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The Next Firefox UI
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla has been constructing a new user interface for Firefox, and the layout seems to be revealed in new mockups that show the integrated Home Tab app and the streamlining of tabs and browsing buttons."
when it's not broken, do not fix it.
Why?
is Chrome.
As long as I can still get my tabs and shit below the even-more-goddamn-awesomebar, and put a status bar addon in, I'm not going to complain. Default layouts are fine-- it's when you suddenly can't modify them any more that I start to get tetchy.
Browsers have now reached the maturity of 1950s American cars. They more or less work, still break too much, use too much fuel, and have lots of chrome and tailfins.
Mozilla, Looks like Google beat you to it
Please stop trying to make your browser fit on a 2" screen. I have 20"+ monitors. I can spare the pixels.
Further, burying the menu bar makes it very hard for me to support people who get confused when I say "Go to Edit and Preferences".
Innovation is not simply following Chrome's lead. Kthnx.
Another new UI that makes getting to the thing I use regularly (like, you know, bookmarks) slower and more annoying.
WTF is up with FOSS developers these days?
Who exactly is looking for all these crazy changes to the way browsers work? I am starting to think that browser design has become "art for the sake of art". What happened to function over form?
So long as plugins are not broken have fun, I will stick with vimperator.
you just stick to the damn tried and true Netscape UI and stop "revolutionizing" anything we're familiar with by instinct.
Whatever happen to UI consistency? "Back in the day" UIs used to use the same toolkits, have their menus and toolbars all in the same spot and work consistently across applications. Today all those UI elements are kind of splattered around the application and there is really no consistency where you can find something anymore. There are also things in modern UIs that I really don't get, Firefox4 for example will present you different menus depending on if you click it with a mouse or if you activate it with the keyboard. What's the point in that? Didn't we figure out that changing menus where a really bad idea back when Windows tried it many years ago? Once up-on a time the menu was full of all the stuff the application could do, now its like playing hide and seek with the functions an application might have and hiding them from the user is really not helping.
simpler isnt better guys, really.
DON'T fix it. Good God. You do not need to change things just to change them. How the hell am I going to explain how to use that to my mother. She gets mad enough because her browser history is hidden under "Favorites" in IE. And don't say "Just hit Ctrl+B" because that is just one more thing to remember. What is the point of having a mouse if there is noting to click?
An any rate, I think Mozilla should make multiple official themes. Each to reflect what an old version looked like. Oh and keep a working version of the status bar in the code. Status-4-eva and the addon bar (or whatever it is called now) is a hack and does not fully replicate the functionality. Additionally, THERE IS NO DAMN WAY TO GET RID OF THE CLOSING X ON THE BAR. I DON'T WANT TO CLOSE IT THAT IS WHY I ENABLED IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
My first reaction on seeing the headline was "oh, this ought to be awful." But, you know, that's just a gut reaction. I should really give them the benefit of the doubt.
(click)
OK, first thing I notice is that there's now no forward button. It shows up again later, so I guess the idea is that it vanishes if you don't need it? ...uh, OK, but I kind of like having a UI that doesn't randomly change size based on what tab I'm looking at.
These are Mac OS X screenshots, so the menu shouldn't be in the window anyway, but it appears they've moved everything to a small cog. No, wait, later there's a Windows 7 version, and the menu is still the orange Firefox thing, so I guess the cog is Mac OS X only?
They're finally merging the search and URL bars, which I'm sure some Slashdotters will scream bloody murder over, but which I can't help but think it's about time. (Really, not too hard to tell a URL from a search term, and given that the "awesome" bar is already a search feature, they might as well give me more space so that I can see the entire URL.)
Over all it doesn't look too horrible compared to their current interface. May even be an improvement.
Now the only question left is how many extensions will be required to restore the toolbar so I can keep my NoScript and Firebug icons fucking available since I frequently need to use them. You took away my status bar, please don't take away my toolbar too.
Also, I wonder what new bugs they'll introduce to Firefox under Windows Aero. Gotta love Aero Glass freaking out whenever you mouse over a link. (How did you even do that?!)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
do not click.
