New Firefox
blog.mozilla.org
blog.mozilla.org
I miss the original Chrome UI. https://img.informer.com/p0/google-chrome-v1-built-in-downlo...
Things were much tighter and most of the space was kept empty for web content.
The new Firefox redesign is really nice and clean to look at though.
browser.proton.enabled to false browser.uidensity to 1
I also want programs made for adults who know how computers work, and are capable of leveraging complex but functional UI to actually do stuff with some degree of sophistication. Making programs more and more like a Playskool toy with every update is, by definition, regression, not progress.
There's not much use in complaining though. Firefox has been a lost cause for years now.
It seems to me like you're complaining about a trend you associate with the wording rather than the specific changes to Firefox here.
Or which of the changes to Firefox do you associate with having "less soul" or "less personality"?
The buttons, white space between things, tab bar, etc..
I can only see about 2/3 of the bookmarks in my menu that I could before.
I don't understand why modern design focuses on so much useless space.
> Fitts’ law states that the amount of time required for a person to move a pointer (e.g., mouse cursor) to a target area is a function of the distance to the target divided by the size of the target. Thus, the longer the distance and the smaller the target’s size, the longer it takes.
Tabs are clicked on a lot, therefore they should be bigger.
Nobody will be using your cool backend algos if they are not exposed to the user in some meaningful, user-centric, consistent way.
We should be thankful so much effort is put in UX development, otherwise all the cool backend algos would be pointless.
Especially since Firefox did not just say "hey let's make this button bigger and this button green“.
They did empirical research, heatmaps etc., to analyse how the UX could be made objectively, measurably better.
I invite everyone to read this article about how Wikipedia took several years to implement the "show preview when hovering a link" feature.
This is how much thought needs to be given to UX to not make it half-assed
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2018/04/20/why-it-took-a-long-tim...
But we are talking about Firefox not Wikipedia. I would be happy to read a full article about mozilla's choices.
Overall the design seems better, but there are some points of this new design that are widely questioned such as the new tab design.
Moreover we don't use Firefox as we use a web page like Wikipedia. A browser in my opinion must be as discreet and customizable as possible in the user experience, whereas this is not the case for a website that offers a fixed user experience for all users. The removal of the compact mode for example goes against my vision of what a browser should be.
What options do I as a "normie" have to give feedback? Is there really only one way, to use the ancient Bugzilla and hopefully finding a ticket somewhere?
For my trouble, I was told that accessibility features on MacOS were a low priority (?!?) and nothing ever came of it.
Many companies/organizations always disable comments because they don't want to have to moderate them.
Recent Annoyances Fixed:
1) too slow
1) no default global zoom
2) can't type a site and tab to search
3) cluttered ui, with features too many clicks deep
4) pocket is too in your face and takes too many steps to turn off
Remaining Annoyances:
1) no chrome-like tab groups
2) "save file" is greyed out when you download a file, requires an extra click
3) middle clicking on bookmark toolbar items opens them in the foreground, not background
4) still feels like it's playing catchup to chrome
At this point, I increasingly can't differentiate Firefox from Chrome or Edge, which are better supported anyway.
Decisions based on "user data" have been a disaster for Firefox. The only reason any normal person ever used Firefox is because power users evangelized it - they don't get to be the default, pre-installed browser anywhere, and they don't have the world's biggest web properties constantly pushing for them. Power users are it. Obviously, the data will always reflect that any set of power user features is used only by a tiny amount of people.
But everything Mozilla has done in the past few years has been done to alienate power users and appeal to the non-existent normal user who goes out and downloads another browser. At this point with this redesign I'm basically done. If Firefox wants to be Chrome or Edge, I'm just going to use Chrome or Edge.
There’s been a trickle of changes over the years going in this direction. This was just the last straw. It’s becoming increasingly Less useful to me.
I don’t like Chrome but it’s better supported and it and Edge are more widely available by default. There’s simply no advantage anymore to using Firefox.
I’m the kind of guy that installs Firefox on everyone’s computer when they ask me to “fix” it and that recommends it to them. But their whole strategy has turned me off. And it won’t gain them any other market share either.
Always thought that was a security thing, so you can’t be tricked to download a file you may not want.
Separately, I do wish FF had “Save As” for downloads. Right Click and “Save Link As” is not compatible with all downloads.
about:preferences, Files and Applications, Downloads, Always ask you where to save files
I like Tree Style Tabs and I've heard good things about Sidebery.
2) "save file" is greyed out when you download a file, requires an extra click
This makes me feel old. I remember back when this was added and some of why. (Used to be bad malware that would try to auto-download stuff back in the dialup eras where you couldn't afford to download stuff you didn't mean to download.) It's less useful today and been a while since some of those worst malware programs like that have existed or been seen as much in the wild. But even knowing it is mostly theater at this point I still have this "comfort" in the added safety of that "extra click". (And I have never liked Chrome's download anything and everything automatically by default approach.)
4) still feels like it's playing catchup to chrome
The other perspective is: Chrome maybe needs to stop running so far out ahead of all the standards work. Now more than ever with such a huge percentage of the web audience, Chrome should maybe take some responsibility and slow down for the sake of better web standards. As a web developer I know that I still take seriously "if it doesn't work yet in Firefox it is too soon to safely depend on it", but I'm an old (as established above).
Or to switch the metaphor slightly, Chrome is like a ship saying "hey, our hull is strong enough to go bump into that iceberg over there! I bet there are people who would love to get onto it. Let's give it a try!"
[I am a Mozilla employee, and biased.]
I'm not actually opposed to getting some of that functionality, but not until there is some kind of believable restricted-access story that makes it very clear what the user is agreeing to. Permission prompts that train us to ignore them are not that thing. Wording that only talks about the benefits of allowing things are not that either. I haven't seen anything particularly serious in this direction. (It's a hard problem. Users wildly underestimate probability of abuse and harm, especially when it makes total sense for a specific person but not for the other hundred million.)
You should be able to change that by going to about:config, searching security.dialog_enable_delay, and double clicking. You could also try changing your preferences to tell Firefox to always save to some location
What a bunch of dopes we are.
The new UI feels great. Dark mode is well done. Speed is finally on par with Chrome. And compatibility is as good as it's ever been. Only very occasionally do I run into a bug caused by Firefox's shortcomings.
Still on my wish list, though: better echo cancellation in WebRTC; don't hijack ctrl-b and ctrl-i; support backdrop-filter; support <dialog> element...
I tried fixing it with the css grayscale attribute in userchrome.css but ran into performance problems.
... open for any ideas on how to make the blue go away.
Is this self-mockery? It's hard to tell. But those adjectives often crop up with low budget knock-off* products whose makers don't have substantive things to say.
(Disclosure: I've used Firefox since 2008-ish, when it got me half an hour more battery life on my laptop than Chrome. Still using it.)
* knock-off: poorly executed clone.
They don't actually mean anything, from what I see. They're just what you say.
"Clean" is the only one that might mean something, but it reminds me of the old marketing question: "Which sounds better: 'Contains noropyronethrin!' or 'Contains less noropyronethrin than other leading brands!'?"