I am a Chromium platform browser guy now. In fact, I have Opera set up exactly the way I prefer it to be and it works great for all that I need it to do. Pop out video window included. Also, the best of all worlds since it runs all Chrome extensions very well.

    1. ShintoPlasm said on February 16, 2021 at 5:39 pm
      Reply

      Opera has some really nice features, and the integration with their mobile browsers across platforms is superb. I still have misgivings about their ownership, but can’t really fault the devs for doing a good job.

      1. Justplainbob said on February 16, 2021 at 6:47 pm
        Reply

        I am a simple person. I like my browser set up a certain way and I use very few extensions. One that I like a lot to access my many bookmarks is called Neater Bookmarks (from the Chrome store). I understand what you are saying about the ownership.

  29. Yuliya said on February 16, 2021 at 3:40 pm
    Reply

    Oh, wow. That’s literally the Chrome menu rip-off :D
    https://i.imgur.com/NhNvqsq.png

  30. fffe! said on February 16, 2021 at 1:30 pm
    Reply

    Nice!

  31. Tony said on February 16, 2021 at 1:24 pm
    Reply

    Firefox is pretty much done.I used to defend them,but now it’s obvious they are heading for their downfall.

  32. Ivan said on February 16, 2021 at 1:23 pm
    Reply

    I love the new redesign. I was skeptic about the removal of icons from the menu, but it does look cleaner now.

  33. Sol Shine said on February 16, 2021 at 12:22 pm
    Reply

    Humans are better in quickly recognizing visual objects than reading words.
    So why remove icons in menus? They are ignoring ergonomic science and common sense.

    Why remove the customize button? Putting buttons for the various settings in the settings menu makes them easier to find for new users than putting them in hidden right click menus all other the UI. It makes sense in some cases, but not in all.

    The new tab does not look like a tab as others have said. It is confusing.

    This is not only a Mozilla problem. One of the worse trends in software development the last 2 decades is making the UI too simple and less configurable to the users workflow.

    Open source developers have followed this silly trend. Gnome is a good example.
    All current linux desktops (Gnome, KDE, Xfce, LXQt, etc) give programs very narrow scroll bars that are hard to quickly click on, and some even only appear when you move the mouse over them.
    Selecting a window edge to resize it, is also a problem.
    Using weak contrasts in the UI and content, makes it hard to read text.

    It is crazy how so many UI designers are now ignoring ergonomics.

    But if so many software and web developers are ignoring security and privacy, then what can we expect for ergonomics?

    1. max3 said on February 21, 2021 at 4:27 am
      Reply

      I don’t mind the contextual menus (especially if I could delete some of the stock items), I right click a lot… I find it easier to right click where I am than mouse all over a big window to where the button or icon is. But I do agree with everything else you said, especially the low contrast gray on gray, narrow scroll bars and hard to find window edges. And tabs should be rounded to look like TABS! Dammit!

    2. ShintoPlasm said on February 16, 2021 at 1:51 pm
      Reply

      +1

  34. Mystique said on February 16, 2021 at 11:44 am
    Reply

    I wonder how this will also affect addons/extension which often add options to the right click context menu. This could perhaps break a few extensions also. Given Mozilla’s track record I imagine this will become an issue somewhere along the lines and we will be met with excuses and false promises of a granular system of improvement.

    1. ShintoPlasm said on February 16, 2021 at 12:55 pm
      Reply

      WONTFIX WONTFIX WONTFIX

  35. NoOneCares said on February 16, 2021 at 11:34 am
    Reply

    about time…so may useless crap on it was the reason I did not use it much.

  36. Mystique said on February 16, 2021 at 11:03 am
    Reply

    So are they admitting that the toolbar is a gross misjudgement and poor use of space yet or are they going to continue to act dumb just they do when it comes to their miserable webextension being a flaccid mess that still has limited power and flexibility.

    I’m glad you mention the extension system and its faults because its still garbage and years behind where it should be. I seem to remember them talking it up big stating that it will become more powerful in time… how much time are we expected to wait for this alpha model system to be up to snuff or is it the usual joke used in the medical field 5-10 years!

    It seems like every time I look up extension that I need or once used the common issue is the API not being up to scratch and thus limiting or completely disallowing the developer to do what they need to do in order to have a better and useful experience.

    Its infuriating to think the time, money and resources are being wasted on this rather than addressing the weak extension system.

    PULL YOUR SOCKS UP MOZILLA! You are sinking into obscurity.
    The truth is this isn’t the browser wars anymore this is the great browser depression, none of them are any good and nobody is completely happy for one reason or another. We each just take the lesser evil or least worse of the browsers and try do our best, its little wonder Mozilla is failing, they have completely turned their back on everything they once stood for and the community that made them what they are today.

  37. Gerard said on February 16, 2021 at 10:45 am
    Reply

    Will an “old-fashioned” menu bar still be optional in the new version[s] or be removed altogether? If it will be removed, goodbye Firefox.

