
Firefox and Flux: A New, Beautiful Browser is Coming - Boriss
http://www.donotlick.com/firefox-and-flux-a-new-beautiful-browser-is-coming/
======
ggreer
I really don't want to be negative, but every browser update in the past year
feels like a step back. This is true for Chrome and Firefox. Each update
contains more "Sign in to your browser" stuff plastered everywhere. Eye candy
is added. Useful configuration options are removed.[1] Many of these changes
seem to be made with the goal of increasing revenue, not improving user
experience.

Rule #0 of business is: Listen to your users. For browsers, one
straightforward way to do this is to look at what extensions and addons users
install. By far, the winner is adblock. Almost everyone who knows how to block
ads does so. Therefore, if you are making a browser and you care about user
experience above everything else, you will have ad blocking by default. That
no major browser does tells us what their priorities really are.

Again, apologies for the negativity. This has frustrated me for some time.

Edit: I realize that if everyone suddenly started blocking ads, there would be
darkness and chaos. But the current situation is only tenable because a small
fraction of users have the know-how to get what they want. You can avoid ads
if you are technically proficient or know someone who is. Everyone else has to
put up with ads. Advertisers annoy millions if not _billions_ of people,
effectively subsidizing the usage of those with ad blockers. That doesn't seem
fair to me.

1\. Such as the old new tab page in Chrome:
[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=326788](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=326788)

~~~
itry
> one straightforward way to do this is to look at what extensions and addons
> users install

Oh God No! I do not use adblock. I use noscript and im happy with it. I also
do not use "Video DownloadHelper" which is the second most used addon. And
neither do I use Firebug which is #3. Please do not put all this stuff into my
browser! And not everybody uses noscript which I use and which is #4. Im
completely fine with installing it.

How about improving on the basic stuff? For example make FF use all cores of
my machine and not just one?

~~~
Jakob
> For example make FF use all cores of my machine and not just one?

They are working on it:
[https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis)

This is already in the nightly version for some months: "File > New e10s
Window" will open a new window in its own process.

~~~
itry

        File > New e10s Window
    

Wow! Nice. Thanks for the info!

------
yati
These people behind Australis are brave, competent and passionate. It shows in
the remarkable experience they've built. I am a nightly user and I got to see
these changes land one at a time. Hugs and cheers:)

~~~
IvyMike
> brave

I am not trying to be snarky, but to me a lot of the new UI is "oh, they made
it look more like Chrome". I am kind of surprised to hear the word "brave" to
describe that.

~~~
seba_dos1
Work on this UI started long before Chrome. That's Chrome that looks like
Firefox mockups, not the other way.

~~~
zethraeus
Can you source this from public docs somewhere? It's interesting and I'd love
to compare the early mockups with early chrome.

~~~
Excavator
Not OP but earliest concepts I know of are these¹ from 2011.

1: [http://people.mozilla.org/~shorlander/ux-presentation/ux-
pre...](http://people.mozilla.org/~shorlander/ux-presentation/ux-
presentation.html)

------
dingaling
There seems to be quite a lot of wasted space in this new design. For example:

[http://www.donotlick.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tab-
shap...](http://www.donotlick.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/tab-shape-
alt-01.png)

1\. The curves of the 'aerodynamic' tabs sacrifice pixels in the horizontal
ramp-off / -on whereas old 'ugly' rectangular tabs can abutt.

2\. A vertical void above the tabs, too shallow into which to put icons.

I'll have no choice but to become accustomed to it but I fear my little 12"
screen will become even less efficient.

~~~
batiudrami
I believe that for (1), the tabs overlap so that they take the same amount of
space as the old tabs. It's an illusion that they're larger (which I initially
fell for also, until I was corrected).

(2) is the same as Chrome and older Firefox versions - to ensure that there is
still some draggable area in the window when it is filled with tabs, and it
disappears when the window is maximised.

~~~
PetitPrince
You're right about (1), I took a before/after screenshot (top: FF28; bottom:
FF29): [http://i.imgur.com/AJlgeBZ.png](http://i.imgur.com/AJlgeBZ.png)

Please note that I normally use tree style tabs
([https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-
ta...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/)) to put
the tabs in a sidebar. It may have messed up the layout a bit. (also, the non-
standard colour comes from ColourfulTabs)

~~~
51Cards
I noticed that you used to use the URL bar on top layout as I did. Sadly that
is gone now but the Classic Theme add-on will give you the option back.

