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hattar 50 minutes ago [-]
I wish Firefox would stop rolling out redesigns, color themes, and other visual tweaks every couple years and instead focus on features and bugs.
Improve Adblock capabilities, better tab and session management, improve sync, improve site css and js management, built in dark-mode.
Hell, just look at the list of most used extensions, it’s a great place to start understanding what users want.
glenstein 2 minutes ago [-]
>and instead focus on features and bugs
Who says they don't? They've pushed 23 new releases since 2025 with thousands of updates that include bug fixes, performance improvements and security fixes. This latest release, v157, includes improvements to tabs, v156 included huge performance improvements and they're regularly pushing tons of CSS updates.
And this new release includes a built in dark mode exactly as you requested. I don't understand why people claim these things aren't happening when they're regularly documented on their release notes page.
zawaideh 13 minutes ago [-]
A lot of what you are asking for is already there.
coldpie 36 minutes ago [-]
> built in dark-mode
It has built-in dark mode, check out the Themes in your settings.
hattar 4 minutes ago [-]
[delayed]
micromacrofoot 36 minutes ago [-]
they can't focus on adblock because most of their money comes from google
TheqO 18 minutes ago [-]
Yup. They can only offer limited built-in protection due to their revenue source, but important to note that unlike Chrome they don't dictate on what extensions can offer.
So they are practically speaking the only game in town (Brave being the exception on Chrome as they are keeping support for UBlock Origin)
Firefox Nightly on Android also allows desktop extensions to be used.
n4bz0r 42 minutes ago [-]
The UI was tidy and nearly perfect, now it's all over the place: weird paddings, different border radiuses even within a single element, clashing background colors, and boy, do I love rainbow gradients everywhere.
Update: for those unhappy with the changes, you can roll them back for now:
about:config -> browser.nova.enabled -> false
romanovcode 40 minutes ago [-]
I cannot find a setting to disable the gradient. It's very annoying indeed.
coldpie 33 minutes ago [-]
You can browse the Themes to try to find one you like better. But yeah it'd be nice if one of the default built-in themes was super plain. Closest they have available by default is a grayscale gradient ("Ash").
n4bz0r 35 minutes ago [-]
The gradient is part of the theme. Updated the post with how to roll back the UI changes for now. After rolling back, select an old theme.
alsetmusic 38 minutes ago [-]
I just turned off auto-updates after reading this. Safe for now.
thetallgeek 1 hours ago [-]
I want the page headings to look like tabs, not pills. You don't have to be different for the sake of it
serbuvlad 53 minutes ago [-]
It's not different, it's just what Apple is doing (Safari uses pills).
In fact, I propose that all computer User Interface design proceeds as:
D(s) = (1 / (c * s + 1)) * (A(s) + N(s))
Where c is some constant, A is what Apple is doing and N is random noise.
cosmic_cheese 32 minutes ago [-]
I daily drive multiple Apple products, but this is one of those things where I disagree with Cupertino. I find that pill-tabs are bad design and that the way they mesh with Liquid Glass is strange. Tabs should look like tabs.
VCFundedGenYer 11 minutes ago [-]
Safari does almost everything wrong. They’re not a good role model.
serbuvlad 7 minutes ago [-]
My model is not a value judgement on quality. It simply is.
gray_-_wolf 53 minutes ago [-]
Out of curiosity, if you use the split view, why? I never understood what it can do that my window manager cannot, but maybe I am overlooking something?
bitmasher9 40 minutes ago [-]
I do it sometimes for highly related work (referencing on tab against the other) that will be a longer running task (30+ minutes).
It means that both tabs get maximized and minimized at the same time, and the two tabs are always side by side. Which means if I need to jump to another task, like answering a message or joining a video call, I can get back to my work faster. It’s a small thing that helps with context switching.
I do it when I consider both side of the Split View one unified context I am working on. I do it not only with browser tabs, but sometimes terminal tabs. I most commonly do it with IDE tabs.
cosmic_cheese 36 minutes ago [-]
I don’t use split view much, but I can understand the appeal.
It makes a lot of sense if one uses subject-based browser windows (e.g. 1 window == 1 subject); it keeps all tab organization within the browser and makes it easy to minimize it, move it to different screens/desktops, save/restore it, etc consistently with less overhead (no secondary organization system [such as that of the window manager] involved).
