WTF?! The color of my right-click menu changed again!
I am sticking with Firefox simply because it is not Chrome, but this is silly. Why does the looks have to change constantly. The browser is where one ends up spending most of one's time these days and it is insane that I have to double-, triple-takes every time Firefox is upgraded.
Don't get me started on videos starting to auto-play after certain updates, "studies", etc. The past few years has been a steady downhill ride.
Update: Apparently, the theme I had settled on after the last update is no longer supported or some such. Setting it to "system" gave me back my light right-click menu. sigh
I think that someone internally may think Chrome is more user friendly and that is why people don't use Firefox, which I don't think is true. Both have always been pretty good, especially since Quantum when Firefox merged the search bar and address bar (which is easier for most people I think).
That isn't true if you set your default engine to DDG or Startpage though! Would be quite the dystopian agreement between Google and Mozilla if so.
I use it for notes too, and being able to update and resubmit my last search easily. And it's probably the core reason why I can't leave Firefox. The tab sync/send is just better too.
I didn't mean to say it was your fault, just that it was not a problem with Firefox's UI itself. Breaking changes to the addon and theme APIs are perhaps a bit too common, though ;)
I'd just be happy if the "system" theme actually honored my system theme. They broke that a few updates back. Now, instead of my focused window having a colored title bar to make it stand out, it's just a drab grey like my unfocused windows. It's little stuff like that which prevents me from using FF as my daily driver.
> HTTPS-First Policy: Firefox Private Browsing windows now attempt to make all connections to websites secure, and fall back to insecure connections only when websites do not support it.
Hmmmm ... Does this mean "HTTPS Everywhere" is no longer needed?[1]
And, of course, it freaks out with the previously saved self-signed cert installed on my WiFi router. ... sigh
> Firefox Private Browsing windows now attempt to make all connections to websites secure
Ah yes, I don't want anyone to eavesdrop on my pr0n!
Edit: to clarify, I find it weird that this has been limited to Private Browsing, when most people don't even use it for anything but adult websites. The feature is good and should be available for regular browsing too.
Do you have traffic that you are okay with people watching? Because I personally have exactly zero traffic that I want my ISP to know about (and then resell that info to ad companies, ex. https://www.infoworld.com/article/2608352/internet-privacy-a...).
I agree wholeheartedly - that's why I found puzzling that the functionality has been limited to "porn-mode". Judging by the downvotes though, I should have stated it better.
Oh, yes now I can see what you meant. Forgot that private mode was called porn mode, especially since in my brain it's more like "safe mode" to run without extensions or cookies:)
> Edit: to clarify, I find it weird that this has been limited to Private Browsing, when most people don't even use it for anything but adult websites. The feature is good and should be available for regular browsing too.
It can be enabled for all windows, but it was not enabled at all when the feature was first rolled out in v83. Presumably they wanted to allow time for any bugs to be shaken out before imposing it by default in any circumstance. It seems plausible they could enable it in regular windows as well in the future.
The assumption that whatever is being served on :443 is HTTPS with the same content as what is being served on :80 HTTP is wrong. It might practically be true >99% of the time, but some websites will still break for no good reason.
> Does this mean "HTTPS Everywhere" is no longer needed?
Probably not quite - I can't easily find an exact reference, so take with a grain of salt, but my recollection is that HTTPS Everywhere includes some slightly more sophisticated transforms (ex. for annoying sites that serve http://www.site.tld but HTTPS on https://secure.site.tld).
Yes, HTTPS Everywhere is more robust. The straightforward route taken here is closer to Smart HTTPS. But better just use HTTPS only mode and disable it whenever a problematic site appears.
FWIW in addition to this they also added an (off-by-default) "HTTPS Only Mode"[0] to Firefox settings recently, which I've been using instead of HTTPS Everywhere.
It's not as powerful/flexible/configurable, but certainly ticks some of the boxes.
> The simplify page when printing feature is back! When printing, under More settings > Format select the Simplified option when available to get a clutter-free page.
I didn't know this used to exist, but my few tests say I like that feature.
I just had the same question and looked into it. The answer is no you can't, they removed the ability to disable Proton as of version 91.
I also strongly dislike the new tabs as they're totally disconnected from the actual pages they're a tab for with whitespace, less contrast as you mention as well which an issue if you don't have great eyesight. I guess they're willing to lose even more market share over this, which seems pretty silly considering what their trajectory has been...
This has made me genuinely very irritated. They take up so much space now! Why the f- do Mozilla insist upon making these fundamental but completely pointless changes? I have this software staring me in the face ALL the time, I don't need tab functionality being so large and distinct.
I've not been bothered by a lot of UI changes as each update has allowed them to be reverted quite easily.
It seems that every update has me swearing for 15 minutes until someone on HN helpfully points to a solution, but not this time. GRR.
Is that a literal 40x? I haven't used the web version of zoom in a long time and my Thinkpad is always plugged in but I'm genuinely curious about your data. What OS? Plugins?
Well, if you get 6 hours of browsing in safari on a charge, then by this math (40x difference) you would get about 9 minutes in Firefox and you would probably burn yourself from the heat given off
Do you actually get 9m though? I always have FF open (I try hard not to install electron apps, so I have slack web open all the time). My Thinkpad running Linux with four to six different profiles open, all with active windows and multiple tabs/windows, runs for 4h or so on battery. (Estimate based on time in the car.) 9m feels like your system might have other trouble.
MacOS on MBP. Yes, already opened bug reports on the issue.
I joined the same 2-person Zoom call from all 3 browsers on my MBP just now... If you have more people call in, like 10 or more on the call... that's when Firefox really melts your computer and you the energy usage skyrocket.
