Firefox 57 Will Hide Search Bar and Use a Uni-Bar Approach, Like Chrome (bleepingcomputer.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bleeping Computer: Mozilla will drop an iconic section of its UI -- the search bar -- and will use one singular input bar atop the browser, similar to the approach of most Chromium browsers. This change will go live in Firefox 57, scheduled for release on November 14, and will be part of Photon -- the codename used to describe Firefox's new user interface (UI) -- also scheduled for a public release in v57. Mozilla engineers aren't removing the search bar altogether, but Firefox will hide this UI element by default. Users can still re-enable it by going to "Preferences -> Search -> Search Bar" and choosing the second option. The current Firefox search bar is redundant since most of its features can be performed by the URL address bar.

Comments

Please stop this madness

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop removing features and start fixing the bugs and improving performance, Mozilla. You might still have a chance against Google if you kicked out your UX team and just started doing some basic engineering. The browser is not meant to be any playground where UI elements are moved and changed around. Browser should be an application which stays off the way and just shows the web pages efficiently. But of course according to UX people, eg. the search bar is a distracting element which is way too hard for their stupid users to understand so it must be removed. Surprisingly the Pocket, reader mode and other useless buttons are there to stay just in case somebody clicks them by mistake.

Have you looked at Firefox's privacy policy?!

[Anonymous Coward]

* privacy (the amount of addons to help me with this and the mindset of mozilla foundation are unmatched elsewhere. mozilla have repeatedly demonstrated they care about privacy and openness of the interwebs. i simply don't trust chrome/chromium)

Have you ever actually looked at Firefox's privacy policy?!

Anybody who claims that Firefox protects their privacy probably hasn't actually looked at Firefox's privacy policy.

Below are some excerpts from the Firefox privacy policy that is dated July 31, 2017.

Be sure to notice the type of information being collected and possibly even transmitted to third parties (including Google, some "Leanplum" company, a "mobile analytics vendor", and "certain developers"). We see terms like:

• - "IP address"
• - "browser version"
• - "operating system"
• - "locale"
• - "language preference"
• - "list of add-ons you have installed"
• - "phone number"
• - "email address"
• - "URLs associated with the downloaded file"
• - "hardware configuration"
• - "commonly visited domains"
• - "location"
• - "the active URL"
• - "Google advertising ID"
• - "personal information"
• - "key word searches"
• - "Wi-Fi networks"
• - "cell phone towers"

Here are the excerpts:

Once per day, Firefox sends the following info to Mozilla when it checks for browser updates: your Firefox version information, language preference, operating system, and version.

Firefox contacts Mozilla once per day to check for add-on information to check for malicious add-ons. This includes, for example: browser version, OS and version, locale, total number of requests, time of last request, time of day, IP address, and the list of add-ons you have installed.

About once per day, Firefox connects to Mozilla and provides you with new snippets, if available. Mozilla may collect how often snippets are clicked, snippet name, browser locale, and which version of Firefox you're using.

Firefox sends Mozilla a monthly request to look up your location at a country level using your IP address.

Some Mozilla sponsored snippets are interactive and allow you to optionally share your phone number or email address.

This data includes, for example: device hardware, operating system, Firefox version, add-ons (count and type), timing of browser events, rendering, session restores, length of session, interaction with search access points and use of Firefox search partner codes, how old a profile is, basic information about errors and crashes, and count of pages.

Firefox sends to this third-party information identifying the site's certificate.

About twice per hour, Firefox downloads Google's SafeBrowsing lists to help block access to sites and downloads that are malicious or forged (Google's privacy policy is at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/).

Firefox may send metadata, including URLs associated with the downloaded file, to the SafeBrowsing service.

Usage statistics or "Telemetry" is a feature in Firefox that sends Mozilla usage, performance, and responsiveness statistics about user interface features, memory, and hardware configuration. Your IP address is also collected as a part of a standard web log.

Firefox sends to Mozilla data relating to the tiles such as number of clicks, impressions, your IP address, locale information, and tile specific data (e.g., position and size of grid).

In Firefox Beta, certain short-term Telemetry