This becomes even more valuable for cross-platform users who sync and can’t rely on their favorite uberleet-haxor-wm package being available everywhere.
yoz-y 50 minutes ago [-]
Sometimes is just nice to have a tab related to an activity, which might involve having two web sites open
johncoltrane 34 minutes ago [-]
The big selling point is that everything stays in the same window.
- The split view is a special looking tab you can come too easily.
- You can have several split views in the same window.
- Selecting what tab you want in the split view is much cleaner than tearing off tabs into windows.
- No conceptual switch between "tab" and "window".
_flux 17 minutes ago [-]
I think the key here is that split view makes one tab show two sites. So when you switch the tab, you switch both views at the same time. You can't achieve this with a window manager, unless you already (instead of tabs) used only windows that your window manager rendered as tabs, and then comes also with this feature. Does any?
dingaling 5 minutes ago [-]
Every 15 years, MDI gets re-discovered and then deprecated.
zamadatix 48 minutes ago [-]
I suppose that depends what your window manager is and how it's configured? Most don't have an easy way to lock two windows together as they are moved as one though - especially on corporate devices.
Practically, it's most useful when I have two references for the same thing I want to move together as I work on that thing. E.g. Jira + Functional Spec as I do things related to them.
ac29 38 minutes ago [-]
I use a tiling wm, but the split view is more compact because it doesnt have two (vertical) tab bars. Useful on a cramped laptop, less so on a large screen
modified001 45 minutes ago [-]
Well, for one I use it to watch two videos at the same time.
TheqO 40 minutes ago [-]
Convenience.
For a non technical user it is much easier to right click a link (for example a reference in a news article) and choose Split View than arrange two windows (which may involve 2 different monitors).
For a Teams/Zoom screen where you are sharing only one app rather than whole desktop, again split may help.
Also good for mental switching, as you can open a link to the side and either promote to it's own tab/close and carry on with same page rather than have it open separately and break the flow
It's just another tool.
poopoo 48 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
anonthrownaway 40 minutes ago [-]
OMFG! Look at the massive amount of space between the stupid pill shaped tabs - this is the exact opposite of what I want as a tab hoarder! If I wanted to use a shitty safari UI that sacrifices usability for cutesy looks, I would use Safari.
I am still having to use an extension (Sidebery) because Firefox failed to implement vertical tabs half as good. On my MBP, I have two rows of small panel icons to switch between 2 rows of 8 different categories of tabs (16 panels). Below that, I have 3 rows of pinned tabs on each panel (24 pinned tabs). Below that, I can see 24 open tabs without scrolling. That's 48 visible tabs per panel and with a single panel click, I can see a different set of 48 tabs. That makes a total of 768 tabs accessible via a single click. Now that is an amazing UI/UX - not some designer pill shaped tabs (that Safari has had for years).
Mozilla: why in the hell do I need to trust some extension builder to give me an amazing UI/UX? Instead of copying Apple's bad decisions - innovate!
p.s. I don't get why in the hell anyone who has more than 10 tabs open at once isn't using vertical tabs? Especially when most monitors have more horizontal pixels than vertical.
vvarp 34 minutes ago [-]
Sideberry is GOAT, nothing can beat its flexibility.
I wouldn’t really expect base experience to match what it offers, so as long as Firefox doesn’t break extensions for power users, I am more than happy to see them experimenting with stuff that could help to win back some of the audience.
JohnFen 14 minutes ago [-]
> so as long as Firefox doesn’t break extensions for power users
You mean, as long as they don't break them any more than they did a few years back? Yes, I'm still salty about that loss.
But to your point, I agree with you. The native Firefox UI hasn't been one I loved for many years, and isn't getting any better. But I am still able to (mostly) massage it into something I'm OK with. As long as I can do that, then I'm fine with them doing whatever they need to do with the default look-and-feel.
swed420 37 minutes ago [-]
> Mozilla: why in the hell do I need to trust some extension builder to give me an amazing UI/UX?
Because Mozilla is basically owned by Google, neither of them care about you or your UX, and Ladybird isn't ready yet.
48 minutes ago [-]
throwawayAAUGGH 36 minutes ago [-]
This is horrible. I still can't find out how to disable the new border radius. The compact option kind of saves it but this is absolutely horrible.
Are they forcing this? You have got to be kidding me. Why force a change like this instead of adding this as an additional UI customization feature? Why is this happening? Is this making them money or is this to cater to the ego of some product manager?