> [goat.cx]
Observation: Thud547 seems to have no problem finding his water dish and it works very well for keeping him hydrated:
Firefox developer: I'll bet he'd like it if we put his water dish at a remote location along the Amazon river! I'll bet nobody has ever thought of this, much less tried it! This is going to be so f'ing awesome!!!!!11
How Google Chrome of them.
Respect the Constitution
or is it April 1st?...
Why can't women be like Hedy Lamarr - beautiful, talented and inventors of frequency-hopping spread-spectrum techn
I'm probably alone, but I rather like the new UI. Reminds me of Chrome. I switched to Chrome recently because FF5 on OS X was just crashing too much and had gotten too slow, might switch back if this works similarly faster and is stable again.
If UI designers listened to the tech community we'd still be using something that looked like an early Netscape. There was plenty of room for improvement there, and a lot of things just don't make sense anymore and never really did anyway. Permanent status bars are a good thing to be rid of, for instance.
Like Ford said, if I'd asked people what they wanted they would have told me a faster horse.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
At the point where we're all installing the stupidly named "status4evar" and replacing the default UI with something usable we may as well just fork the browser. Perhaps then someone in the ivory towers over at mozilla will stop doing UI experiments on trunk and stop trying to improve the user experience for people that are quite capable of installing Chrome if they want a crappy reduced UI.
I understand you are designing for the lowest common denominator. It makes sense, and I can see where you are going with this design direction.
However, please be sure to allow configurability at the very least, and even better resist the urge to remove UI elements and hide them behind menus.
I dont want more buttons hidden behind more menus that require more clicks. On my desktop I have a large amount of room and like all my important options in front of me. That's why it's a great computing device for work. On my mobile phone, a sparse UI is much appreciated. But I dont really need it, nor want it, on a desktop. It doesnt make any sense in keeping with the idea of easy "discoverability" in user experience design. It also could easily confuse users even more than you think.
Most users can learn to recognize that a little "house" icon is the home screen. However, many users will not understand that setting the home page is under [alt] > Tools > options > General tab. Non-tech savvy people dont understand all of this multi layered categorization. They may not think the same way the developers and designers do, and may not put the option under the same category if they were doing the organization. They also may understand what they need, but not what the categories mean. Simple UI controls work better for most people. As an example: almost everyone understand lists and scrolling, even if they are very long lists.
It would also be nice if the bugs regarding new versions of FF corrupting profiles be looked into. And I don't know of any users that really feel the new "rapid release" stuff is worth a dime. The people who know what it means think it's silly, and the people who don't wouldn't care anyways.
Don't get me wrong, you guys have done fantastic work over the years. And the world owes you *much* gratitude. But I feel the need to speak up at some of the recent changes in direction Mozilla has been making with FF and TB. A need I have never felt before regarding either product. As a fan I wish you all the best though and hope to keep using FF and TB as I have never been that interested in Chrome or Gmail.
PocketPermissions Android Permission Guide
If its still as modifiable as the previous versions of FF, I won't complain.
I like the extra space for my tiny screen, but I can afford the additional pixels on my large one. Looks familiar though...
I have 600 pixels vertical resolution. I need all the screen real-estate I can get!
Am slightly concerned about the menu bar though. Don't use it a lot but I d occasionally. Where is it?
Looks exactly like Safari.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
it seems like the fashionable thing lately has to be removing UI features .. as long as there is some GUI way of keeping the Firefox 5 accessability,
i'll be ok with it. jeez. if i wanted a dumbed down interfaced already i'd be using Gnome...
Now I won't be able to distinguish between Chrome and FF without squinting.
As I'm scrolling through the comments here, I'm seeing the same things repeated over and over again.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it: And ten years from now, the browser will be exactly the same as it is now. That's what you want, isn't it? Stagnation does not lead to a healthy project. Innovation does.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
Okay, so it looks like Chrome, but it definitely a step in the right direction. I liked that they compacted all the browser application menu bars and left more room for actual content. I'm always trying to get more page visible on my netbook and this will fit the bill nicely.
Just...just fuck you Mozilla. This is the last straw for me.
As much as I've made fun of Opera users throughout the years, looks like I'm joining them now...