Not 40x but Firefox is also a power hog on my Windows based laptop when it comes to anything regarding video playback which is why I don't use it. Vivaldi is also especially bad regarding power usage and video playback. Chrome is acceptable but Microsoft Edge is by far the most efficient when it comes to video and power usage.
Also wrecks battery life on macOS. I want to see Firefox devs focus on improving power usage. Other browser vendors love to show that they're light on impact to battery life because it's an important metric to users.
Do you have a bug report open? This isn't true in all cases so it seems likely that there is an issue with some combination of OS version and hardware which is forcing a software fallback.
Aren't the firefox upgrades largely in-browser now? I haven't seen firefox even upgraded in the repos but two clicks in Firefox' menu got me the last version.
Debian is on Firefox 78, which is an official long-term support version (Extended Support Release in Mozilla-speak). The point of those LTS versions is exactly to only contain critical bug fixes and no other changes.
https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/firefox says that Debian Unstable should have version 90 as of last month. If you're not getting updates, perhaps the mirror you're using is stale?
For unstable, you should currently take Firefox from experimental. I assume, like for previous releases, it will be here by tomorrow. Due to the freeze for Bullseye release, the dependencies to put it in unstable are not present.
Debian unstable isn't really meant to be a fully fledged desktop OS on its own. I mean, yes, it can be. But there are problems like the one you mentioned - around freeze time for the next release the entire update policy dramatically slows down.
It's a shame Firefox is dying. I see more and more websites that simply refuse to work on Firefox and with the decreasing market share and breaking changes they seem to be introducing every update now it's harder than ever to justify not switching over to a chromium based browser.
Constantly dinking with the UI and constantly making broadly unpopular, if not harmful (re. cliqz and hiding it) changes against any and all criticism. Mozilla at some point decided they know better than their users what their users want.
Google, Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, etc pushing their browsers through their platforms would be the main reason. Most people don't care about the UI changes.
Yes it was a little jarring at first. I've been using the new ui for a while now and likely wouldn't want to go back (I tried the ui hot fix for a bit, but ended up removing it and going with the default).
Most people don't care about the specific UI changes. But they feel frustrated and helpless when they have to relearn what they knew suddenly with no benefit to them.
Things like lower contrast aren't just about taste or getting used to it.
I'm not sure how you can say if they're broadly unpopular - certainly you mostly hear complaints but that could be because the only people bothered enough to write about it are the ones who don't like it.
I'm personally a happy user and like almost all the changes they've made over the last few years. I like the new UI. I haven't felt the need to post anywhere about being roughly content with it.
The market share stats looked bad long before they started messing with the UI, no?
I also was a happy user for like 15 years, I used to actively recommend it to everyone, but they keep removing the features I like. They broke extensions, removed bookmark descriptions, RSS, a "smart" omnibox that made it harder to find what I use the most, the recent changes to tabs. I still keep it as default because I'm used to the dev tools, but they just keep making it worse, I'm not surprised they're still losing market share.
1. The fact that they look like buttons now, not tabs.
2. The active and inactive tab colors are so close that it's difficult to tell at a glance which is which. Especially in low-contrast situations (e.g. outside) or for those with vision disabilities.
3. Massive amounts of pointless padding. Which means you can't fit as many tabs in the window, and makes the browser a challenge to use for those with small screens. It also wastes horizontal space which is precious now that all monitors are widescreen.
4. The most important reason: they tried to fix something that wasn't broken and made it worse instead. There was nothing wrong with the Firefox UI but plenty of things they could improve where it comes to performance, extensions, HTML/CSS/Javascript behavior, and the large stack of open bugs in Bugzilla that have gone years without any attention.
Instead, they paid someone (or possibly a team) hundreds of hours to fluff up the UI.
Yeah, that's a bit annoying, but it goes away if you use vertical tabs through an extension like Sidebery. Tbh I stopped noticing it after a couple of months.
I have to admit the only real reason I'm on FF is tree style tabs. All the tabs on the left of the screen, with little markers to expand or minimize the tree. No tabs along the top (needs a tiny bit of css), plus I can customize the look. I tried to get Chrome to do this but nothing was satisfying.
Now it's not like FF is inferior in all other ways, it is actually a pretty good experience. But TST is the big one for me, can't live without it.
If I ever need a "Chrome(ium)" I use Edge which has build in vertical tabs support (dont know if google chrome has this as well but it didn't last time I used it)
I just discovered https://github.com/piroor/treestyletab after getting so damn frustrated that Mozilla/FF removed the ability to move tabs under the address bar. Like... why the hell was the ability to move that bar removed?!?
Tangent: Windows single sign-on is kind of broken. So if I hit a site that supports it, it will automatically try to log me in via my machine without asking causing my 2FA to fire and won't show me a login screen until that 2FA check succeeds/fails. If I want to sign in via any other Microsoft Account, I first need to 2FA my machine's Microsoft Account just to get the ability to login via a completely different account.
Turning it on/off isn't a solution, because then you'll lose the ability to use Windows sign-on when you do want it. The login flow itself is just poorly designed.
Although my bigger pet peeve by far right now is that every time I login to Microsoft Teams, it gives me a prompt ("Allow my organization to manage my device") that would essentially allow my employer to take over control of my personal machine (default: On, also a dark-pattern "Yes" box).
I've also experienced issues with SSO and physical 2 factor tokens. I just end up having to open those sites in Chrome, because FF won't trigger the password prompt for my token. It's annoying, but I'm willing to live with it.
