Firefox 89 – Another redesign, another rollercoaster
dedoimedo.com
dedoimedo.com
Previously the home button was there by default. In 89 it's gone by default but can still be added back with right click -> customize toolbar. My guess was that Mozilla found very few users using it (I personally didn't).
> There are no borders to any of the background tabs. None. This makes "focus" harder because your brain needs to guess the borders rather than use existing demarcation. This would-be modern minimalism fad needs to be abolished, preferably by sending it to chillax in the Gulag somewhere.
> The tabs are not really distinguishable from one another. The official reason is some marketing nonsense like tab focus and whatnot - look, if a person struggles to "focus" on their tabs, then the browser UI revamp is the least of their problems.
Seems strange to have these two paragraphs directly after each other. Claiming that the new style is bad because it requires more focus, then - when addressing Mozilla's claim of the opposite which is possibly backed by user research - immediately disregarding the whole topic of focus.
I agree, these UI changes are practically unnoticeable except the menu changes. I would like more contrast for the address bar, though.
Not only don't the "tabs" look like tabs anymore, it's also very difficult to tell which one is actually selected, which can be very annoying depending on how you use tabs.
How is a bunch of page-select buttons on a bar an improvement on a design where they actually look like tabs?
Edit: Actually, the lack of visual feedback on which "tab bar" button corresponds to the current page (i.e is the current tab) is likely annoying for most users, since you need to know in order to close that tab rather than some other one by mistake. Best bet to be sure is to click on the tab button you think is the current one, to reselect it, before clicking again on the "x" to close it.
I couldn't even tell which tabs were selected before this update, which is really frustrating if you have over 400+ tabs open. I realise it is excessive, and would appreciate a solution other than Tree style, Session management, Tab suspender add-ons/options to manage everything 'smarter' and also limit the fingerprinting at the same time.
Anyways, from my limited usage of the new version, I am glad that the container accents are now shown at the top, and tabs playing audio have more focus.
It's not possible to make a fair assessment without doing this because users (read: you) are biased towards what existed regardless of whether the successor design may actually be worth adopting.
A "tab" is literally a small thingy attached to the rest of the page so that you can quickly open it up if you want to, like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=file+folder+tabs&tbm=isch
I see no point in detaching the tab, other than obscuring the visual metaphor and making it harder to understand. Designers these days...
I like the new ff design barring the tabs which is the main concern of the op. But you have to give ff the benefit that they are trying hard to keep everyone happy and improving things as they go. I like the fact that atleast with ff I browse in containers and use their password manager compared to other browser password manager. Android ff nightly is great and supports extensions.
Would I trust my password to chrome ? Would google allow ublock origin on android ? One only needs to think a bit more to answer these questions.
If you mean "care about" as in "really like", then s/common users/designers/ .
Otherwise I think they are also as irritated by needless UI changes, although they will rarely talk about it at length, because unlike more technical/power users they tend to rely a lot more on memorising where things are and "pattern matching" to navigate a UI.
I agree with the article that Proton is an inferior UI. Fortunately it can easily be disabled, at least for now. [0]
It's far less bloated than the (only) competitor, and does most things right.
Is that really going to happen by spending their resources on widget redesigns which themselves will inevitably be denounced as the reason for firefox's unpopularity and replaced in about 18 months?
What would happen do you think if they just skipped one or two of those cycles?
gnome is the only place where the new ff design looks good vs old.