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Firefox 29: Redesign
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla today officially launched Firefox 29 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. This is a massive release: Firefox Sync has been revamped and is now powered by Firefox Accounts, there's a new customization mode, and the company's major user interface overhaul Australis has finally arrived. 'The tabs are sleek and smooth to help you navigate the Web faster. It’s easy to see what tab you’re currently visiting and the other tabs fade into the background to be less of a distraction when you’re not using them. The Firefox menu has moved to the right corner of the toolbar and puts all your browser controls in one place. The menu includes a “Customize” tool that transforms Firefox into a powerful customization mode where you can add or move any feature, service or add-on.' Here are the full release notes and a demo video."
These: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=13350353&sid=cee01d7621130bd32543a5154b4419c9#p13350353
How about a status bar? :)
Seriously, UX folks, just stop.
Your profession's insistence on itself has destroyed Digg, Flickr, Yahoo's message boards, Yahoo's email interface, Slashdot, Firefox, GNOME, and even Windows 8.
Your profession is a cancer upon this industry worse than marketing.
Stop redecorating my desktop. If I wanted a browser that looks like Chrome, I would install Chrome. If I wanted a browser that looks like it's meant to be used on a touch screen (just where did that menu of icons come from...), I would use a tablet. This is my NON-TOUCH DESKTOP you're ruining.
Why does everybody seem hellbent on killing the traditional desktop? Are you bored? Running out of bugs to fix?
Stop moving things around! Every time you do that, I lose something that I've become accustomed to for no good reason at all. That's like moving a table a couple of inches, making me bump into it for a couple weeks, and then you change it some more. Or changing the height of the stair steps. Don't do that. It's at best irritating.
I am seriously fed up with this shit.
The tabs are sleek and smooth to help you navigate the Web faster.
Well that's a fucking relief. I've been slogging awa with these slightly squarer tabs for months and my productivity has been in the toilet as a result.
Seriously, do they have any actual metrics that the new tabs actually help anyone "navigate the web faster" ?
Itâ(TM)s easy to see what tab youâ(TM)re currently visiting
It was already easy.
and the other tabs fade into the background to be less of a distraction when youâ(TM)re not using them.
Tweaking the relative brightness between current and other tabs hardly counts as revolutionary. I'm indifferent at best.
The Firefox menu has moved to the right corner of the toolbar and puts all your browser controls in one place.
I get how this different, but how is this, in any way 'better'?
I can't wait for this to get into cars. Who doesn't want a perfectly empty dashboard with all the controls crammed into the right corner.
In all seriousness, whoop-dee-doo so they moved the top left menu to the top right, but now its got that newish 3 bar icon which has come to mean "we stuck the menu here".
I guess people who heretofore have only ever used a twitter app will will finally be able to find the firefox menu that had been eluding them, hidden away in the top left.
The menu includes a âoeCustomizeâ tool that transforms Firefox into a powerful customization mode where you can add or move any feature, service or add-on.'
All it needs is to say "Don't Panic!" in large friendly letters.
you're just not ready for a future dominated by retards.
but resistance is futile. you will be UXed.
I run with NoScript on Firefox, and unfortunately I'm finding more and more web sites are unusable without Javascript enabled not just for them (and the cloud provider, who could be serving up god-knows-what) but for zillions of "partners". I don't know what those partners are providing, either: probably mostly ancillary crap but the page won't render until it's downloaded.
I keep a NoScripted Firefox for any time I'm visiting web sites that I don't know beforehand; if they don't render then I don't need it that badly. But on my work computers, where I'm browsing only sites that I have reason to believe have things I need and aren't too terribly likely to be hijacked, I've found I just had to turn NoScript off.
That sucks, because the fact is that the vast majority of sites do shit with Javascript that the site would be just plain better off without. I don't object to their need to earn a living by feeding me ads, which is why I don't run with an ad blocker, but Javascript is very easy to abuse, and too many of them create abusive design.
"Firefox becomes less usable and less configurable with each release. "
True, and it not just configurability. It's been on a persistent and unshakeable course of deteriorating functionality and usability for years. Even sticking to the long-term releases and avoiding the newest breakage it's still awful and obviously only getting worse. I think there is a real need for a fork of firefox and a sane team to maintain it, and I would be happy to contribute to some form of crowdfunding to bring it about, but...
"Might as well use Chrome at this point, it's virtually indistinguishable."
Sorry, I still think you are off-base here. As horrid as Firefox has become, it still has a ways to go before it can compete with Chrome for worst browser. It still uses the file system more-or-less correctly, and it's still possible (with extensions, at least) to disable javascript properly.
Firefox is horrible but it's still the best general purpose browser available, that's what makes the whole situation so horrific. If there were any other browser that were better I would be happy to switch, but these days it seems they all aspire to become adware just like chrome.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
"if firefox has made any improvements since the 3.x series, I don't know what they are."
Like, pretty much anything that is not visible at first glance? Standards support, memory management, add-on handling, JavaScript performance, responsiveness, developer tools, networking, etc
Type a single-word search query into the address bar in Firefox. Instead of searching for the word right away the browser attempts a DNS lookup. With the search bar that DNS lookup step is removed. For the more privacy-conscious this is an important thing. Especially if you've got an ISP that redirects a failed DNS response to their own search engine.
Yet not one "feature" gives me what I really want, the ability to leave my UI the same while upgrading all the "under the hood features" and security fixes.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
You might like the Classic Theme Restorer addon. Tabs back down, multiple bars, back/forward separated and arbitrarily movable, reload next to them, addon bar back at the bottom, and text labels on everything.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Two things:
1) So, Firefox et al haven't "solved" a damned thing, they've just assumed that RAM is cheap and plentiful? I hope nobody is taking credit for that bullshit reasoning.