Curious about Total Cookie Protection. Unfortunately, the link is broken. Hopefully we’re getting a simple whitelisting interface built into the browser.
True, but if you're running a beta test and the feedback is negative, you can't be surprised that people don't feel "respected" when you decide to push the change anyway.
Every UI change has negative feedback to some degree because a part of the user base just doesn't like change.
Overall FF is just as usable as the decade before in my opinion. And I kind of like the new tab design. The old super rounded tabs looked great for a while but it was time for a change.
I'm not a designer, but in my experience it helps to change up user interfaces now and then. However I wish we as users had more control over that. Color themes are not enough.
Twenty three years of churn has brought what UX benefits exactly? Hiding the protocol, hiding details about secure connections, hiding the status bar, hiding the text on tiny buttons, hiding the menus: https://mk0ghacksnety2pjrgh8.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/upload...
and for what? Optimising for people on 1366x768 laptops and people who don't want to do very much but search and click one result?
Judging by my coworkers and relatives, I don't think many users care that much about the screen real estate. Those of us who do customize the hell out of the browser chrome anyway.
Firefox 2 looked fine in my opinion, I would be happy if they just kept it as it was back then.
I see no problem with that. I downloaded the most recent version of Netscape Navigator a few days ago and while it's unusable for HTTPS websites, plain HTTP browsing is quite pleasant and surprisingly fast (even though it uses only one core). What is particularly nice is the SERP page of Google - very tidy and without any ads.
Changing menu item names and locations is just stupid. A month later and I am still looking for "Undo Close Tab." Was it really that important to change the name to "Reopen Closed Tab?"
If the shortcut isn't listed next to the menu option, I'm never going to learn it unless I need to use it constantly. The top level menu items show the shortcuts but the context menu items don't! Inconsistent!
The funny thing is that I just tried to find the "shortcuts" list for Firefox and is is nowhere to be found in their menu or in Preferences! Do I need to find it on some webpage?!?
The new "chunky" layout and UI elements are not really an improvement, and a lot of users have been unhappy with this. Despite plentiful feedback about this during beta testing Mozilla have basically opted to force it through anyway.
UI changes in general are something to expect, but if you're just going to disregard user feedback then you can't claim to respect users.
If that many users are happy why does it keep losing market share?
Personally every other release they remove features I like and make arbitrary UI changes. The only reason I'm still complaining and not using something else is because I don't like the alternatives either.
It's a good way to further push away a chunk of your userbase. They're moving towards a touch-friendly UI, but a lot of us just want a compact desktop app that doesn't waste screen space with excessive padding.
The proper solution to this would be to have different modes if this is so critical. To their credit they did put in a "compact" mode after beta, but this is explicitly "unsupported" and even then still has more padding than "large" mode in the old UI.
Push where? At least you still can configure chrome padding and element sizes with CSS tweaks, unlike the main competitor and its wooden interface with absolutely zero customization possibilities.
There's Vivaldi, and it too uses HTML for its interface, but the team doesn't seem to care about UI performance at all.
The average browser user doesn't know anything about CSS tweaking. Advanced users may know about it if they're curious enough or work with web technologies. People get pushed around by other reasons, mostly things like OS integration (Edge, Chrome).
> There's Vivaldi, and it too uses HTML for its interface, but the team doesn't seem to care about UI performance at all.
Thanks to that, Vivaldi also actively supports CSS tweaks like Firefox. They do indeed care about UI performance and work towards fixing it... The 3.7 update really improved its UI responsiveness. Still, it feels slower than Chrome/Brave/Firefox.
This sounds like a counter-argument. What the Gnome team did (during the 2->3 transition) was a huge overhaul while completely ignoring the habits and wishes of their users. I understand they had to rewrite the old code, that's perfect. I also understand they wanted to "refresh the UI" at the same time. But you can't just change everything and think your users will be happy. If you act against the wishes of your users, who do you write your software for? It simply made no sense and that's why people turned to MATE.
I certainly have complaints but I'm still a happy FF user. What I get for free, a powerful open modern web browser, is more than worth the price of admission.
"There are only two kinds of browsers: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses" -- Paraphrase Bjarne Stroustrup
Plus for Firefox to grow in popularity/stay relevant you need people to care, and you need the browser to improve. Complaining is better than silence in that context.
While it is true that most things that get used have people with grievances, using that as an argument to dismiss complaints is not productive.
> Plus for Firefox to grow in popularity/stay relevant you need people to care
Yes, and people care more when the browser developers care about them. Mozilla is intent on showing that only their design vision matters and customizability will go as soon as it slightly inconveniences them.
Yes! I always open the HN comments for Firefox release notes, knowing I'll read a long list of negativity (and much is fair)... but somehow I'm still a happy, thankful user since (almost) day #1.
I am a Firefox user since Firefox 4 (2011). The thing is, that negativity was not there prior to 2017.
I'm guessing they are making the assumption that if they keep approximating towards a Chrome clone, that it will somehow reduce the friction of new users joining. This a colossal strategy mistake from corporate/product people.
They cannot compete with Chrome/Edge on a massively unleveled playing field. They either have some giant corporate deal to come pre installed on devices other than linux distros or they accept that it will be a niche browser that wins users over by having killer features privacy/foss ethos etc.
The decision of removing things that were previously customizable or remove features because only a few hundreds of thousands of people use, is alienating users. In the discussions I always read Mozilla staff arguing that this is a vocal minority but the reality is that irrespective of which statistics you look at they lost a huge chunk of marketshare last year.
The way they are refusing to engage with the community on this matter is creating a lot of frustration. WONTFIX is pretty much a meme in Bugzilla at this point.