The "Ash" theme saves the theme for me. The sidebar is easily disabled by clicking the settings icon on the bottom of the sidebar and selecting the easily spottable option. I cannot find how to disable this border radius. "about:config -> browser.nova.enabled -> false" only slightly fixes it, does not disable it.
I can't believe they're forcing these pills. What a fucking hostile, brazen change. Yeah, fuck you too Mozilla. Looks like I can't do anything about it! You punked me!
palmotea 58 minutes ago [-]
Let me guess: even more whitespace, hiding stuff for a "clean" look like a baby toy.
chriswarbo 36 minutes ago [-]
I struggle to use UIs like in the image shown under "Compact Mode". I can't tell what is/isn't clickable, since there are no bevels or other visual indicators (maybe something changes on mouse-over? but that's too late to indicate that I should try mousing-over!)
Thankfully user-chrome still seems to work, so these things can be overridden (and LLMs make those overrides easier to write & maintain).
They’ve done this so many times I’m just numb to it. These designs aren’t how I use a browser. The existing UI required no work, it was fine.
Vertical tabs are the dumbest thing they are wasting effort on. That firmly belongs as an extension, not a browser feature. Same problem as Pocket and the VPN garbage.
timpera 48 minutes ago [-]
I just updated. I think it looks great overall, but there is way too much lost space on the horizontal tabs.
coldpie 42 minutes ago [-]
Try out the Compact UI mode (Settings -> Appearance -> Window Density), which I didn't know about until I read this blog post. Tightens things up nicely.
leawi 48 minutes ago [-]
Hey! That's essentially Zen browser's UI?
timpera 45 minutes ago [-]
"We have Arc Browser at home".
More seriously, it's nice to see this UI finally copied by a major browser, but sad that there's still no real replacement for Arc.
mosselman 45 minutes ago [-]
Which in turn is essentially the Arc browser's UI
cosmic_cheese 29 minutes ago [-]
Except Zen’s is more consistent and in my opinion, cleaner looking.
hackerbrother 48 minutes ago [-]
I think Firefox is doing a good job overall.
formerffuser 49 minutes ago [-]
FF has been my primary browser for 20 years. But in the past 6 months it spawns so many FF processes from a single web page with advertising like yahoo - 60 FF processes or more - that it's unusable. The X button to stop it doesn't work, and going to another website can take upwards of 10 seconds. I am looking for an another browser.
prodmod 58 minutes ago [-]
Is their overview video doing it for literally anyone at all? I would love to not be infantilized.
glenstein 48 minutes ago [-]
Ooof, it's definitely not just you. I definitely root for Mozilla to succeed and think they're critical in the grand scheme of the browser wars, but that video is rough. It's practically Cocomelon.
micromacrofoot 34 minutes ago [-]
They're trying to regain mass market appeal because the only people using it now are diehard nerds, the video isn't for you
clumsysmurf 47 minutes ago [-]
I gave it a few minutes of trial and then disabled it.
With memory prices increasing, many people unable to afford new machines, and web browsers being one of those things that can potentially take a lot of system resources, I wish the Firefox team would prioritize CPU and memory performance of the core engine for users with lots of tabs.
I have stuff like 'Auto tab discard' installed but it seems to break other things, like 'Close Duplicate Tabs'.
IlikeMadison 39 minutes ago [-]
so sad you have to use the surveillance enabled chrome browser now, I feel so sorry for you
clumsysmurf 20 minutes ago [-]
Don't feel sad or sorry :) There are other options, like Orion that runs uBo just fine. I haven't used it enough to say either way though.
anonthrownaway 38 minutes ago [-]
768 tabs open. Total suspender works great.
coldpie 10 minutes ago [-]
Lol, there's enough people out there with hundreds of tabs open that there's clearly a real usecase for it, but I have just never understood this usage model. Feels to me like complaining you get bad gas mileage in your car because you're carrying around 15 years' worth of discarded McDonald's wrappers. The car isn't the problem! :)
MoraliaApp 1 hours ago [-]
“Warm, but still precise” is an interesting goal. I wonder how much users actually feel that difference, though.