To me it's just more visually intuitive to have the tab right above the
content window, not over all the toolbars. I really can't fathom why the
reverse has become the default.

~~~
PetitPrince
Actually I put them my tabs on the left (default option with tree style tab),
as I feel that putting them at the top or bottom of the browser waste space. I
put the tabs under the location bar out of convenience, my purpose was to look
at the difference in the tab size.

------
gilgoomesh
Claims to be detail obsessed but the Mac version has the close/shrink/zoom
buttons floating at the wrong height (like iTunes 10 briefly had until it
recanted) and a title bar gradient with non-standard color and height (too
short for integrated toolbar height and too tall for basic window title bar
and too light in color for either) above a toolbar with the same weird
gradient used again.

Windows and Ubuntu versions look much better; the Mac version should be fixed.

~~~
rectangletangle
I think they lowered the close/shrink/zoom buttons so that they'd be roughly
centered relative to the height of the tab container. If they didn't do this,
it'd look weird and unpolished. As for the other things IDK. I still think it
looks really good.

------
rossng
I've been surprised by the amount of hate for Australis. Are the people who
criticise it actually using it?

I've moved back from Chrome to Firefox and I'm a big fan of the changes that
they've made. A lot of clunky interface elements have been eliminated. I
really like the customisable menu - it's a much better place to put semi-
frequently-used add-ons than has been available in the past. The same paradigm
works nicely on mobile, too.

The next things to tackle are probably the bookmarks and options dialogs, both
of which are a bit of a pain. Chrome's searchable options were a game changer,
and Firefox needs something equally easy-to-navigate.

~~~
ihaveqvestion
I agree. I actually began using Firefox again because I heard this UI change
was landing in Nightly, and I've been using Nightly since then. I get Chrome's
UI minimalism and Firefox's customizability/flexibility - it's the best of
both worlds.

------
wila
Well if you don't like the beautiful browser there's a way to get the old
layout back.

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/classicthemer...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/)

Actually more precisely it lets you completely customize the look.

Want to have square tabs? Can do, can even have the round tabs.

Want to have the url bar at the top? no problem

~~~
pidg
I don't want a beautiful browser, I want a functional browser - I generally
want to focus on the site I'm visiting, not the gorgeous UI.

The fun part now is wondering how long Classic Theme Restorer will be
maintained. I give it 2 versions before it falls by the wayside.

------
damian2000
Cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.donotlick.com/firefox-
and-flux-a-new-beautiful-browser-is-
coming/&client=firefox-a&hs=EDM&rls=org.mozilla:en-
GB:official&channel=sb&strip=1)

~~~
nwh
[http://archive.today/4ZGpR](http://archive.today/4ZGpR)

Fully rendered cache with images.

------
yason
The killer feature in Chrome was and is the multiprocess implementation. I use
Firefox for intranet browsing at work and Chrome for personal browsing: the
former is a sloth compared to the latter, and hangs even for seconds when
loading a big page whereas Chrome will happily use as many of my 12 cores as
it likes and it just doesn't even slow down.

Firefox has had their comparable hack (Electrolysis?) in some prototype stage
for a long time but the thing is Chrome actually delivered it... _years ago_.
This turned the roles into a catch-up game where Firefox tries to match Chrome
instead of other browsers trying to match Firefox, and the setting has
remained as such since then.

The difference is still astronomical and I'm not at all convinced that a new
user interface could have much effect there. The browser UI has pretty much
standardized 15 years ago.

~~~
chacham15
Am I the only one that _doesnt_ like this "feature"? The reason I dont like it
is because now, instead of being limited to 25% of my total CPU usage, at
times Chrome happily pins all four of my cores. Granted that this is probably
a result of poor plugin/webpage interaction (although, I havent been able to
determine what combination...being a heisenbug and all), in Firefox, the worst
case is still 25% maximum CPU usage.

~~~
vesinisa
If you have four cores and really want so that Chrome can only use one of them
at a time you can just start it with

    
    
      taskset -c 0 google-chrome
    

or maybe better

    
    
      taskset -c 0-2 google-chrome
    

which will allocate cores 0-2 to Chrome, dedicating one core for your other
work.

------
gsam
I've been using it for a couple months now. Maybe it's just me, but I really
don't care too much about how Firefox looks. I actually quite dislike curved
tabs, but I can live with it. What frustrates me the most is that I don't want
to wait for the fancy animations to finish before doing something. If I want a
menu to come up, I want it to come up.

Most of the menu reorganizations have very little affect on me since I usually
use shortcuts. But waiting for some of these animations just hurts my
productiveness and I've seen other people share my dismay. When changes like
this hurt the people who know how to use their browser and want to simply get
things done, it's saddening.