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
So a quick tally of the first 38 posts:
4 unrelated to anything
2 like/don't hate
1 poster making fun of the reactionary tone of the comments (who never actually claimed to like what Mozilla's doing)
3 don't care so long as it can be modified
22 hate/WTF Mozilla?
8 who chimed in just to point out that Chrome already did this (but did not express strong opinions on like vs. dislike)
So an approval potentially as high as ~3%, disapproval between 58-79% (swing due to "Chrome" posts).
I'm not a marketing guy, but that doesn't sound like a "win".
How about trying to make the browser faster and more concurrent instead of spending time on unnecessary GUI changes? ... in another window than the one that I am reading in.
I often experience a huge slowdown in Firefox when I have five or so Firefox windows -- of which all but one are minimized.
I often experience that the entire browser locks up to wait for a request
I also get the feeling that the so called "awesome" bar becomes slower and slower with time.
How about fixing these issues instead?
I am seriously thinking about switching browser because of how slow Firefox has become.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
I keep clicking the "Click on a planet to start" button but nothing happens
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Well we were born within one decade of each other.
Our fathers said we could be sister and brother.
Your name is Firefox, Firefox.
It never suited ya.
Oh they thought that when we grew up,
we'd get merged, and never split up.
We never did it, although you often thought of it.
Oh Firefox, do you recall?
Your footprint was very small,
and popularity used to roll,
When I came around to call,
you didn't notice me at all.
I said let's all meet up in my own GUI.
Won't it be strange when you're all finally grown.
I will wait for you folks, three versions above.
How many times you'll get redesigned?
maybe its sometimes simpler not to try,
You know what, go and merge with IE,
Make Opera cry!
839*929
it looks like a mashup of Opera's Speed Dial and the embedding/customization of Apple's circa-1996 Cyberdog.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Having looked at the FF source, the hoops one has to jump through to actually get this thing to build (even more so on Windows, but thats a non issue if you cross compile), will serve to scare most developers away (not to mention the restrictive guidelines as to how one ought to write code for the project) I can see why almost all the "major" changes focus on reskinning the UI for the x100th time.
Please read the comment appearing at the top of the web page, and then un-wad your knickers, folks.
We appreciate your interest in our design experiments!
The UI mock-ups shown on these pages were part of a meeting, and were for discussion purposes, and to explore different design directions. Some of them are already out of date.
Mozilla works in the open, and the way to get the latest in UI improvements to Firefox is to download the UX channel build for your OS, which will auto-update every night with various design experiments we're looking at.
WALSTIB!
The word "planetarium" is seen. And.....?
Please state the nature of your mental emergency, as I have no idea what you are complaining about.
For some reason my "disable advertising" button has got turned off, but that means I get to see the huge banner ad and the even huger ad on the right hand side, which both say in huge letters:
Download Google Chrome Now
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
1) What happened to the forward button? I understand it's not used much, but it doesn't take up that much space, does it? As long as you can do the same functionality by holding down the back button like usual, then I should be fine. Not sure how discoverable that feature is, though...
2) I like the new tab style a lot, even if they don't really look like "tabs" as much as before, it's still an improvement to me. It really makes it look like the tab owns the browser chrome, good for usability purposes. This is probably the best tabs-on-top design I've seen in a while.
3) Home tab! Finally!
4) I like the new menu as well. It would work better on non-standardized platforms like GNU/Linux, and it looks pretty customizable. A much better solution than the current Firefox menu and Add-on bar usability wise; I happen to like "mega menus" if they're done correctly, and the old menu from FF 4/5 was hard to navigate when helping people with the browser. This, not nearly as challenging.
5) The full-screen UI looks pretty nice as well; space-saving while having all the features you really need.
I'm really looking forward to this new UI change. Sure, it's inconsistent with other applications, but if it makes the program more simple to use for a majority of users (while still maintaining the ability to customize), I think it's for the better. Can anybody think of some more pros/cons about this that aren't "it's too different", "bring back the status bar", or "I hate tabs on top"?
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
"... a few different reasons why we are exploring the concept of a Home Tab, including: Creating an interface that is unique to Firefox"
But why? If I were a group of program developers that is still trying to steal users away from another program, I would make switching as easy as possible. Learning curves brought on by unique interfaces work against that.