    1. Jürgen A. Erhard said on June 4, 2021 at 8:31 am
      Reply

      Of course it will be removed sooner or later. It’s unmaintained code.

  38. Pedro said on February 16, 2021 at 10:44 am
    Reply

    Sounds good to me. I just find the overblown address/search bar when selected and the new tab design hideous. But nothing that a small userchrome.css file won’t fix.
    And I use vertical tabs, so whatever.

    It’s nice to see this progress happening. :)

  39. Anonymous said on February 16, 2021 at 9:09 am
    Reply

    “Modernized tabs” that are no longer tabs. All that nonsense started from a disgusting address bar, which doesn’t fit with anything.

    1. Allwynd said on February 16, 2021 at 11:21 am
      Reply

      Tabs originate from folders in a file cabinet, because when you pick one, it leads you to the contents inside. These don’t look like tabs at all. The imbeciles at Mozilla are just attempting to attract users with a funky looking new UI, as if people are THAT stupid to believe a new UI means the browser is faster or more web-compatible when in reality is a worse alternative to Chrome in terms of both speed and compatibility.

  40. ShintoPlasm said on February 16, 2021 at 8:56 am
    Reply

    I agree with some decisions (removing the Sign-in and Protections buttons) and lament others: why remove the useful icons? There’s a reason toolbar buttons have icons instead of full-text labels – it’s much quicker to recognise once you’ve familiarised yourself with them. Even EdgeC has recognised this, and pretty much all menu options have icons as well. To me this looks like a UI regression, once again based on context-free telemetry.

  41. Peter said on February 16, 2021 at 7:42 am
    Reply

    Why are Mozilla insisting on doing this? People have told them at multiple occasions: stop fiddling around with the ui and focus on the backend. People care about performance/usability, not how snazzy Firefox looks. Google seems to get this and have kept Chrome’s ui consistent from the start and focus on tuning under the hood. At this point i’m starting to wonder if someone in the Mozilla team is actively and knowingly sabotaging Firefox by subverting development efforts.

    1. firefox user said on February 25, 2021 at 7:51 pm
      Reply

      “People care about performance/usability, not how snazzy Firefox looks. ” I agree. It seems someone is trying to sabotage Firefox. I also noticed the CEO gave herself a raise.

      I use to beta test firefox but after never being listened to, I gave up, and went to common, stable firefox. This “new version” every 5 minutes was, and still is, stupid.

      I have never had so much trouble from firefox since we started using the newer “multi-threading” version. The older firefox prior to 57 was MUCH better for my needs.

    2. YouWrongPimp said on February 18, 2021 at 10:09 am
      Reply

      @Peter Did you know that it’s possible to do both at the same time? Also, simplifying UI could go a long way in terms of performance as well. That being said, Firefox looks very outdated, it’s in need of a refresh.

      @lukasz Saboteurs? So evil people are working at Mozilla to try and convince management to make their browser look ugly so that no one uses it? Maybe say it out loud before you type it, bud. UI is extremely important to the user experience as a whole. Mozilla is continuing to work on the rendering engine, why not improve the UI as well? It will draw in new users who think Mozilla looks outdated, which is most non-technical people I know.

    3. Mystique said on February 16, 2021 at 11:27 am
      Reply

      Absolutely agree but I wouldn’t sight Google as anything worthy of mention in this regard because they started it with their garbage interface that cannot even manage tabs adequately. So in other words their UI has consistently been garbage and Mozilla is happy to follow in their footsteps in many regards.

      The entire article title should be “Firefox 89 user interface will be less usable and less sophisticated”
      I feel like most people have given up on the feeling that Mozilla will return to greatness.
      I actually feel bad for the developers that do because they know deep in their hearts the direction that at this rate they never will.

      Your sentiments are spot on though. The very fact that you and many others have had to question if it is an act of deliberate sabotage is telling. I would rather liken it to willful ignorance and choosing not to address the issues at hand but rather sidestep them.

      It is possible however that the team dealing with the interface are just trying to justify their existence and the rest of the browser by putting a fresh coat of paint even if it just poo brown and doesn’t change the fact that the house is falling apart and the foundations are poorly built or half done and a mess.

    4. Allwynd said on February 16, 2021 at 11:25 am
      Reply

      Because they have nothing else going for themselves. Their rendering engine is piss poor at this point and web developers do not care about supporting it. When they make a website they only test it in Chrome and never bother with Mozilla Firesux anymore.

      Recently I had YouTube troubles with Chromium browsers on PC and tried Firesux for a change, my problem disappeared, but in turn YouTube and 60% of the websites I visited took at least 4-5 times longer to load compared to Chromium browsers and there were lots of web compatibility issues where the websites just appeared broken and barely functioning on Firesux.

      Their browser is dead in the water and they know it, that’s why they try their last attempts to attract users by changing the UI and making it look cool and shiny. The next step Mozilla will probably take before giving up on Firesux and letting it die is to migrate to Blink. With their Gecko/WebRender crap they aren’t worth shit anymore.

