
Australis is landing in Firefox Nightly - bpierre
https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2013/11/australis-is-landing-in-firefox-nightly/
======
ahoge
Looks pretty wasteful. I prefer how it currently looks on my machine:

[http://i.imgur.com/PvlTZ3k.png](http://i.imgur.com/PvlTZ3k.png)

My tabs can get as small as the pinned ones on the left (which is the default
behavior of _every_ other browser).

There used to be a about:config setting for minimum tab width, but one(!)
Firefox developer decided to remove it, because:

 _" Users can override this using userChrome.css if they absolutely want it. I
don't think the prefs are worth it."_[1]

Now I have to use a custom user chrome CSS file and disable the tab animations
to get the same effect.

I really hope this pointless update won't make me jump through a dozen hoops
again. I'm tired of it.

[1]
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=574654](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=574654)

~~~
geitiegg
Australis displays at least 17 tabs before expanding into the tab-scroll view
when full screen, which is more than I'd typically have open at a time anyway.

[http://i.imgur.com/8JIwdgh.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/8JIwdgh.jpg)

Tab-scoll, to me, makes a lot of sense as it prevents any confusion over the
content of the tabs, especially when those tabs lack favicons: in Chrome, you
simply get a blank page icon when the scroll bar overflows.

The only downside to Australis for me so far has been the removal of the
"thin" address bars/small icon sets, there is no longer an option within
Firefox to enable them, as far as I know.

~~~
ahoge
> _the removal of the "thin" address bars/small icon sets_

Oh, man. :/

------
kibwen
Hooray! Been waiting for this for a long time. I'll be especially happy if
Mozilla can manage to improve the default look of Firefox on Linux, where it's
just absolutely dreadful (and where I'm usually forced to resort to
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/fxchrome/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/fxchrome/) to preserve my sanity).

~~~
SwellJoe
Hmmm...I like the look of current Firefox more than Chrome on Linux. Looks
more native.

~~~
RexRollman
Agree. Chrome looks totally out of place when running with Evilwm.

BTW: it is annoying the web browsers don't seem to support the -geometry
switch under xorg.

------
krelian
So nitpickers might point out differences but you cannot deny that the basic
tab looks just like Chrome's. When Chrome came out with this it was new and
innovative. Now it looks like a copy.

When this blatant copying happens (and it happens in many places; it's no
wonder all phones look like a variation of the original iphone) I always
wonder if the designers really did convince themselves that their design is
different or they tried but just couldn't come up with anything better than
their inspiration.

~~~
asadotzler
[http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3696/8994445994_c0939b83ca_o.p...](http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3696/8994445994_c0939b83ca_o.png)

I recommend you take another look. They're not really the same at all.

Firefox's designers were not going for the angular and mechanical chrome look
at all. They were designing something softer, rounder and more human.

~~~
krelian
That's exactly the nitpicking I was referring to. If the corners are round or
not makes little difference. The main thing here is the general outline of the
tab and it's position in the window. If we can expand further we can also
include the main menu which is in exactly the same spot with the same icon
(maybe it's a standard icon, I've never seen it before Chrome and in earlier
versions Chrome had, if I recall correctly, a wrench and screwdriver icon).

~~~
lelandbatey
I don't know. I see the new tabs as an extension of the existing tabs [0]. All
that's different is the curve flares are bigger. As someone who doesn't use
Chrome much anymore, I thought these changes in Firefox seemed like natural
extensions and refinements of existing designs.

Now, the elimination of the options bar ("File Edit View History ...") on
Linux does seem more in line with Chrome, but on Windows it's been that way
for a while.

I think this is a classic case of converging designs, not copying. A good idea
is a good idea, no matter how you reach it.

[0] - [http://i.imgur.com/m2ozMz3.png](http://i.imgur.com/m2ozMz3.png)

------
mixmastamyk
Do not want.

I'm happy with the tabs provided with my OS theme and do not want each app to
have tabs with a custom shape and wasted space. Do not want a rainbow in my
title bar and have not met anyone > 12 that does.

What is it with these people and their obsession with skinz! and constant
rearranging of buttons?

~~~
WizzleKake
Concur.

The design people in Firefox lost me as a user when they decided to re-arrange
an interface that had looked the same for the better part of a decade. Re-
arrange, not improve. Apparently years of users' visual + muscle memory means
nothing to these UX guys.

I persevered with it for a while but eventually I just gave up and switched
browsers. Shame, since I'd been using Firefox since its first release (called
Phoenix back then, later Firebird, finally Firefox).