Oh well... just make sure there's the option for a more traditional UI and I'll just switch to that when I upgrade- Why yes, my Windows 7 installation looks just like Windows 2000.
Back in my day, all windows had a line on the top left and two arrows on the right, and all the windows were uniform and looked exactly the same! And it should never ever change from that! Get off my lawn!
I8-D
Seriously, why move the star/bookmark icon out of the address bar where it's been all this time?
Stop making Firefox to be Chrome. Firefox is not Chrome. It shouldn't be.
The FF UI crew may be shooting for "the next big thing", but it looks like "the next big thing to justify my professional existence".
If something is truly revolutionary, I will take the time to learn it and change my workflow to accommodate it.
But...they're -not- replacing my browsing paradigm with a better one that revolutionizes my online existence, they're just putting shit in a different place.
If Comodo Dragon had script blocking, I'd be there in a heartbeat.
The browser for Slashdot readers. Reads Slashdot, blocks ads and scripts, and works on your 486 netbook.
has gradually changed from a company that says "we'll make this useful product because no one else will make it the way you need it", into a company that says "we're making it the way we want and you'll have to like it".
How many other companies have gone down this road? They start as the cool new company who makes things for the user, and slowly grow into a company that tries to dictate what the user needs.
I remember when Microsoft used to be cool.
I've been using OSX Firefox for a long time, and brother, right now, it is *seriously* broken. Were it my product, it'd be time to stop with the new features and FIX it before going on. It behaves pathologically when trying to answer posts on slashdot; it crashes after viewing flicker lightbox streams for more than a hundred or so images; it doesn't take the first click on a tab close button; and I have seen the "well, this is embarrassing" crash announcement more times than I could be bothered to count since ff5 came out.
Just make it work well, ok guys? I'd be happy if I never saw another feature, but it didn't crash, leak memory, mis-position, or mis-render a page.
[goes back to using Opera while waiting]
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Can we please get the memory issues fixed before you guys keep thinking of other stuff to change? The interface isn't THAT bad as compared to two tabs eating 4GB of RAM.
Observation: Thud547 seems to have no problem finding his water dish and it works very well for keeping him hydrated:
Firefox developer: I'll bet he'd like it if we put his water dish at a remote location along the Amazon river! After all, that is where Chrome would put it! This is going to be so f'ing awesome!!!!!11
There fixed that for you.
We'll never get to the moon at this rate!
It is kind of sobering to see how the concentrated company backed effort of Chrome overtook the 10 years old Firefox in just a few months, with FF running behind ever since. Be it optimizing for speed, new web technologies, UI design or even version numbering, the Mozilla folks look at the tail lights and try to keep up.
BTW: I'm still using FF because of the add-ons and free GUI configurability.
In that mockup, it depicts this stupid word for which I cannot pronounce the "t". WTF, Firefox?
I think that the Mozilla team just want you to keep saying "Chrome, Chrome, Chrome".
It looks to me that Mozilla's mission is to promote Google. When Google didn't have a browser, Firefox integrated Google search right into the browser. Now that Google has a browser, Mozilla seems hell bent on getting all of it's users to switch to that browser.
I'm so glad there is Opera.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
The radius of the rounding on the tabs is hideous and looks nothing like any native control on any platform, I also hate this new fashion of placing the close, minimize and zoom buttons at some random pixel offset.
This design would work just as well with native looking widgets and button placement and wouldn't invoke the "uncanny valley" effect of being almost correctly placed. Why not just put the buttons in the middle of the web page and make the tabs floating round circles that you navigate between by waving your arms if you're going to ignore platform conventions so flagrantly.
Firefox isn't my platform, I have an OS platform that has already established conventions on how things should look and where they should be placed. Until recently Firefox seemed to finallly be moving in the direction of being a good citizen on it's supported platforms, now this...
