Hacker News Reader

Comment by xnx | Hacker News Reader

Mozilla should embrace it's niche browser role and cater to power users. It will always be a worse choice for the typical user.

View on HN

As a power user, you can just write a little CSS and have it look however you damn well please:

https://i.postimg.cc/6w46fmWF/image.png

It would be nice to get some kind of official confirmation that the ability to add custom CSS isn't going to go away, given that the justification for dropping compact mode seems to basically boil down to it being hard to discover, and Mozilla assuming (without user metrics) that nobody uses it.

How much harder is it to discover the ability to write custom CSS? Do we know that Firefox won't apply the same logic to that feature?

for now.

given this trend of removing little usability and customization abilities here and there, one can only assume the custom CSS will be removed as well. especially seeing as its label has "legacy" right in it's name: toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets

they'll give some reason like "only 1% of users use it" or, "it'll take too much time to make it work with our new, annual UI redesign/overhaul"

that being said, I'm sure someone (either on github or on reddit in /r/FirefoxCSS) will have the necessary custom CSS written to reproduce as soon as the version removing it hits the stable release

I shouldn't have to hack Firefox with custom CSS to get it to behave in a reasonable way.

I use Firefox for multi-row tabs. First it was an extension but now you can accomplish the same thing with CSS.

Of course, every major redesign of the browser breaks the CSS for multi-row tabs and I need to find people who have fixed it and hack it back together. One of these days they'll probably break it completely and I'll switch to another browser.

At this point Brave is the power-user choice. And Mozilla show no signs of slowing down their self inflicted decline.

I miss using Firefox, but I don't miss the dread-churn of notices like this.

Browsing is one of the most crucial software on one's system, I wouldn't trust Brave's track record with their affiliate linking, url-forwarding and blockchain sheanigans.

I use Brave on Windows and am happy with it - but I don't see how it's the "power users' choice". At the end of the day it's just Chromium with a couple of privacy- and blockchain-oriented features bolted on.

QuteBrowser is the power-user choice.

Brave seems more like the "consumer disliking ads/google" choice.

This is starting to sound like https://xkcd.com/378/

Unfortunately, nc has become a slightly less user-friendly web-browser after the HTTPS everywhere movement. It's tricky to do the math in your head before the timeout hits.

In all seriousness, very few power-user browsers exists, to the point where QuteBrowser is the only fully-functional one I can think of... Which is sad.

Brave is "just" a completely regular browser owned by someone else + a few bonus features.

Nyxt browser is also interesting from the point of view of power users.

https://nyxt.atlas.engineer/

Ironic, since xkcd is another awesome thing from the Internet of 2005-2015 that is now a mere husk of its former glory - just like Firefox.

Brave seems like a scam with their coins and ads.

Which are both completely optional and opt-in.

This! I got this feature enabled, it works fine, why remove it. How much dev work is saved by removing a compact view? Mozilla is straying further and further from the open source icon it was, death by management....

I have to assume the bean counters aren't happy with Firefox's user numbers, and they're throwing any strategy they can think of towards getting those numbers up, even at the risk of the current user base.

I want more people using Firefox, that'd be awesome, but Mozilla could really do with more compelling arguments for changes like these, and while they're at it a better approach to engaging with the community.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com