FWIW, here's the "original" user interface:
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Mozilla_F...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Mozilla_Firefox_1.0_front_page_screenshot.png)

~~~
Avshalom
FWIW, here's my user interface:
[http://imgur.com/ABi2XVO](http://imgur.com/ABi2XVO)

which is to say, damn near identical modulo the GTK theme emulation. AND
importantly the nightly build linked in the article completely respected my
changes.

~~~
wjoe
How were you able to keep the toolbar at the bottom of the window (with the
status and add-ons) with the new nightly? I lost mine when I tried the nightly
and see no way to add a toolbar at the bottom of the window.

~~~
Avshalom
Well SHIT.

Apparently I went off and downloaded the nightly just before the australis
drop because trying it again today fucked everything up. I'm pissed too now.

------
jcutrell
"Modern, clean, and comfortable."

Design terms like these, when juxtaposed with the "curvy tab" language, get
way under my skin.

What is a "comfortable" design, exactly? I suppose a better question would be,
what made the other design "uncomfortable"?

What is a clean design? Do you really mean "modern" instead of "clean"?
Wouldn't it be better to say the interface elements are more defined, or there
are less textures, or whatever?

Perhaps this is Janet Murray speaking through me (GaTech), but using vague
terms to describe minuscule changes is somewhat bombastic. Instead, use
appropriately narrow and descriptive terms.

I guess the rant is here because the changes aren't really that big of a deal.
It's pretty much a nod to Chrome, run through a few iterations, am I right? Or
maybe I'm being short sighted.

------
lux
They're still keeping the search and address boxes separate? :\

~~~
MLR
I just get rid of the search bar and use the URL bar for search too, don't
think there are any downsides to doing that.

~~~
FuzzyDunlop
It's handy unless you accidentally start searching for anything that could be
mistaken for an IP address or domain. Typing in `0x10c` to find the site for
the game, or `minimal-library.js`, or whatever, won't take you to a search
results page.

Works alright for most things though, and I think it's still better than
Google's default to Google approach, which is frustrating when you're working
on a locally hosted site and keep getting sent to a search page.

------
conradfr
I hate this tab design so much. I hate it with a passion since the first
release of Chrome. And I don't even know why :)

So I'm quite sad to see it landing in Firefox.

~~~
kbrosnan
So use a complete theme. May take a bit for some to get updated as they need
to overlay the current UI elements. [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/complete-themes/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/complete-themes/)

~~~
conradfr
I try to use softwares as vanilla as possible (especially with multiple
computers not all synced) but thanks for pointing that out, we'll see.

------
sanyi
It looks even more like chrome now.

DISCLAIMER: I don't like chrome.

~~~
tete
I agree. It's still more beautiful in my opinion though.

I don't like Chrome either, but a few parts of it are nice.

The thing I dislike most about recent Firefox releases is that the selected
search engine influences URL bar search, which is rather annoying in my
opinion, but then I removed the search feature from the URL bar, making them
at least somewhat distinct again.

~~~
evilpie
I wrote an addon for that issue: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/keywordurl-ha...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/keywordurl-hack/)

------
truhd
Looks like Australis "borrows" a lot from Chrome UI. It has pinned tabs with
an icon, chrome like tab shape, chrome like options (3 horizontal bar) icon,
chrome like simple settings and even chrome like icons (incognito, bookmarks).

~~~
icegreentea
_shrug_. Firefox already had pinned tabs with an icon, and the icons for
incognito/private and bookmarks aren't much different from the current ones
either.

I'll grant you the tab shape and the option icon.

~~~
asadotzler
[http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3696/8994445994_c0939b83ca_o.p...](http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3696/8994445994_c0939b83ca_o.png)

But I won't grant you the tab shape, unless you're the kid that couldn't
figure out square pegs and round holes.

------
pcx66
Been using this on the UX branch for a while now, loving it. Been very stable,
excited to see this is finally merged.

------
MLR
I really, really dislike that the bookmark button has been taken out of the
address bar, that's my biggest pet peeve, along with the slightly less
customisable look.

------
Taylorious
Why is Mozilla trying so hard to make Firefox exactly like Chrome? I have been
using Firefox since like 1.5, if I wanted it to be like Chrome I would use
Chrome.