~~~
Excavator
Mind sharing what these animations are? I haven't noticed any that I have to
wait on.

You may find some relevant prefs at: about:config?filter=animate

~~~
gsam
A number of the menus. When I switched, I found the RSS feed dropdown mind-
numbingly slow. I've since made a userChrome.css edit which I saw on
Mozillazine. Even then, there's still other animations left over. I find it
really distracting.

Another more minor change was, prior to this version, Firefox still allowed
fixed back and forward buttons. At some point, I should probably find a fix
for that as well. Animations are supposed to make the experience feel
smoother, but from my point of view, it's simply more clunky.

------
grumblestumble
Is the lack of a unified search/address bar a deliberate choice or the result
of some weird IP/patent thing? Every time I switch back to Firefox, it trips
me up. AFAIR, it's the only major browser that still does this, right?

~~~
Osmose
There might be other reasons, but a big one is that having search and address
bar in one box means that normal URLs you type into the address bar will get
sent to the search engine for autocomplete by default. Since that's a major
privacy violation, they're kept separate.

I've removed the search box myself. If DNS doesn't return anything or if what
you type looks like a search query, it does a search anyway, so the only thing
I'm missing is search autocomplete (there's an addon if you really want that
anyway: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/instantfox/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/instantfox/)).

~~~
Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0
The privacy reason honestly seems like a post-hoc justification... you can
easily turn off auto search in Chrome. If you were really anal, you could do
what IE does and actually _ask_ the user for permission before hitting the
search engine. There is really no reason why the search bar has to be kept
separate, other than user comfort. And that is not a bad thing: there is no
need to start making up excuses for it.

~~~
nwh
Even if it's turned off you can leak information. Mis-type a local hostname
and suddenly your secret URL is public to Google. I've done this more than a
few times.

~~~
magicalist
That's a different setting. You're looking for "Use a web service to help
resolve navigation errors"

~~~
nwh
Different again actually, it's just a failing in the detection of
hostname/search term which I couldn't find a setting to disable.

------
kawa
I really ask myself why they insist to put the tabs on top. With todays
widescreen-displays, putting them left or right makes more sense for most use
cases (at least with FF its possible to get this via add-on). OTOH they try to
get rid of every pixel to get a bit more space while there are lots of at the
left and at the right. Do all developers only work on 13" laptops today?

~~~
m_mueller
Absolutely. Having the tab placement customizable is something I miss from the
Opera.

~~~
nicolasp
You should check out Tree Style Tab [1]. I always have a lot of tabs open and
I can't live without it. It lets you choose where to put the tab bar, among
other settings.

[1] [https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/tree-style-
tab/](https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/)

~~~
roryokane
It would be better to choose a simpler add-on, such as the ones recommended by
the Tree Style Tab developer at
[http://piro.sakura.ne.jp/xul/_treestyletab.html.en](http://piro.sakura.ne.jp/xul/_treestyletab.html.en),
in the section “Similar or Related Extensions”.

> _I want a simple vertical tab, without tree features._

> Vertical Tabs
> ([https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/108862/](https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/108862/)),
> VertTabbar
> ([https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/8045](https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/8045))
> or Vertigo
> ([https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/1343](https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/1343))
> can do it.

Tree Style Tab has lots of bugs for me, like permanently hiding the navigation
bar after I exit full-screen, and scrolling all the way to the bottom of the
tab list whenever I restore a closed tab. I still use it because I love being
able to organize my tabs hierarchically, but if someone only wants vertical
tabs, they should choose a simpler add-on that is less likely to have bugs.

------
cpeterso
Regarding incremental UI changes, I recall reading that Google staged Chrome's
tab style and color redesigns over multiple releases, presumably to avoid
upset users. I'm not sure whether to admire their concern for user confusion
or to feel like the dupe of some magician's sleight of hand. :)

Unfortunately, I can find that page now.

------
tambourine_man
Why have reverse tabs won? Has anyone done any usability test on them? On OS
X, with a space left for the hit area of only 10px tall, it's really hard to
drag a window that uses them. For context, 10px is about half the cursor's
height.

I can see a reason for them on Win/Linux, but I find them completely unfit for
the Mac. I guess people just maximize the window and leave it at that.

On the other hand, I'm glad there's still a distinction between the search box
and the address bar. The annoyance of omnibar mistaking a url for a search
query and vice-versa, even admitting it's a rare event, is not worth the
trouble to me. Besides, educating the user on such difference seems important
to me.