The one great strength Firefox has is its plugin system. Can the browser people please stop fucking with the interface and concentrate on the damn HTML renderer ? If I were to get hit in the head with the douche stick and suddenly wanted my Firefox to look like Chrome, I'd install a Chrome skin. If they're so obsessed with minimalist interfaces, fire the interface guy and let him release the dumb thing as a 3rd party plugin.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Remember, the sooner you do it the quicker they can ignore you!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
On upgrade you could choose between:
So I really honestly do like the looks of it. But I've been on chrome so long. Also, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. My browser isn't broken so I don't need to fix it or replace it.
Also, it looks like they're designing this for touch based interfaces. I don't think the icons wouldn't be laid out like that in settings if they were for mouse based input.
I'm so glad there is Opera.
I'm not, but who gives a fuck -- you're smarter according to previous info anyway.
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
The Firefox UI is fine, surely one of them could spend the time they would be spending on this to fix up the vomit they called a UI in Thunderbird 5?
(not that it matters as I now use gmail instead of Thunderbird since that)
OMG! So much radical change all at once! I don't think I can handle it!
give me a button to save and restore any tab or tabgroups I want, that's all I'm asking. The current "workaround" sucks.
The last few releases of Firefox have had the UI driven by graphics designers, rather than programmers, and these have been by far the shittiest Firefox UIs ever. Each one strips away more and more useful features, and hence becomes much more difficult to use.
Can we please have the programmers come up with the UI design? At least with the earlier Firefox releases, they put together something that was usable, even if it wasn't as "pretty" as what the designers might come up with.
Frankly, I don't use Chrome because it has a shitty, stripped-down UI that intentionally hides all of the useful functionality. That's why I used to use Firefox. But if Firefox is going to imitate Chrome, why the fuck would I use Firefox? Even Konqueror is more usable than recent Firefox releases, so I'll stick with it until Firefox's UI isn't a compile cesspool.
Why is cut, copy and paste represented with a gear icon? We're going to sidestep basic OS capabilities? Those functions are settings now? I'm very confused.
It seems these days that the high are of user interface design consists of removing essential functionality to make the interface look "cleaner". In the mockup there is just a single giant back button all by its lonesome. So where's my forward button? (which I use constantly, maybe that's just me.) Where's my "reload"? (which I use constantly, maybe that's just me.) It was bad enough when Firefox 5 obscured the reload by tucking it away as part of the URL bar, now the intention seems to be to hide it completely. One word for that: dontwant.
Here is what I dowant: "back forward reload home". Like before. It wasn't broken.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
I think I'll be going back to Seamonkey .xpi will allow most Firefox Add-ons to install problem free in Seamonkey (although this is probably becoming less true with each new version).
I originally switched to Firefox (from Seamonkey) a couple of years ago for for the Add-ons.
I've since learned that a simple modification to the
Seamonkey still feels like good old Netscape Communicator 4.x, with more under the hood obviously.
^^vv<><>BA
What is sad is it is a classic case of cargo cult usability where they try to ape the looks but not what makes the Chromium based browsers great, and that is Webkit.
For example I have to support users on a wide range of hardware, from circa 2004 office P4s to first gen netbooks and nettops to the latest multicores and since 3.6.x Firefox has frankly been unsuitable for purpose on anything less than a 3GHz P4 with HT and 2Gb of RAM and even then you better close that sucker out daily to keep FF from slamming the swap. Compare this to what I've switched my customers to Comodo Dragon (Chromium based with some nice extra security features) and even on the 1.8Ghz Sempron I use as a nettop the Dragon is fast, it NEVER loses responsiveness, doesn't slam the CPU and I can leave it on for days because unlike FF when I'm not doing anything with it the memory footprint stops growing which isn't the case with FF. And this is of course while having low rights mode on Win Vista and 7 which FF still hasn't implemented.
I personally think it is Gecko. I just don't think the engine is able to take all the extras being bolted onto it like separate plugin containers. The guys at Moz can ape Chrome all they want to, it isn't gonna turn Gecko into Webkit.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
All this time, that MASSIVE STINKING MEMORY LEAK was hiding away in the UI?
I used Firefox for years, ever since it was the faster, leaner alternative to the Mozilla Suite. Back when we called it Firebird. The heft of the latest versions finally pushed me away to Chrome. It was heart-wrenching, but I guess I've finally lowered my last defence against Google.