~~~
skroth
Agreed. Not sure why they think it's necessary to move the menu to the right
hand side (just like Chrome).

~~~
asadotzler
Have you tried using today's Firefox's menu on Windows 8? It's much better
relocated out of the way of Windows 8's hot corners.

------
oinksoft
So is this the death of the browser.tabs.onTop setting? Everybody has to use
tabs on top now?

------
nsmartt
Firefox has looked awful on Linux for a long time. I'm excited to see a
consistent design on every OS, and I've been primarily using the UX build for
months.

A lot of people say this looks a lot like Chromium, but I don't find that to
be the case at all. The background tabs aren't rounded at all, while tabs are
shown to be rounded on mouse-over. It's a significant improvement over
Chromium's approach. I'm not a tremendous fan of the rounded design, but it's
certainly an improvement over the previous design.

------
nly
Maybe I'm blind, but it looks basically the same on Linux as it does now
except the tabs are curved (and possibly take up more space!)

I notice the tabs aren't sitting up in to the window manager in their Linux
screenshot (understandable). I've already hidden the menu bar, then killed the
window decorations for FF in KWin, so my tabs touch the top of the screen. In
fact, Chrome actually uses a few more pixels than FF for me.

~~~
dangrossman
Maybe it's your OS? They look very different to me on Windows. The orange
Firefox top menu is gone, the tabs have gained an "x" button, the "+" no
longer has a border, the padding above the tabs is reduced, there are 3 new
buttons on the search bar which is now larger and lost its colored background,
and the forward button is gone.

It looks more like Chrome than it does old Firefox.

[http://i.imgur.com/Y3ZFcD4.png](http://i.imgur.com/Y3ZFcD4.png)

~~~
nly
Yes, It has always looked different on Linux. Here's how Firefox 25 looks on
KDE for me right now (entire screen).

[http://i.imgur.com/bYDqi2L.png](http://i.imgur.com/bYDqi2L.png)

with the exception of adblock on the right, that's the default layout.

Fyi, I also liked the orange button on Windows :(

~~~
_delirium
The OSX version also looks closer to that than the Windows version. There is
no orange "Firefox" bar, and tabs already have x's on them.

------
davb
I much prefer how it looks for me currently (Firefox 26.0b5 on XFCE,
Greybird/Numix styles):
[http://i.imgur.com/XXzCFQZ.png](http://i.imgur.com/XXzCFQZ.png)

It seems like change for the sake of making things "glossier". That inactive
tabs have no top border bothers me. As does the fact it seems to completely
ignore my native window toolkit tab/widget styles.

~~~
diaz
Very similar configuration as mine:
[http://imgur.com/PiehG1V](http://imgur.com/PiehG1V)

I have simplified and totally removed the search bar.

Some tweaks to get just an icon for the menu in the top left and also remove
the close buttons in each tab. Probably something else I don't remember.

I thought this australis revision would make firefox look better integrated in
the environment, not less, it seems they want to make it look the same in all
plataforms...

I'm not a huge fan of that, but I'll wait to see if it can be integrated
better of not.

------
da_n
I love Firefox and I tried the Australis build for a few weeks, I found myself
not very keen ultimately, it is OK but not mind blowing. The rounded corner
thing is inefficient, I think they have only done this so it doesn't look too
much like Chrome. The most annoying thing though is that Linux has the full
menu bar stuck on top, wish they could integrate it better like on
Windows/Mac.

------
dubcanada
Is this Mozilla's responsive to Chrome's Aura? I'm a little confused with what
benefit this offers over the previous one.

------
Osiris
One interesting feature is the ability to customize the layout of the UI.
Opera had some really great features for customization of UI and it's nice to
see another browser doing it.

One thing I still haven't seen except in Opera: Tabs on the left or right.
With widescreen monitors, I prefer my tabs on the left. Even better, tabs with
thumbnails.

~~~
Narretz
I hope they don't make it harder for add-ons to have the tabs on the left /
right side. It's such a no-brainer to have the tabs there. Viewport is still
big enough, and you can see the tab content mor easily.

------
DigitalSea
I don't care if they've taken heavy inspiration from Chrome. I love the UI of
Chrome and I am glad Firefox aren't embarrassed or afraid to take such obvious
inspiration from a great looking browser and build upon it. This is exactly
what Firefox has needed, a properly designed UI.

------
fjk
It's live :)

My knee-jerk reaction is that I like the old UI better... I do feel that the
tab layout is preferable to Chrome's tab layout because the inactive tabs are
faded and not round.

[http://grab.by/s8ne](http://grab.by/s8ne)

~~~
Systemic33
When I look at your screenshot, it really doesn't look like Chrome at all.
Well as much as any browser looks the same with url bar, etc.

------
johnernaut
This is _awesome_ news. One thing that I'm still hoping the Firefox team would
integrate is the ability to _clear all downloads_ from the dropdown menu once
they're finished instead of having to open the downloads window.

