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Comment by Yizahi | Hacker News Reader

Does it still have UglyBar from v77? Seems like that.

See https://www.userchrome.org/megabar-styling-firefox-address-b... for details on how to customize the new address bar, including userChrome css for keeping its size confined to the dropdown UI like other dropdown/combobox UI elements.

Also see https://superuser.com/questions/540851/go-back-to-not-select... for details on how to disable the clickSelectsAll behavior.

This issue is frankly far more important than the style changes they made. It's a muscle-memory issue that drastically affects daily usage. I was so desperate to restore the sane behavior of not selecting everything on a single click that I was recompiling firefox prior to discovering this workaround.

Is there any specific thing that makes it ugly? I'm curious because I don't see the ugliness.

Since I use Firefox 99% of the time, I just opened Chrome and Edge to check out their address bars. All three are extremely similar. In Chrome and Edge the borders are more rounded, while Firefox opts for a more square look. All three feature a "popup" effect that makes the bar slightly bigger when interacting with it: in Firefox this effect activates when clicking the bar, while the other two enlarge when inputting data.

It uses a non-native look for no good reason, and the "popup" thing obscures other parts of the browser UI.

78 has checkboxes to disable the suggestions popup under the privacy/security preferences.

I've seen numerous people discuss this, so I can only presume that there is some itch here, but I'm not getting it. Hasn't the location bar been non-native since pretty much forever, since it has to display icons and colors and all sorts of other stuff that I think most native drop down widgets just won't?

As for obscuring other parts of the UI … such as? (That it wasn't since the dawn of time; I mean, it drops down and obscures part of the browser window, sure? But it's done that since the idea of having it autocomplete was first added.)

The only recent change seems to be that it swells up by a few pixels when you focus it. (I'm not a fan, but it honestly doesn't seem to matter much. It has started to not show the carat, and that is definitely annoying, and I'd agree more with a native widget argument there, I just don't think one exists.)

> As for obscuring other parts of the UI … such as?

Bookmarks toolbar, for one. Open a new blank tab, the URLbar has focus by default and is now partially obscuring the bookmarks right at the moment you're most likely to use them.

Curious. So, this is what I see: https://imgur.com/a/IJBlT4q The actual dropdown doesn't happen on a new tab. (It will if I click on the bar or start typing, though.)

I'll admit, I did not think of the bookmarks bar. (I don't use it, myself.) Thanks, too, for responding.

I don't like the behaviour in Chrome or Slack either. I haven't tried the new Edge (Edgeium) -- the Trident/IE derived Edge only expands downward.

1. It is inconsistent with the behaviour of every other control, including other combobox/search/dropdown UI elements. The web search element on the new page/tab for both Firefox and Chrome only expand downward to show the results. (The one on Chrome adjusts the border radius slightly, but that is more to do with the way the border radius is calculated.)

2. I personally find it distracting, especially as it is moving in two directions at once. -- I don't like animated elements in the Windows start menu and YouTube's latest post section even more for the same reason (I notice the movement in the corner of my eye, then get distracted as it is drawing attention away from what I am doing).

3. It can happen when not user initiated, e.g. when switching to an already open tab where the focus then goes to the address bar. This further adds to the distracting "look at me!" nature of the new design, where you have to explicitly click away to get rid of. Couple that with reddit's behaviour of clicking outside a post navigating to the channels page and you have some fun times!

4. The dropdown of frequently visited pages can no longer be opened by the mouse only. You need to click on the address bar and then press the down arrow key.

"in Firefox this effect activates when clicking the bar, while the other two enlarge when inputting data."

This difference is why Firefox receives mores complaints.

When opening a new tab in Firefox, the address bar is automatically focused. This actually makes the address bar larger than the bounds of the encapsulating toolbar. This combined with the drop shadows helps to partially obscure adjacent toolbar(s), like the bookmarks toolbar.

It hijacks focus at new tab open. It has ugly looking shadow when focused over bookmark bar. It removed "arrow down" button. It replaced history for static top sites in the drop down. It enlarges text font on focus making it harder to quickly select parts. And the last but not least - they had months of beta testing and then still enforced popout animation with ability to disable it, despite negative feedback of multiple users.

PS: I'm not disabling it on principle for now just to see like some people say if get used to it. So far it still annoys me after weeks of usage. It is just bad design and bad decision and FF team can't accept own mistakes, like small children.

I hate the UglyBar so much. I've got a user style to fix it but my god, who thought it was a good idea? It's so much worse and it didn't need doing.

> It's so much worse and it didn't need doing.

It's subjective. I like it.

Personally what found even worse is the attitude of an arrogant Firefox developer (Marco), who came to /r/firefox and just outright dismissed any and all concerns, than closed all bugzilla tickets about it and just left subreddit (at least for several days).

It feels like some "genius" manager who brute forced his "brilliant" idea on the team.

It's not only ugly: whenever I click in it to edit a URL (pasting in different UUIDs for testing, things like that), the change of font size means I don't know where the selection is. That's so confusing.

I am always very confused by discussions about this bar. For me, when I press ctrl-L, the bar gets slightly bigger borders and the dropdown expands, and that's all that happens. I don't get a font size change or anything.

Is my experience not typical? Does anyone know why I don't get the new bar if not? I'm on 78.

Just checked for myself on FF77 on Gnome and on FF78 on Windows. I don't see a change of font size on either.

Is there something you need to opt in to?

Perhaps it's a macOS thing.

I have font change on Win10, v77.0.1 latest. When focused URL text font is enlarged and if you were targeting specific symbol it will be shifted to side by several places.

PS: here is a proof - https://imgur.com/a/AYi99Ht

That's really odd, it doesn't change size for me at all on Linux. This seems like a bug.

Unfortunately it still has this "megabar"

This new bar is why I stopped upgrading FF. with 76 you could change it with about:firefox options, then in 77 you had to use userChrome.css I got tired of trying to find a workaround for a piece of utility software. I shouldnt have to relearn functionality every minor release of a browser. I love FF, but Im sticking with 76 for the foreseeable future.

I agree, I got so aggravated I switched to Vivaldi. I went to school for UI/UX and in my opinion the MegaBar is bad, bad, bad.

Can I ask why it's considered "ugly" now but wasn't before? Isn't it just a few pixels bigger?

No, it is smaller so that is not the issue. The old completions used to use up the full width of the browser window. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but I suspect that the proportions are just slightly off.

You can just remove the flexible spacers.

Just go to the tab bar, right-click on an empty space or the "+" -> "Customize..." and remove them. I did so when Firefox upgraded to Quantum and the spacers never returned by themselves.

The dropdown takes up less horizontal space in the new version. But in the new version the URL bar itself becomes obese with unnecessary padding whenever you click in it. And that is was a lot of people hate about it.

No other input field becomes fat when you click on it. It is enough to just highlight the edges like the old version (And like every other input field) when you want to indicate that the input field is currently active.

Plus shadow. And it steals focus on new tab. And it shifts text when selecting. And no history now. It is just dumber and uglier version of the old normal address bar which nobody asked to "improve" this way.

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