Yes, because that's what I truly need, even less horizontal space for tabs. And of course, everyone these days seems to believe that it's better to click a button to scroll tabs, rather than just open up another row so that I can see them all.
I don't care about reclaiming screen real estate, that's what the F11 key is for. I want a UI that makes managing the 40+ tabs I have open (in each window) a little easier.
The old UI was fine.
They should fire all the designers, and concentrate on bug fixes and functional improvements.
There is nothing to be gained by changing the UI. It seems to be done just for fashion.
Some people, like my wife, really find it difficult to relearn new UIs constantly.
...will replace the entire nav-bar with a single "I'm feeling lucky" button.
FPS level designers or something? Finding common functions requires the equivalent of an epic campaign with every release. I can't blame my parents for being completely lost these days. I have a hard time helping them out myself and wonder what the hell happened to common sense and usability.
As long as I can install a skin to restore the search bar and whatever else disappears I could care less what the default UI is like.
Following the rest of the lemmings off the cliff with an integrated search/url bar is a receipt for information leakage and annoyance.
Nothing wrong with the UI as it is now. Is there really a need to change it?
How about doing something a hell of a lot more useful, say... making backwards compatibility capability for old plugins, extensions/add-ons, and themes?! (There are many that were broken since 3.5 or so that I'd like to be able to use again. Seems like a lot of the authors gave up after versioning and updating came too fast and became a PITA to keep up with.)
Now that would be something I would actually want as a Firefox user!
I seriously started using IE9 and even tried out Chrome (which I don't really like) because of lack of Google Toolbar. I like to have it set to open my searches in a new tab. It seems with the move to the "one line" browsers for tables, we're going to lose a lot of functionality. It seems that a one-size-fits-all approach is not the right way to go. Why should the same piece of software have to look at the same on a 4, 9, and 24-inch screens? When it's controlled by a mouse or a finger?
Chance favors the prepared mind.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
So, does this mean there will be no more Linux version of Firefox?
No, we are right to be concerned. These days, whenever a large company, open source or not put up something publically or semi-publically on their website, it means that they are going to implement it. It is a cheap way of product testing or to prepare users for the coming apocalypse, I mean, change. I am now starting to look around for other browsers to use. Mozilla has become what it was fighting when it started. I also blame female users for this (no, I'm serious). Look at the UI design of consumer products now days and you realise the over-simplified, over-cutesy, over-dumbed down design is catering for women and girly men who favours looks over function.
What's with the Christmas tree next to the home button? Are they expecting to release coming December?
In all the years I have been using FF I have never considered disabling the FF auto check for updates; until now.
Firefox is done. Finished. The only thing Mozilla should be doing with it is making it faster. Fucking with the interface just confuses and enrages all the regular users. Ramping up version numbers annoys plugin makers and users who have to deal with everything breaking, as well as everyone else who sees it as a vain attempt to just keep up with the Joneses.
What I would like to see Mozilla doing is spending all this time working on Thunderbird and Lightning. The browser wars are over - Microsoft lost, we've moved on.
But the groupware wars are still in the skirmish stages - there's still nothing as good as Outlook/Exchange for enterprise comms. They need to NAIL the functionality in Tbird and more importantly Lightning so the calendaring stuff is rock solid. Get it talking reliably to third party groupware packages like Zimbra - we've been using Zimbra for a couple years, and it's good if you're like us (a bunch of nerds prepared to put up with problems and work around them), but it simply doesn't compare with Outlook.
If the fix the session cookie security flaw, then I might start using it again.
Try it. Go to paypal and login. Then close FF. Start FF again and chose "Restore previous session". Your session cookie is restored and you are back in Paypal again. No other browser keeps session cookies after a shutdown. Shame on you FF.
Well, there's IceWeasel as well. Wonder whether they're revving their versions like FireFox is? Or breaking Add-ons, or totally overhauling UIs?
Too bad Flock went under. Had it remained, all the Firefox 3.6 fans could have gone there.
One question here - do the other browsers, like Konqueror, Epiphany, Midori, Opera support YouTube? That's the main thing I need for any browser to be useful.
If you're on OS-X, why not use Camino? Or do you just hate the Safari UI?