Firefox needs to refocus on being Firefox instead of half-trying to compete with other browsers.
We need browser diversity and we absolutely need non chromium browsers in particular. I hope they will turn this around and engage with the community and user voice.
They not just lost a few hundred Ks of users, they lost a huge chunk of evangelist. And worst than that, turning into anti-evangelist. I am that and so do many of my colleagues. I believe this is a trend though not many people willing to mention it. So seeing firefox dropped significant market share since 2017-ish to some reflect what we anti-evangelist are doing "unconsciously". This is what happen when the company decide to go with some smart-alec UI/UX designers that didn't do much market feedback but trusting their own instinct. Probably Jonny Ives wanna be.
The first? Newer display technology and processing power, allowed for more complex menus, decision trees, and visual effects/feedback.
The second? Computing was new, and we were still learning how to build basic, usable UIs.
Yet ever UI change distracts, causes lag for users, and the above two points are long factored in.
No one needs a fork to change. No one needs their remote control's volume button to change.
Worse, no one need it to change from one day to the next, on a weekly or even yearly basis.
Many users would be beyond overjoyed, if their browser UI didn't change for the rest of their life.
The back button doesn't need to move, become something else, leap from the top to bottom of the window, look wildly different as a default, behave differently.
Worse, almost every UI change I've seen in Firefox in the last decade, has been tiny little tweaks without any real value for the end user, yet alienated people.
And worse, forced on people. Way to keep market share.
Firefox could be #1 again, simply by firing every UI person, hiring developers with that cash, and just optimise, merge in new web standards (without creating or taking part in them), and fix bugs.
I think that is the wrong end of the stick. People complain about Firefox not because they hate it. They complain because they care. It is the same thing with Apple or in fact any other brands. They want it to be better, they want to come back or keep using Firefox. And they want more people to use it ( for one reason or another ).
So the saying good there is no such thing as bad publicity. Firefox still getting the upvote to front page or being complained is a good sign many user or potential user still give a damn.
I still love Firefox, I just dislike Mozilla's management.
More to the point, the stakes are really high for FF now.
I use and love FF, but FF's market share is very low and shrinking. If they can't do anything to turn that trend around, web developers will ignore it, and it will become useless for many sites.
FF users have to wish/hope that FF rights this ship, and that means they can't afford to lose any more users (and really, that they must somehow reverse course and acquire new users). So every update feels really important - the shrinking user base is an existential threat to the browser.
Or the fact that Google and Microsoft used their monopoly power and dark patterns to do it. Google asked every Firefox user to 'upgrade' to Chrome on all their properties, didn't work as hard to ensure Firefox compatibility leading to worse performance, and bundled Chrome with all kinds of stuff like Adobe Flash updates for Firefox to trick users into installing it (I uninstalled it from my Mom's PC 4 times). Microsoft resets default browser preferences or 'suggests' you switch to Edge for better insert random thing here pretty regularly as well. Mozilla has no such monopoly position to leverage.
And yet, people find their way to install all sorts of other programs like Chrome, Discord, Slack or Steam even though Microsoft includes some competing programs by default in the start menu.
Same. Works perfect for me. It uses way more battery life on my M1 Macbook Air than Safari, which I wish wasn't the case. But I refuse to use Chrome because of Google's awful privacy track record.
Isn't this included in FF by default? At least I use it and don't see it in my extensions. Only thing I'm missing is automatic containers for certain domains (as it works with FB).
Multi-Account Containers[1] is a Firefox add-on that lets you separate your work, shopping, or personal browsing without having to clear your history, log in and out, or use multiple browsers. It's an improved version of the Containers feature built into Firefox Nightly and available to advanced users by setting certain preferences (see below).
I think you can kind of do this now? The Temporary Containers plugin will create throwaway containers but you can also create permanent site-specific containers.
I don't understand why you can't quickly set this up?
To independently clear on a container-basis, why not just delete the container? Stop treating your containers like pets and start treating them like livestock.
Also nice to seperate social media/shopping/banking/... I'm not 100% sure it completely prevents social media company X from knowing which items you searched for or bought from Y, but at least it should be a lot harder.
So much this! I have multiple business entities that all use separate accounts on many different services. I use the Window Titler extension and different windows for each business entity. This is the only way I can keep them all straight and it makes switching roles so easy. I just wish Firefox allowed me to Move Tab to a specific already opened window - seems like such a simple addition.
Unfortunately one of the services doesn't function properly on Firefox and so I have a constant nightmare of sign-in / sign-out / disable automatic sign-in (that somehow get auto checked) on de-googled Chrome.
I'm curious if in the later part of their development update, they will add cryptocurrencies in the browser that might help or benefit the participating user.
"We mak the internet saufer, soonder, and faster fur guid"
What the actual arsing F, Mozilla?
edit: well, maybe, I must admit I didn't know of a canonical written form of modern Scots. It still looks an awful lot like sco.wikipedia.org, which is a grotesque parody written from the US. You'll forgive some suspicion.
> well, maybe, I must admit I didn't know of a canonical written form of modern Scots.
Modren Scots, unfortunately, disna hae ae orthography, altho it haes a wheen o credible an similar yins. We'd probably hae a mair official orthography gin Scots hidna been surpressed for hunners o year, an insteid we lairnt it proper in the scuil.
> It still looks an awful lot like sco.wikipedia.org, which is a grotesque parody written from the US. You'll forgive some suspicion.
This is a pish opinion. Firefox wis owerset intil Scots by twa talentit fowk.
Unfortunately, the Scots tongue haes ower monie gowks that leuk doun upo it. Either they cry that Scots is ‘no a real language’ or somehou that Scots spikkars are no spikkin ‘real’ Scots.