PalmPilotProMax 49 minutes ago [-]
I still have hilarious memories of "aerodynamic tabs" in that era of Firefox design docs.
dennismenken 28 minutes ago [-]
True
drcongo 57 minutes ago [-]
Remarkably few images of design on this page about design. No I'm not going to watch a video.
kevincox 50 minutes ago [-]
Seriously, are you proud of the new look? SHOW IT TO ME. Even the video was mostly themed mock-ups that didn't show what the actual design looks like. Just post a screenshot of the whole browser.
jeddy3 51 minutes ago [-]
There are remarkably few examples in the video as well
iAMkenough 53 minutes ago [-]
Most of them are creative renderings too, not actual screenshots.
Besides the fake macOS window controls for some renderings, I don’t see how one would close, minimize, or zoom windows with this new design.
baggy_trough 29 minutes ago [-]
I like the idea of Firefox, but the UI has always been awkward on macOS. It looks a little better, but I don't like the huge tab pills in the window header, or the popups if you linger for more than a moment on the tab pill or favorites.
coldpie 26 minutes ago [-]
> or the popups if you linger for more than a moment on the tab pill
You can turn that off in the settings if you like. Settings -> Tabs and browsing -> Disable "Show an image preview you when you hover on a tab".
baggy_trough 25 minutes ago [-]
Thank you, but there's still a popup with the page title and site name.
coldpie 19 minutes ago [-]
Ha, yeah. If you really want to get rid of those almost entirely, you can tweak "ui.tooltip.delay_ms" to something really big like 10000 (10 seconds).
righthand 35 minutes ago [-]
Finally, the one thing users have been asking for! The N+1 Firefox redesign!
tosti 50 minutes ago [-]
Lots of pooh pooh, lots of blah blah, almost nothing on show.
EvanAnderson 37 minutes ago [-]
I keep trying to switch from Chrome to Firefox. I had been trying pretty hard this last time but now this... >sigh<
Change for change's sake is so damn tiring.
richwater 52 minutes ago [-]
Firefox needs to start adding actual embedded functionality improvements rather than constantly tweaking the UX. Chrome's integration with Googgle Pay for example (which lets you generate virtual card numbers on the fly) is what allowed Capital One to replace their browser agnostic extension. Now I cannot use Capital One virtual card number generator in my checkout workflow if I don't move to Chrome.
TheqO 31 minutes ago [-]
That's an edge case is it not?
99% of users don't need to generate virtual card numbers on the fly, so won't be a high priority item.
richwater 30 minutes ago [-]
It's edge case, but I think it's an example of how Firefox is not keeping up with demand for more functionality. Firefox is slowly becoming obselete and Mozilla won't acknowledge it.
TheqO 22 minutes ago [-]
Yes, no doubt over the years it has not been well run from a business perspective, and it is of note that the browser that was created by it's ex co-founder is found above it in the download charts on app stores.
Mozilla have been terrible at marketing and strategy and innovating technically from a end user experience perspective. With the amount of guaranteed money from the Google deal they had annually, they should have done so much more.
Improve Adblock capabilities, better tab and session management, improve sync, improve site css and js management, built in dark-mode.
Hell, just look at the list of most used extensions, it’s a great place to start understanding what users want.
Who says they don't? They've pushed 23 new releases since 2025 with thousands of updates that include bug fixes, performance improvements and security fixes. This latest release, v157, includes improvements to tabs, v156 included huge performance improvements and they're regularly pushing tons of CSS updates.
And this new release includes a built in dark mode exactly as you requested. I don't understand why people claim these things aren't happening when they're regularly documented on their release notes page.
It has built-in dark mode, check out the Themes in your settings.
So they are practically speaking the only game in town (Brave being the exception on Chrome as they are keeping support for UBlock Origin)
Firefox Nightly on Android also allows desktop extensions to be used.
Update: for those unhappy with the changes, you can roll them back for now:
In fact, I propose that all computer User Interface design proceeds as:
Where c is some constant, A is what Apple is doing and N is random noise.It means that both tabs get maximized and minimized at the same time, and the two tabs are always side by side. Which means if I need to jump to another task, like answering a message or joining a video call, I can get back to my work faster. It’s a small thing that helps with context switching.
I do it when I consider both side of the Split View one unified context I am working on. I do it not only with browser tabs, but sometimes terminal tabs. I most commonly do it with IDE tabs.