~~~
ggchappell
> Why have reverse tabs won?

What are "reverse tabs"?

~~~
hayksaakian
The parent is implying that safari style tabs are the proper version, and that
chrome, Firefox, and IE are using 'reverse tabs'

~~~
tambourine_man
Actually, Chrome invented them and everyone followed.

Safari is just the only one that didn't.

~~~
math0ne
Firefox had this long before chrome was even out...

~~~
tambourine_man
[http://www.blogcdn.com/downloadsquad.switched.com/media/2007...](http://www.blogcdn.com/downloadsquad.switched.com/media/2007/11/firefox3_tabswitch2.jpg)

And IE7: [http://winsupersite.com/site-
files/winsupersite.com/files/ar...](http://winsupersite.com/site-
files/winsupersite.com/files/archive/winsupersite.com/content/content/127198/reviews/ie7_b2_review_02.jpg)

~~~
Excavator
[http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=2600816](http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=2600816)

------
Ortsac
I like it, but I'm seeing some serious similarities to chrome. If I had not
seen this announcement and I quickly glanced at those screenshots, I would not
think it was Firefox.

~~~
lingben
yes but believe it or not, the new firefox UI/UX has been in the works for so
long and chrome's development so quick that it seems like firefox was inspired
by chrome when in fact that didn't happen

~~~
mbrubeck
I'm a Firefox developer and I don't think this is true. As far as I know, most
of the key elements of the Firefox 29 theme redesign emerged after the last
major UI redesign (Firefox 4) was released in 2011.

~~~
blueskin_
Can I ask you why Mozilla removed so many useful customisation options for
australis?

------
rectangletangle
The new UI looks really solid to me. FF's current UI has felt dated for quite
some time now, and this is the overhaul it needed.

------
rasz_pl
Its hilariously sad how new UI skin is touted as reimagining the whole
browser.

Opera had fully customizable UI 12 years ago? And look at us now, somehow we
moved back in functionality, even Opera nowadays is nothing more than a bad
non-customizable Chrome skin :(

I dread the day most of the web stops working on Opera 12.16. I wont be even
able to tune Chromium to my specific needs, after all it requires 16GB of ram
to compile now (and that number will probably grow).

------
Garbage
Have been using most of these things in Nightly. It's a pleasant experience.
:)

------
childoftv
Cached version here:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3QAbOyV...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3QAbOyVw9BsJ:www.donotlick.com/firefox-
and-flux-a-new-beautiful-browser-is-coming/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

~~~
Boriss
Thank you!

------
ASneakyFox
Opera's recent ui change atleast had a purpose.. they were trying to innovate
and bring forth the browser features that their stars determined people use
most.

Firefox here. As far as I can tell is just saying "ok we decided to shuffle
the buttons around again"

Haven't been using firefox since they switched their patch number schema. But
I still feel a little sad seeing them seal their own fate.

------
beaker52
"Mozilla releases update featuring curved tabs with brand new radius"

------
DavideNL
So many changes nowadays.. isn't there anything that remains the same,
something we can rely on in this chaotic world lol :'(

Anyways, I was hoping the 'zooming' and 'back/forward page swiping animation
(on a trackpad)' would be improved, to be more smooth/sexy like it is in
Safari on OS X. Unfortunately this hasn't been changed however..

------
kondro
Just restarted FireFox and it seems to be here now. I don't think I like the
UI of inactive tabs, but the rest is fine.

~~~
tkmcc
I agree, the inactive tabs are not very distinguishable or readable and
starkly contrast the active tab's light grey when using a darker color theme
on Windows 8.1. Everything else seems great so far, though.

------
clarry
The post goes to great lengths to say they're doing a big, meaningful overhaul
instead of a UI tweak. However, the examples given are nothing more than a
bunch of tweaks (and not necessarily ones I like). It sounds like someone is
trying to build up hype over nothing.

------
pjzedalis
The only reason I use Safari is the beautiful smooth as butter pinch to zoom.

------
nikbackm
Are there any functional changes other than moving some buttons and menus
around a little?