Id like to note that Android Firefox has explicitly disabled support for installing custom add-ons [1], while they try to force developers into registering on AMO.
I'm always glad when I see Firefox churning along a new version.
My overwhelming feeling is one of gratitude to the devs and people working on Firefox. It's the last bastion of Browser independence with super-high customizability.
I also tend to use Edge over Chrome now. MS has done a pretty good job of making that a nice experience, BUT they are also pushing some less palatable ones.
For instance, t used to be simple in any browser to just open a blank tab. You could set _about:blank_ as the default page. Snappy load, no crap.
Try that on Edge now. It's basically impossible from the settings.
So Firefox will always be my main driver. To me one of its killer features -apart from the great extensions- is the ability to send tabs to other instances on other devices, or fetch the tabs or history from another device (if logged under a Firefox account).
This only shows about:blank in the first windows opened (after starting Edge) but still gives me the "new tab page" with the Microsoft search bar on it for each window and tab opened subsequently (with no way I know of to set this to about:blank...)
What I don't like about Firefox is the fact that it will load all the tabs and windows you had opened before shuting down the computer and there is not a clean way to make it stop. When I finish my day, I like to shutdown the computer and go to sleep or whatever and every day when I open Firefox, all the windows will reopen and I need to close it and re-start... I just want to be able to disable this behaviour from the settings, but it looks Firefox just don't want to address this
Does "Restore previous session", literally the first setting not work? Firefox will reopen my tabs only if my computer doesn't cleanly shut down or I don't close it before shutting my computer down.
The "Restore previous session" checkbox is the first setting in the preferences for me (wording may differ a little as I'm not on the English version though).
Doesn't that work for you?
While session restore of your tabs is off by default in Forex, I believe shutting down your computer while Firefoxis running is a special case. Since the user didn’t explicitly quit Firefox, it is trying to resume where you left off.
Congratulations to my friends north of the border! It's a slippery slope for the UK government, first firefox gets it's own scots locale, next 2ndIndyRef :)
Lots of people complaining about superficial issues that would be easily solvable if only Firefox offered power users what they want (preferably with a better design than XUL). "Normal" people don't give a crap what browser they're using, most don't even know what a browser is. Mozilla is killing Firefox by neglecting the few who care about it. It's these dozens of small things that add up and make Firefox not stand out.
I keep hearing the Firefox codebase (or Gecko, or Servo) isn't very modular and makes it hard to pursue such a project, and I don't doubt it. But aren't there enough of "us" out there to make a concerted effort? Could anyone with enough knowledge of the codebase say more than just "it's hard", maybe offer an outline of what would need to be done?
The issue with this is that the more deeply customisable a fork would be the further it would stray from upstream (and by extension the more dev resources it would require to maintain).
> I keep hearing the Firefox codebase isn't very modular and makes it hard to pursue such a project, and I don't doubt it. But aren't there enough of "us" out there to make a concerted effort?
There's been plenty of people making such an effort, but yeah it does appear to be "hard". If you're interested in following previous work, some relevant links:
My only real gripe with FF nowadays is that the addressbar/search UI really really just needs to bite the bullet and mimic Chrome here where I can type a partial host name, <Tab>, and enter my query for that site's internal search.
Right now you have to type '@', then the partial host match, then the query. Minor, I know, but <Shift>+2 (two fingers going in different directions) is less ergonomic to reach for than <Tab> (pinky can reach for that alone while all other fingers remain on home row).
Yeah, Chrome's automatic registration of external search engines on first-use is also hella convenient. Firefox only reveals its weird "Add this search as a bookmark" ridiculousness. If Firefox is for the open web, making search easier so I can avoid default google addressbar searchs with "site:hostname" would seem right up that alley.
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[ 1.5 ms ] story [ 1078 ms ] threadI am sticking with Firefox simply because it is not Chrome, but this is silly. Why does the looks have to change constantly. The browser is where one ends up spending most of one's time these days and it is insane that I have to double-, triple-takes every time Firefox is upgraded.
Don't get me started on videos starting to auto-play after certain updates, "studies", etc. The past few years has been a steady downhill ride.
Update: Apparently, the theme I had settled on after the last update is no longer supported or some such. Setting it to "system" gave me back my light right-click menu. sigh
I use it for notes too, and being able to update and resubmit my last search easily. And it's probably the core reason why I can't leave Firefox. The tab sync/send is just better too.
I always miss having a separate selection clipboard when I'm on a non-X11 system. Such a useful feature yet missing almost everywhere.
Glad you got it figured out. The UX of the forced theme change should be improved, however!
Definitely problem on a author ends.
Hmmmm ... Does this mean "HTTPS Everywhere" is no longer needed?[1]
And, of course, it freaks out with the previously saved self-signed cert installed on my WiFi router. ... sigh
[1]:https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Ah yes, I don't want anyone to eavesdrop on my pr0n!
Edit: to clarify, I find it weird that this has been limited to Private Browsing, when most people don't even use it for anything but adult websites. The feature is good and should be available for regular browsing too.
It can be enabled for all windows, but it was not enabled at all when the feature was first rolled out in v83. Presumably they wanted to allow time for any bugs to be shaken out before imposing it by default in any circumstance. It seems plausible they could enable it in regular windows as well in the future.
That way they can roll it out to all Firefox users, and if something breaks, users can always fall back to non-private mode until it's fixed.
The assumption that whatever is being served on :443 is HTTPS with the same content as what is being served on :80 HTTP is wrong. It might practically be true >99% of the time, but some websites will still break for no good reason.