The Firefox developers are well off the rails. I suspect their offices have been contaminated with toxic levels or marijuana. It's time to fork the browser and take it out of their hands. Ever since Firefox 2 all they've done is rework things that were not broken.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
... with tabs that take up more room due to being curved
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
And turning conservative? Why all the hate for change? "I hate it because it doesn't look the same way as before" ?!? Same way like the latest Tips & Tricks on your flavor of OS.... latest example OSX Lion. I saw a couple of articles already that list nothing but how to turn off the newest features and make it look and behave like the old version. Then why even bother upgrading? Are you trying to become the next breed of those 50% of die-hard-2011 win-XP users because Vista was horrible once and Win7 is just a polished turd in your opionion? Let loose of the past already, it'll never come back. And it's good that way.
Initially, they seemed stuck on the Netscape 4 suite. It's been a while since I had downloaded and used it, but the customization was minimal. Now, however, they've enabled some of the Firefox extensions and getpersona themes for it, while still keeping it simple. I do wonder about their extension support, as well as IPv6 support.
They seem to be getting it right - sticking to the basics that Firefox fans love, while offering some of the more recent developments for those who need it. Only thing - they're nowhere near as famous as Firefox, but every bit as functional.
Personally, I like playing around w/ different browsers and features, and use different ones for different websites - I'm a real oddball here. I've used IE (up to 8), Netscape Navigator, Communicator, Chrome, Firefox (last used 4), Flock, Safari for Windows, Iceweasel, Seamonkey (earlier version), Opera, Konqueror and even a bit of Epiphany. Was disappointed a few of them - one thing I need in browsers is the ability to stage RSS pages on the toolbar, and Opera, Safari, Konqueror and Epiphany all fail here. Another thing I need is Youtube support, which is there in all the Windows browsers, but under Linux, I managed to get it work for Firefox & Flock, but not for the others (dunno about Seamonkey). Since I used an older version of the other browsers, hope that they're supported by now.
If a browser gives me this, as well as support for things like forum code, I'm happy.
So will THIS version allow me to migrate from 3.6 without loosing any functionality add-ons etc?
If not; fuck off!
See you again next week...
to mimic an existing browser UI (its identical to chrome in nearly every way) how about you spend time removing all the bloated crap you have added over the last 2 years and offer those features as plugins.
This way firefox users don't have to deal with a 15 second startup wait time and the 1% of users who use any of the additional crap you have added have the option of enabling it while the 99% of us can have a browser that takes 10x longer to load then other popular browsers.
I really agree w/ this. I normally use the separate search bar that's there, or if I'm using Google toolbar, I search from there. The latter is particularly useful if I'm doing a site search (I don't always remember the exact syntax - site: http://slashdot.org) so I prefer using a separate search bar - be it the native search bar of the browser, or the search bar of the Google toolbar. If Firefox is going to get rid of the former, I'm simply going to add the Google toolbar, which I wasn't using since I could search separately from the search bar. In which case, I better have the capability to disable searches from the address bar.
The other reason I prefer a search bar w/ an accompanying pull down - I don't always want to get to a google page for a list. Sometimes, I want to check up, say, a Wiki article on Russia. Sometimes, I'd want to enter a word to find a synonym in thesaurus.reference.com - something to jog my memory, since a word I'm looking for can be found mainly that way. Sometimes, I might enter Saratoga and do a search on Google Maps. Who said that I want my search results to be a list of some several pages, in order of decreasing probability of relevance?
Does Firefox really think that if they copy Chrome, people will prefer them over Chrome? Why not use those resources in fixing the Add-ons, and ensuring that security patches work for all versions starting from 2.0? And maybe get some revenue by charging Firefox clone makers for such support?
First off, I've been using Firefox since it was Phoenix 0.3, and it's been my mainstream browser ever since. Back then, it was forked from Netscape because of the original's bloat, feature creep, and endless wanking around with the UI and assorted pointless bells and whistles.
Now look at what's been happening with Firefox in the last five year: Bloat, feature creep, and endless wanking around with the UI and assorted pointless bells and whistles. The recent pick-a-random-version-number and now this make-a-random-fashion-statement UI are just the icing on the cake. We really need someone to fork this thing while it can still be saved, and do to Firefox what Firefox did to Netscape.