2) It's my fucking memory, and I may or may not be using it for other things. I've got 8GB on my machine, and every day or so I need to shut down Firefox to reclaim the memory it's been leaking. Firefox starts at around 300MB of RAM, and grows to 1GB if I let it.
Oh, and 3), go fuck yourself.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Not a UI/UX designer so I have to ask, why have designers hidden these basic menus in most browsers these days? Is it because they want their browser to be "cleaner" by default? For me the 20 or so pixels that are saved by hiding the menu bar isn't worth the inconvenience of always having to turn these menus back on. I can't recall anyone I know mentioning how they hate the file menu and wish it were hidden by default on a PC.
If they actually cared what users did with it we would never have had, KDE 4, Unity, Gnome Shell, Windows 8, and so on... They simply don't care how you use it. They are alone in their echo chamber looking at the new shiny, going "Ohh... We should do that." Then they wonder why they are suddenly abandon and running out of money. http://tech.slashdot.org/story...
I actually love the lack of status bar
And until recently people like you could simply turn it off, while people like me could turn it on.
This seemed to be working fine for both of us. What was improved by changing this status quo?
> It's easy to see what tab you're currently visiting
> and the other tabs fade into the background to be
> less of a distraction when you're not using them.
I swear, if I ever meet a guy in a bar and he says he's on the UX team at Mozilla, I'm going to punch him in the dick as hard as I can. Now that all the background tabs are a mushy mass of grey, it is HARDER to tell them apart and jump to the one you want next. WHY DO YOU THINK TABS EXIST?!?!?
"when you're not using them" -- do you know what constitutes USING tabs? FINDING THEM AND CLICKING ON THEM.
Gee assholes, why don't you just put all my tabs behind that bullshit menu icon in the top right? That's be SUPER clean and easy-to-use! Out of sight, but right there when you need them! >:-|
If I wanted to know the title of the page I'M LOOKING AT RIGHT NOW -- not usually needed because I'M LOOKING AT IT RIGHT NOW -- I can glance at the title bar OH WHOOPS WAIT THAT'S FUCKING GONE TOO. Fucking retards.
Yes, I got the fucking extension to un-fuck-up the theme, but I shouldn't have to do this all the time.
Now, if they actually FIXED the sync, so you can just log in and not jump through the bullshit hoops of having a DIFFERENT instance of it open so you can type in the stupid PIN (WTF are you supposed to do if you want to sync two non-portable computers in different places?), *THAT* will be some progress.
For everything else, click here and tell them how much they suck.
And finally, a note to ALL browser makers: "View" -> "Source" should be a top-level menu, not buried behind some "developer tools" bullshit. FF, Safari, Chrome -- you're all guilty. "View source" is what made the web great. It SHOULD be easy to get at.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
There is a way to get FF to stop using that memory. Go get a screwdriver, open your machine, then remove one of the RAM chips. Put the RAM in your desk drawer and reboot the machine. That memory is now guaranteed to be unused.
The developers could not sleep because you changed the defaults and the great UI they designed.
Now they can sleep well without nightmares of users configuring the software to their needs.
You can search in the address bar.
You can piss in a sink too... doesn't mean using one facility for two different functions is a good thing.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
For a traditional UI in Mozilla plus all the other goodies you miss, Look no further
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I forgot to mention Pale Moon, an interesting version of Firefox. It has adult supervision! What! Where did they find an adult?
Two examples: In Firefox the "Find in page" field is on the left and the "Highlight All" and "Match Case" buttons are on the right. In Pale Moon they are together so that you immediately see if something is chosen from a former search.
Pale Moon has a 64-bit version. Firefox doesn't. The 64-bit Pale Moon uses the Firefox add-ons; no problem there except with some unusual add-ons.
Pale Moon is completely independent. Pale Moon is in no way associated with Mozilla Foundation.
With all respect, it didn't really have other uses anymore,
Thats sort of buying a van, and then having the dealer gradually remove all the doors and windows from a van and then declaring that you don't need all that cargo space either because it doesn't have any uses since you can't get to it, and then removing the removing the space too leaving you with a nice little 2 seater smart car.
But the whole reason I bought this car in the first place is because I wanted a VAN. Doors, windows, cargo space.
There are a LOT of things you could do with a status bar. You could display status... like WHAT THE FUCK IS THE BROWSER IS DOING RIGHT NOW now aka "STATUS"? I mean sure there is a spinning green circle in the tab icon space and that's all we get for feedback?
Download speed, how many items are in the download manager queue, dns look ups, time outs, server errors, do I have internet access, page validation status, plugins starting up, encryption characteristics, extensions / addon messages, what is it doing with cookies... I can imagine more things to do with the status bar then will FIT in 5 status bars. Do I want or need all of those all the time? Hell no... but I'm using firefox because I want more advanced feedback than a spinning circle.
So, the new FF finally implemented a more userfriendly sync functionality. Apparently less than 1% of its users was using the old (but very secure system). The new sync system is (unsurprisingly) similar to Chrome's sync system: you create an account, when you log in your info is encrypted based on your account password and uploaded to Mozilla's servers.
What I cannot get my head around is that Mozilla claims they cannot access your data (as they don't know your password) but that they are able to reset a lost password... how can that be a secure system??
Also, in the new version it's no longer possible to use a master password... if you want to use sync all your password will be in plaintext (well, obfuscated) in FF's password file. Any malicious or vulnerable application can get access to ALL your passwords. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=995268
Doesn't sound like an improvement to me...