Probably not quite - I can't easily find an exact reference, so take with a grain of salt, but my recollection is that HTTPS Everywhere includes some slightly more sophisticated transforms (ex. for annoying sites that serve http://www.site.tld but HTTPS on https://secure.site.tld).
It's not as powerful/flexible/configurable, but certainly ticks some of the boxes.
[0] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/https-only-prefs
I didn't know this used to exist, but my few tests say I like that feature.
EDIT: Is is at least possible to add some sort of tab border? The lack of contrast between tabs was the reason I had disabled Proton.
https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix is a really good set of styles to make proton usable (borders, icons, less padding, etc).
I had to merge it with some of my own customizations. So be aware of that if you already use the Profile chrome directory
I use FF developer so I'm a bit ahead of everyone else.
You can fix it with some userChrome.css changes. I'm scared to touch it for fear of fucking my 'tabs on the bottom' css.
I've been a user since the Netscape Communicator days.
Well OK, I'll probably try some userChrome stuff before really switching. But the new tabs are really unusable on my computer.
I also strongly dislike the new tabs as they're totally disconnected from the actual pages they're a tab for with whitespace, less contrast as you mention as well which an issue if you don't have great eyesight. I guess they're willing to lose even more market share over this, which seems pretty silly considering what their trajectory has been...
I've not been bothered by a lot of UI changes as each update has allowed them to be reverted quite easily.
It seems that every update has me swearing for 15 minutes until someone on HN helpfully points to a solution, but not this time. GRR.
I can't distinguish the current tab anymore as well if lighting conditions are less than perfect or if I sit at an angle from the screen.
Or here, same issue, 19 years ago https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=173667
(I get that things change, I just thought it was funny)
You can use policies.json to stop Firefox from nagging you to update Firefox.x
When you run a Zoom or Google Meet call on Firefox it uses 40x the battery of Safari.
What do you mean nothing about performance?
I joined the same 2-person Zoom call from all 3 browsers on my MBP just now... If you have more people call in, like 10 or more on the call... that's when Firefox really melts your computer and you the energy usage skyrocket.
https://imgur.com/DmOQaSU
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2021-2...
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2021-3...
Personally I'm a big fan of Fedora.
What are catch up paints? A quick search didn’t turn anything up
I have to assume it's some kind of batching? like an requestAnimationFrame style system. Or some kind of "debounce" to enable less paints?
I'd too like to learn more!
See also this bugzilla entry: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1675614
I've had problems recently with banking/finance sites and Wix.
I'm a little curious about the motivation though - I've heard several people complain, but I don't really understand what's bothering them.
I noticed tabs look a little different now, is that jarring? Or is there something I'm missing?
...their market share stats show they were wrong.
Yes it was a little jarring at first. I've been using the new ui for a while now and likely wouldn't want to go back (I tried the ui hot fix for a bit, but ended up removing it and going with the default).
Things like lower contrast aren't just about taste or getting used to it.
I've also done a turnabout and switched over to compact / Lepton. So go figure ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I still don't get why they decided to get rid of compact.
I'm personally a happy user and like almost all the changes they've made over the last few years. I like the new UI. I haven't felt the need to post anywhere about being roughly content with it.
The market share stats looked bad long before they started messing with the UI, no?
2. The active and inactive tab colors are so close that it's difficult to tell at a glance which is which. Especially in low-contrast situations (e.g. outside) or for those with vision disabilities.
3. Massive amounts of pointless padding. Which means you can't fit as many tabs in the window, and makes the browser a challenge to use for those with small screens. It also wastes horizontal space which is precious now that all monitors are widescreen.
4. The most important reason: they tried to fix something that wasn't broken and made it worse instead. There was nothing wrong with the Firefox UI but plenty of things they could improve where it comes to performance, extensions, HTML/CSS/Javascript behavior, and the large stack of open bugs in Bugzilla that have gone years without any attention.
Instead, they paid someone (or possibly a team) hundreds of hours to fluff up the UI.
Just use another theme.
> Massive amounts of pointless padding.
Yeah, that's a bit annoying, but it goes away if you use vertical tabs through an extension like Sidebery. Tbh I stopped noticing it after a couple of months.
I did find a compact mode: https://techdows.com/2021/04/how-to-enable-compact-density-o... - which works and makes things less padded, but the "not supported" but sure sounds ominous.
There are over 500,000 mostly positive reviews on the Google play store [1].
Plenty more here [2].
[0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/brave-private-web-browser-vpn/...
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brave.brow...
[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=software+reviews+brave+brows...
Now it's not like FF is inferior in all other ways, it is actually a pretty good experience. But TST is the big one for me, can't live without it.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sidebery/
It combines a vertical tab bar with grouping and containers and more.
If I ever need a "Chrome(ium)" I use Edge which has build in vertical tabs support (dont know if google chrome has this as well but it didn't last time I used it)
Turning it on/off isn't a solution, because then you'll lose the ability to use Windows sign-on when you do want it. The login flow itself is just poorly designed.
Although my bigger pet peeve by far right now is that every time I login to Microsoft Teams, it gives me a prompt ("Allow my organization to manage my device") that would essentially allow my employer to take over control of my personal machine (default: On, also a dark-pattern "Yes" box).
Thank you Mozilla for making a browser that respects me.
Overall FF is just as usable as the decade before in my opinion. And I kind of like the new tab design. The old super rounded tabs looked great for a while but it was time for a change.
I'm not a designer, but in my experience it helps to change up user interfaces now and then. However I wish we as users had more control over that. Color themes are not enough.