As I said above, I've been using it since 0.3, but at the moment the only thing preventing me from jumping ship is that I'd lose a pile of useful extensions. In other words what's keeping me with Firefox isn't the browser any more, but the third-party add-ons.
They already have Seamonkey - why not ensure that it's mail system has everything outlook has, including calendar/appointments, tasks, notes and so on? See what improvements (real, work related improvements I'm referring to here) can be added, including, say, a Franklin Covey like PlanPlus, ProjectPlus, TaskPlus functionality in the package, as well as a rolodex for a Contact Management setup. Essentially, everything that would excite most managers as it being something they could use.
Do that, and as an added bonus, tell them that the browser is Firefox 4 or 3.6 compatible, and unlike Firefox itself, is aimed @ the enterprise. That way, all the organizations that have qualified Firefox 4 and don't want to keep moving to Firefox 5 and above can settle w/ Seamonkey. In short, let Seamonkey move @ a normal pace and include past version support - something that enterprises can use, so that Mozilla addresses them w/ this, and Firefox w/ something else. (I think it might need a better name then Seamonkey in order to attract business users, though. How about something like Rolodex Suite?)
Dear Mozilla,
Disregard that comment. I like what you're doing. I have a 26" monitor at home and lots of pixels on it.
By hiding the menu bar you're giving me even more screen space for what really is important, content, often with multiple browser windows open at once. My users have no problem when I say "Click that orange Firefox button then click on Options".
Chrome got this right. Kthnxby.
Also to the AC above if you like your god awful menu bar turn it back on. The option is there for you. Personally I use the menu bar like once every 2 weeks so I'd sooner have it not on my screen.
I think it means something other than what they think it means. Innovation is not just trying to find ways to compressing the menus and icons into as small a space as possible. That's called moving shit around to save space.
Changing the Addons section from a dialog into a tab was a great idea, but the idea was Chrome's, not Mozilla's. Not that I'd call that innovation really.
Anyway, what's so great about having *less* space for tabs? Suddenly the tabs are sharing space with - everything else. As long as that can be changed, fine, but seems idiotic to put that much effort into saving 30 pixels. 30 pixels! I know everyone loves the 80's but some things (just a few) have improved since then. One of them is monitor size.
Put that effort into memory conservation guys!!!
Yeah, but how often do you fix things? 4 months ago, they did a UI, sorry, UX overhaul. After that, any changes they need to make to this interface should be minor. If it's major, it's a tacit admission that they screwed up badly in 4.0.
There are times when things have to be overhauled, whether it was the move to XP, or now the move to IPv6, or the move from 32-bit to 64-bit. But there are times when the overhaul isn't necessary, and when it isn't, it should be offered as an optional feature, rather than a default. Having such radical changes happening in rapidfire succession is not going to let users focus on their UX, as opposed to their browsers.
Oh, and one more thing - stop trying to make a browser an OS. If they like OSs that much, write one from scratch. This applies to both Google & Mozilla.
3.6.x + noscript + adblock pretty much wins. Even after security upgrades, it's unlikely to be popular enough among the masses to warrant exploits that would penetrate that + standard firewall and antivirus + sensible user.
4.0 onwards is chromefox, and I'd expect mozilla to simply say "chrome does what we do better, we're closing/becoming an affiliate of google" in a couple of years. It just seems logical with the way they're heading right now.
They're putting much more time in developing new GUIs than they are in developing the browser, at this point.
I am not devoid of humor.
I noticed on that one page, it's just raving reviews without hardly any criticism at all. Yet over here, there's hardly one positive word (and rightfully so!).
I think they live in their own little shielded universe of "yes men". Obviously, they aren't listening to the real world users.
Please, Mozilla, stop your obsession with taking away functionality from the UI. We don't want Chrome! We like status and menu bars! We don't want version numbers from hell that break all our addons!
Don't you dare blame us for this. We don't want this either.
Firefox, now with 75% more Google Chrome!
even when "restricted" to 1024 pixels of vertical space
People using the smallest laptops are restricted to only 600 pixels on the internal monitor.