      1. Jay said on February 16, 2021 at 3:01 pm
        Reply

        FYI, Google uses Chromium specific features for many of those sites, like YouTube, which make them run less efficiently on non-Chromium browsers. There’s nothing wrong with Firefox’s rendering engine besides it just not being Chrome.

      2. Allwynd said on February 16, 2021 at 8:19 pm
        Reply

        @Jay; @Sven,

        I use Chromium for years, when I used Firefox, even the Steam website, which is no way affiliated with Google loaded really slowly and poorly on Firefox. Especially transitioning between store.steampowered.com and steamcommunity.com sometimes resulted in timeouts. While in Chromium it loads instantaneously.

        Why would Steam want to sabotage Firefox when Mozilla has already been sabotaging Firefox sucessfully for the past 10 years or so? Remember Firefox fans, Firefox’ biggest enemy is Mozilla, not Google, not Firefox haters, not anybody else …. JUST MOZILLA.

        You should start using Chromium browsers for like a week and not use Firefox just to see the difference. I was using Chromium for so long that I learned all its kinks and how it performs on different websites so when I was using Firefox the other day, I remember to test it on each of these websites and received different results, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but I also discovered many websites that worked flawlessly on Chromium working like trash on Firefox.

      3. Yuliya said on February 16, 2021 at 4:31 pm
        Reply

        Gecko on desktop is 20-30% slower than Blink.
        Gecko on Android is 50% slower than Blink.
        Demonstrably, using Mozilla’s own benchmarking tools.

        Firefox had only seen a couple of speed bumps ever since v52, one before v57 was released (can’t point out the exact release, but most likely it was v54), and another one with the release of Firefox v62. Meanwhile Chromium improved and kept up with the new software and hardware additions such as proper AVX support and always taking advantage of the latest WDDM version in Windows, even before they get promoted to public release.

        Chromium is always optimised and ready to be used on the next software and hardware platforms. Mozilla struggles to take advantage of features which exist in the consumer space for years. Remember Firefox 3.6? That thing was notorious to crash DWM while it was running. On WIndows 7 and NVIDIA hardware I might add, technologies which existed for literally years. Mozilla only managed to sort their shit out somewhere with the release of Firefox 8 or so. But I guess creating an Opera v12 rip-off of an UI was their priority, instead of having their browser properly taking advantage of the new display driver model. Thankfully, for mozilla, at that time Windows 7 would switch back to GDI allowing their shit to run somewhat properly. I always thought what it should have been done was just kick shitfox out of memory and inform the user to use a proper browser, of which there were many to choose from.

      4. Iron Heart said on February 16, 2021 at 4:02 pm
        Reply

        @Jay

        Outdated info. YouTube no longer uses the deprecated Shadow DOM v0 API which was exclusive to Chromium. Even back then, when YouTube was using it, the API was already scheduled for removal from Chromium. If Firefox works worse than Chromium on YouTube today, it’s 100% Firefox’s fault.

      5. BeBrave said on February 20, 2021 at 8:02 pm
        Reply
      6. Iron Heart said on February 21, 2021 at 7:18 am
        Reply

        @BeBrave

        Bugs happen, fixed already:

        https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/13527

        Nice try. You should mention a bug that isn’t already fixed next time.

      7. BeBrave said on February 24, 2021 at 10:02 am
        Reply

        @Iron Heart
        How do you fix people’s surfing history already exposed to the NSA?

        Nice try.

      8. Iron Heart said on February 25, 2021 at 11:40 pm
        Reply

        @BeBrave

        They are explicit in their wiki that Brave is NOT a Tor Browser Bundle replacement (eve if bugs like the one mentioned above get fixed, Brave will never have Tor’s common fingerprint because it is Blink-based). If you ignore the advice given, if you don’t inform yourself while presumably being in a high risk situation, then you can’t be helped.

      9. Sven said on February 16, 2021 at 1:54 pm
        Reply

        How is their rendering engine poor? How? I’ve been using Firefox for years, and not just for fun but for work as well, and I have zero issues with it.

        I don’t agree with every change Mozilla makes, but It’s a good browser. And it’s much better than Google siphoning off everything I do to their server 24/7. Chromium isn’t bad either, but it’s got it’s own problems. No browser is perfect.

        Why do people seem to get some weird high off of being negative and attacking things just for it’s own sake? I read some of these comments and just see someone madly jabbing a pumpkin with a knife, lol

      10. John Noonan said on May 15, 2021 at 2:18 pm
        Reply

        I agree with you completely. That, and I also like the new UI. Firefox is a great browser.

    5. lukasz said on February 16, 2021 at 11:24 am
      Reply

      I have long believed that there are saboteurs at Mozilla.
      Many activities are so absurd and chaotic.

  42. Le said on February 16, 2021 at 7:28 am
    Reply

    I just hole they let history opened on a new tab instead of new windows. I don’t want to switch to new windows just to view and re-open recent opened tabs.

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