Why? I mean if users are used to the interface, can use without any friction and there's no real need to, why change it just for the heck of it?
So don't force them to change? Or has Mozilla really forgotten that they got their users by making the most customizable browser in the first place?
Twenty three years of churn has brought what UX benefits exactly? Hiding the protocol, hiding details about secure connections, hiding the status bar, hiding the text on tiny buttons, hiding the menus: https://mk0ghacksnety2pjrgh8.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/upload...
and for what? Optimising for people on 1366x768 laptops and people who don't want to do very much but search and click one result?
Firefox 2 looked fine in my opinion, I would be happy if they just kept it as it was back then.
ctrl+shift+n to reopen the last window.
The funny thing is that I just tried to find the "shortcuts" list for Firefox and is is nowhere to be found in their menu or in Preferences! Do I need to find it on some webpage?!?
With most things, if you want to completely avoid eventual, inevitable UI changes, you need to just never upgrade.
UI changes in general are something to expect, but if you're just going to disregard user feedback then you can't claim to respect users.
Personally every other release they remove features I like and make arbitrary UI changes. The only reason I'm still complaining and not using something else is because I don't like the alternatives either.
I was just pointing out that the grandparent was conflating their opinion being ignored with all users' opinions being ignored
The proper solution to this would be to have different modes if this is so critical. To their credit they did put in a "compact" mode after beta, but this is explicitly "unsupported" and even then still has more padding than "large" mode in the old UI.
> and even then still has more padding than "large" mode in the old UI.
This is objectively false. Your hyperbole undermines your argument.
Know what I can't do on any of my machines? Touch the screen.
Decreased UI density doesn't just help touchscreens.
There's Vivaldi, and it too uses HTML for its interface, but the team doesn't seem to care about UI performance at all.
> There's Vivaldi, and it too uses HTML for its interface, but the team doesn't seem to care about UI performance at all.
Thanks to that, Vivaldi also actively supports CSS tweaks like Firefox. They do indeed care about UI performance and work towards fixing it... The 3.7 update really improved its UI responsiveness. Still, it feels slower than Chrome/Brave/Firefox.
Not sure what your argument is supposed to be but not everyone liked GNOME's new UI. That's why you've gotten forks such as MATE.
This sounds like a counter-argument. What the Gnome team did (during the 2->3 transition) was a huge overhaul while completely ignoring the habits and wishes of their users. I understand they had to rewrite the old code, that's perfect. I also understand they wanted to "refresh the UI" at the same time. But you can't just change everything and think your users will be happy. If you act against the wishes of your users, who do you write your software for? It simply made no sense and that's why people turned to MATE.
Plus for Firefox to grow in popularity/stay relevant you need people to care, and you need the browser to improve. Complaining is better than silence in that context.
> Plus for Firefox to grow in popularity/stay relevant you need people to care
Yes, and people care more when the browser developers care about them. Mozilla is intent on showing that only their design vision matters and customizability will go as soon as it slightly inconveniences them.
> and you need the browser to improve
But not all changes are an improvement.
Thank you FF team!
I am a Firefox user since Firefox 4 (2011). The thing is, that negativity was not there prior to 2017.
I'm guessing they are making the assumption that if they keep approximating towards a Chrome clone, that it will somehow reduce the friction of new users joining. This a colossal strategy mistake from corporate/product people.
They cannot compete with Chrome/Edge on a massively unleveled playing field. They either have some giant corporate deal to come pre installed on devices other than linux distros or they accept that it will be a niche browser that wins users over by having killer features privacy/foss ethos etc.
The decision of removing things that were previously customizable or remove features because only a few hundreds of thousands of people use, is alienating users. In the discussions I always read Mozilla staff arguing that this is a vocal minority but the reality is that irrespective of which statistics you look at they lost a huge chunk of marketshare last year.
The way they are refusing to engage with the community on this matter is creating a lot of frustration. WONTFIX is pretty much a meme in Bugzilla at this point.
Firefox needs to refocus on being Firefox instead of half-trying to compete with other browsers. We need browser diversity and we absolutely need non chromium browsers in particular. I hope they will turn this around and engage with the community and user voice.
Haters gonna hate, that’s just how it is.
The first? Newer display technology and processing power, allowed for more complex menus, decision trees, and visual effects/feedback.
The second? Computing was new, and we were still learning how to build basic, usable UIs.
Yet ever UI change distracts, causes lag for users, and the above two points are long factored in.
No one needs a fork to change. No one needs their remote control's volume button to change.
Worse, no one need it to change from one day to the next, on a weekly or even yearly basis.
Many users would be beyond overjoyed, if their browser UI didn't change for the rest of their life.
The back button doesn't need to move, become something else, leap from the top to bottom of the window, look wildly different as a default, behave differently.
Worse, almost every UI change I've seen in Firefox in the last decade, has been tiny little tweaks without any real value for the end user, yet alienated people.
And worse, forced on people. Way to keep market share.
Firefox could be #1 again, simply by firing every UI person, hiring developers with that cash, and just optimise, merge in new web standards (without creating or taking part in them), and fix bugs.
But I feel I must be critical, and loudly, else firefox may disappear.
It is criticism born from love.
I think that is the wrong end of the stick. People complain about Firefox not because they hate it. They complain because they care. It is the same thing with Apple or in fact any other brands. They want it to be better, they want to come back or keep using Firefox. And they want more people to use it ( for one reason or another ).
So the saying good there is no such thing as bad publicity. Firefox still getting the upvote to front page or being complained is a good sign many user or potential user still give a damn.
I still love Firefox, I just dislike Mozilla's management.