It makes a lot of sense if one uses subject-based browser windows (e.g. 1 window == 1 subject); it keeps all tab organization within the browser and makes it easy to minimize it, move it to different screens/desktops, save/restore it, etc consistently with less overhead (no secondary organization system [such as that of the window manager] involved).
This becomes even more valuable for cross-platform users who sync and can’t rely on their favorite uberleet-haxor-wm package being available everywhere.
- The split view is a special looking tab you can come too easily. - You can have several split views in the same window. - Selecting what tab you want in the split view is much cleaner than tearing off tabs into windows. - No conceptual switch between "tab" and "window".
Practically, it's most useful when I have two references for the same thing I want to move together as I work on that thing. E.g. Jira + Functional Spec as I do things related to them.
For a non technical user it is much easier to right click a link (for example a reference in a news article) and choose Split View than arrange two windows (which may involve 2 different monitors).
For a Teams/Zoom screen where you are sharing only one app rather than whole desktop, again split may help.
Also good for mental switching, as you can open a link to the side and either promote to it's own tab/close and carry on with same page rather than have it open separately and break the flow
It's just another tool.
I am still having to use an extension (Sidebery) because Firefox failed to implement vertical tabs half as good. On my MBP, I have two rows of small panel icons to switch between 2 rows of 8 different categories of tabs (16 panels). Below that, I have 3 rows of pinned tabs on each panel (24 pinned tabs). Below that, I can see 24 open tabs without scrolling. That's 48 visible tabs per panel and with a single panel click, I can see a different set of 48 tabs. That makes a total of 768 tabs accessible via a single click. Now that is an amazing UI/UX - not some designer pill shaped tabs (that Safari has had for years).
Mozilla: why in the hell do I need to trust some extension builder to give me an amazing UI/UX? Instead of copying Apple's bad decisions - innovate!
p.s. I don't get why in the hell anyone who has more than 10 tabs open at once isn't using vertical tabs? Especially when most monitors have more horizontal pixels than vertical.
I wouldn’t really expect base experience to match what it offers, so as long as Firefox doesn’t break extensions for power users, I am more than happy to see them experimenting with stuff that could help to win back some of the audience.
You mean, as long as they don't break them any more than they did a few years back? Yes, I'm still salty about that loss.
But to your point, I agree with you. The native Firefox UI hasn't been one I loved for many years, and isn't getting any better. But I am still able to (mostly) massage it into something I'm OK with. As long as I can do that, then I'm fine with them doing whatever they need to do with the default look-and-feel.
Because Mozilla is basically owned by Google, neither of them care about you or your UX, and Ladybird isn't ready yet.
Are they forcing this? You have got to be kidding me. Why force a change like this instead of adding this as an additional UI customization feature? Why is this happening? Is this making them money or is this to cater to the ego of some product manager?
The "Ash" theme saves the theme for me. The sidebar is easily disabled by clicking the settings icon on the bottom of the sidebar and selecting the easily spottable option. I cannot find how to disable this border radius. "about:config -> browser.nova.enabled -> false" only slightly fixes it, does not disable it.
I can't believe they're forcing these pills. What a fucking hostile, brazen change. Yeah, fuck you too Mozilla. Looks like I can't do anything about it! You punked me!
Thankfully user-chrome still seems to work, so these things can be overridden (and LLMs make those overrides easier to write & maintain).
https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix
Vertical tabs are the dumbest thing they are wasting effort on. That firmly belongs as an extension, not a browser feature. Same problem as Pocket and the VPN garbage.
More seriously, it's nice to see this UI finally copied by a major browser, but sad that there's still no real replacement for Arc.
With memory prices increasing, many people unable to afford new machines, and web browsers being one of those things that can potentially take a lot of system resources, I wish the Firefox team would prioritize CPU and memory performance of the core engine for users with lots of tabs.
I have stuff like 'Auto tab discard' installed but it seems to break other things, like 'Close Duplicate Tabs'.
Besides the fake macOS window controls for some renderings, I don’t see how one would close, minimize, or zoom windows with this new design.
You can turn that off in the settings if you like. Settings -> Tabs and browsing -> Disable "Show an image preview you when you hover on a tab".
Change for change's sake is so damn tiring.
99% of users don't need to generate virtual card numbers on the fly, so won't be a high priority item.
Mozilla have been terrible at marketing and strategy and innovating technically from a end user experience perspective. With the amount of guaranteed money from the Google deal they had annually, they should have done so much more.