~~~
mauricioc
Try right-clicking any download from the dropdown menu. There should be a
"Clear List" option.

~~~
johnernaut
I had no idea that existed - thanks!

------
super_mario
When is this curved tab experiment going to end already. I hated it in every
peace of software that ever used it, and it always forces me to find ways to
get rid of it.

Why not just stick with native tab implementation?

------
nXqd
It's great that you use pentadactyl and you don't have to worry about these
changes :v Btw, I don't find that the menu list looks nice. The way it shows
history just doesn't fit.

------
hardwaresofton
So I just updated from the nightly PPA, but for some reason, I still haven't
gotten the UX changes... Anyone know why this is?

Building tarball right now to see if the changes are there

~~~
hardwaresofton
NVM, posted too fast -- UX is working in the tarball but not in the PPA-
updated version for some reason...

------
rurounijones
Unselected tabs blend into the chrome? No border?

Eugh. That seems silly.

~~~
zobzu
i got a border, on windows and linux. i kinda found it odd still,then after
5min i decided i actually like it more.

~~~
rurounijones
Hmm, maybe the screenshots I have seen are incorrect. I shall keep my mouth
shut until I have the thing in front of me.

------
piyush_soni
So Australis means "more Chrome like"? Why?

------
wbharding
So Firefox is now Chrome plus IE's back button? Doesn't seem like the most
inspired way to differentiate your product.

~~~
quarterto
Firefox has had that back button since 3.
[http://www.megaleecher.net/uploads/firefox3_beta3.jpg](http://www.megaleecher.net/uploads/firefox3_beta3.jpg)

------
doe88
Is it merged in today's build? It seems not to be available in the 28.0a1
(2013-11-18) OS X build/update.

~~~
simanyay
It will either be in tomorrow's Nightly or we will do an extra build of
Nightly in the afternoon.

~~~
doe88
Ok, great.

edit: a new update is now available with the new changes, I _like_ it!

edit': a minor quibble though, I preferred the _star_ button when it was
directly integrated in the url bar. I find it too excentred from the url for
my eyes, I often give a quick look to check if an url is already starred or
not.

------
Mikeb85
Running Firefox Nightly on Ubuntu (with Unity), Australis looks great. Big
improvement on the old interface.

------
vaadu
Can it be disabled? Not everyone is going to like it or it may break a useful
extension.

~~~
at-fates-hands
Technically speaking, the Nightly Build is only for testing purposes and is
the most unstable version of FF available.

Here's a brief explanation:

In order of development - some new features may come and go from channel to
channel.

Nightly - Under heavy development. Least stable/secure. First tests of new
changes/features; some changes/features introduced in Nightly may be removed
before Release and other versions. Only for testing. Should only be used by
very experienced users/testers.

Aurora - Still under development. More stable/secure than Nightly. Some bugs
may still be present that need resolution. Should be used by experienced users
only who can post/report reproducible problems and work around issues.

Beta - Final development stage before Release. Usually good
stability/security. Major bugs resolved. Working out final bugs. Preview of
what Release version will most likely contain in the way of changes/features,
though some changes/features can still disappear before Release.

Release - Final channel released to public for everyday use.

[https://support.mozilla.org/en-
US/questions/970739](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/970739)

------
Dirlewanger
And _still_ no mention of shrinking tab headers...Jesus christ.

~~~
oblio
That's a feature, not a bug. Yay! (Chrome) I have 40 tiny tabs and I don't
know what any of them are! At least Firefox + tabs provides real tab
management options: scroll bar, Tree Style Tabs, Panorama, etc.

------
Nux
I hope they preserve the addon-bar.

~~~
wjoe
They haven't. It's been removed, and as far as I can tell, there's now no way
to add a bar to the bottom of the window.

~~~
Nux
Fuck.

Opened
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=940773](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=940773)

------
derleth
As long as the themes I use keep working, great. One of the best parts of
Firefox (which Chrome seems incapable of picking up) is that themes _work_ :
You can change the whole look and feel to what _you_ want, as opposed to it
being what some self-styled UI expert thinks you _should_ want.

------
lsv1
How about we get a Firefox that doesn't use a gig of RAM for 10 tabs? Or
perhaps isn't slower than IE9 in jscript?

~~~
21echoes
Firefox has consistently been shown to use less RAM than all other browsers:

[http://media.bestofmicro.com/L/5/390857/original/memuse.png](http://media.bestofmicro.com/L/5/390857/original/memuse.png)

~~~
nly
Not only that, it's faster as well. Try closing a session of Chrome with 20
tabs open and then reopening it. On both Windows and Linux, Chrome can be
extremely unresponsive in this scenario. FF lazy loads tabs so doesn't care to
reload everything in the background when you restart your session.

~~~
lsv1
I've noticed the reverse with Firefox, closing an instance with 20 tabs takes
quite some time. However I've yet to notice Chrome take any time in opening 20
tabs.