I use and love FF, but FF's market share is very low and shrinking. If they can't do anything to turn that trend around, web developers will ignore it, and it will become useless for many sites.
FF users have to wish/hope that FF rights this ship, and that means they can't afford to lose any more users (and really, that they must somehow reverse course and acquire new users). So every update feels really important - the shrinking user base is an existential threat to the browser.
This is true for many UI changes, but I'm not convinced it applies here. This blog post points out many specific deficiencies in Proton: https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/firefox-89.html
The real negativity can be seen in the market that largely rejected this garbage browser.
uBlock works best in Firefox, and that is enough reason to keep using Firefox.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...
It's really handy when having a private Microsoft account as well as an enterprise account. If I don't use this, my MS sessions get all mixed up.
[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers
Give me a 'garbage' container for general browsing that is flushed by default, but bespoke Netflix/Github/etc containers that retain cookies forever.
To independently clear on a container-basis, why not just delete the container? Stop treating your containers like pets and start treating them like livestock.
Unfortunately one of the services doesn't function properly on Firefox and so I have a constant nightmare of sign-in / sign-out / disable automatic sign-in (that somehow get auto checked) on de-googled Chrome.
This way I name windows after a project and as needed I'll move a tab there if I happen to open it in the wrong window.
As a tab hoarder this has really enhanced my organization and ability to find things again.
That could be quite cool. So, Scots Gaelic, yes? Preserving a rich cultural history?
From https://www.mozilla.org/sco/
"We mak the internet saufer, soonder, and faster fur guid"
What the actual arsing F, Mozilla?
edit: well, maybe, I must admit I didn't know of a canonical written form of modern Scots. It still looks an awful lot like sco.wikipedia.org, which is a grotesque parody written from the US. You'll forgive some suspicion.
Scottish Gaelic would be "gla".
Nope: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_language
Modren Scots, unfortunately, disna hae ae orthography, altho it haes a wheen o credible an similar yins. We'd probably hae a mair official orthography gin Scots hidna been surpressed for hunners o year, an insteid we lairnt it proper in the scuil.
> It still looks an awful lot like sco.wikipedia.org, which is a grotesque parody written from the US. You'll forgive some suspicion.
This is a pish opinion. Firefox wis owerset intil Scots by twa talentit fowk.
Unfortunately, the Scots tongue haes ower monie gowks that leuk doun upo it. Either they cry that Scots is ‘no a real language’ or somehou that Scots spikkars are no spikkin ‘real’ Scots.
1. https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/20647
My overwhelming feeling is one of gratitude to the devs and people working on Firefox. It's the last bastion of Browser independence with super-high customizability.
I also tend to use Edge over Chrome now. MS has done a pretty good job of making that a nice experience, BUT they are also pushing some less palatable ones. For instance, t used to be simple in any browser to just open a blank tab. You could set _about:blank_ as the default page. Snappy load, no crap.
Try that on Edge now. It's basically impossible from the settings.
So Firefox will always be my main driver. To me one of its killer features -apart from the great extensions- is the ability to send tabs to other instances on other devices, or fetch the tabs or history from another device (if logged under a Firefox account).
Not that hard: https://imgur.com/a/yVBOnjY
clean new tab page: https://imgur.com/a/YdLyWrt
This is where you customize new tab
https://imgur.com/a/Jzpq7Rs
This gives empty page https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/empty-new-tab-page...
Via https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftedge/forum/all/...
Also, for some reason, I setup a new machine today, with latest Win10 updates and the only section I have on that setting page is _New tab page_
The other two, _When Microsoft Edge starts_ and _Home button_ are not even there...
On the customize page you show, I don't even have a setting to turn off the bing search, quicklinks, etc.
1200 bugs!
Congratulations to my friends north of the border! It's a slippery slope for the UK government, first firefox gets it's own scots locale, next 2ndIndyRef :)
> first firefox gets it's own scots locale, next 2ndIndyRef :)
Altho ye're jokin—an A'm a supporter o Scots independence—it wad be guid gin spikkin Scots wis no langer seen as political.
Monie minority languages in the UK hae muckle stigma anent thaim. A juist wiss they war aa seen as /normal/, insteid o controversial (like politics).
Tae be clear, A'm no blamin you.
Lots of people complaining about superficial issues that would be easily solvable if only Firefox offered power users what they want (preferably with a better design than XUL). "Normal" people don't give a crap what browser they're using, most don't even know what a browser is. Mozilla is killing Firefox by neglecting the few who care about it. It's these dozens of small things that add up and make Firefox not stand out.
I keep hearing the Firefox codebase (or Gecko, or Servo) isn't very modular and makes it hard to pursue such a project, and I don't doubt it. But aren't there enough of "us" out there to make a concerted effort? Could anyone with enough knowledge of the codebase say more than just "it's hard", maybe offer an outline of what would need to be done?
> I keep hearing the Firefox codebase isn't very modular and makes it hard to pursue such a project, and I don't doubt it. But aren't there enough of "us" out there to make a concerted effort?
There's been plenty of people making such an effort, but yeah it does appear to be "hard". If you're interested in following previous work, some relevant links:
- Overview of Myk Melez's efforts in this space https://mykzilla.org/2017/03/08/positron-discontinued/
- https://mozilla.github.io/geckoview/ (official but Android-only)
- https://github.com/mozilla/qbrt
It may also be worthwhile reading about CEF which has become something of a defacto standard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_Embedded_Framework
Right now you have to type '@', then the partial host match, then the query. Minor, I know, but <Shift>+2 (two fingers going in different directions) is less ergonomic to reach for than <Tab> (pinky can reach for that alone while all other fingers remain on home row).