I like Firefox and will continue to use it, but I just don't see what good
this update is supposed to accomplish.

~~~
batiudrami
Almost no new features, other than some flexilibility with the new Firefox
menu (you can add extension buttons to it, for instance).

Lots of customisation options have been removed (with the justification that
it prevents inexperienced users from 'breaking' the browser), like the
navigation buttons being locked to the address bar, the inability ability to
move the refresh button (urgh) and the addon bar. Most can be restored though
the Classic Theme Restorer addon, though it broke another of my addons last
time I tried it.

~~~
nikbackm
True, the new Firefox menu is much improved, but there still seems to be no
way to access it via the keyboard so it will probably remained largely unused
by me.

I like the new placement of the real menu bar (when enabled), much better than
in the previous versions.

~~~
batiudrami
I actually think that the orange 'Firefox' button was an important part of the
browser's branding. Sure, it was blatantly stolen from Opera, but it meant you
instantly could tell which browser someone was using. I think moving that
functionality to the new menu button was a mistake, and it makes the browser
look a lot more generic/Chrome-like (and is also against all existing windows
conventions which says administrative functions should be in the top left).

But, in terms of day-to-day usage, its location doesn't really matter much.

~~~
zobzu
actually that one button appeared in firefox designs much before opera - there
was a big drama about it back then. opera had the same design but released
much faster than mozilla did.

back in the days they didnt have 6 week releases.

------
rcthompson
So, is Flux the new name for what they've been calling Australis?

~~~
myrdev
Either or that, or just meaning 'firefox and change'.

I read that as F.lux being incorporated somehow, and was very confused :P

------
spingsprong
Please don't take this the wrong way, but what are you doing with your
browser?

Up until a few years ago, I used an oldish single core processor and I never
had any problems with the performance of a browser.

For the past few years I've had a dual core processor, and I still have never
had any performance problems, despite being on the internet for hours each
day.

The only times it's even remotely a problem, is when I try out some HTML5 demo
that runs the Unreal Engine through my browser, or something like that.

~~~
Semaphor
Rapidly (manually) opening, switching between sometimes 20 tabs always brought
FF to a crawl for me and is the reason why I always switched back to Chrome
after giving a new FF version a try for a week.

------
Grue3
If they are so obsessed with details, how did they miss that some people need
bookmarks star, but not the bookmarks menu button. For some (I'm sure
completely arbitrary) reason, it is impossible to decouple these two buttons
in Firefox, so instead of a little star in URL bar you get a honking huge two
button combo that takes like 6 times as much space (which is even more limited
in Australis since no addon bar).

------
philamonster
Bookmarks sidebar button and Add-on toolbar...nope, no one uses those AT ALL.
Now I have all that shit in the upper right-hand corner instead of lower left,
near Start Menu in Windows and have to use keyboard shortcuts to get to
bookmark sidebar, again in Windows. OS X I'm more adept with keyboard
shortcuts but monkey trained to use what he's been using last fucking decade
in Windows.

------
webwanderings
As long as it is faster than Chrome (in every possible way), I'll switch back
to it. Every second counts when people are on not-so-fast wires.

~~~
Cameron_D
I find a clean install of Firefox to be almost as fast as Chrome, and in some
places more responsive - particularly when opening the browser. Chrome will
get the basic UI up on the screen very fast but take a moment before you can
interact with it, Firefox is usable the moment it is on screen, even though
that time is slightly longer).

Chrome does have preloading of certain things which make loading some things
faster although there are addons that can replicate that on Firefox.

------
rectangletangle
What's with the purple cupcake at the top left?

~~~
spyder
A pinned tab:

[https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/pinned-tabs-keep-
favori...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/pinned-tabs-keep-favorite-
websites-open)

~~~
rectangletangle
Oh nice! That's one of my favorite features in Chrome.

------
abus
It looks absolutely terrible having addon icons crammed into the same bar as
everything else. What's the problem with the addon bar? There's even less view
pane area now because the top area is so large.

The active tab curve is feminine, not in a good way, but I can live with it.

It does feel faster though, maybe they broke some addons that were slowing it
down. Time will tell.

~~~
Boriss
You can add another bar in the customize menu and put add-ons on that bar, if
you prefer!

~~~
abus
How do you add a bar or spacing or separators?

~~~
Boriss
I believe you can't using the Customize UI, but for a hacky solution you could
add spaces in bookmark titles, like this:
[http://cl.ly/image/2Q2b3L3c061a](http://cl.ly/image/2Q2b3L3c061a)

------
xyos
does anyone know how to hide the navigation bar? (for vimperator users)
apparently they removed the option to hide it.

~~~
q_revert
[http://i.imgur.com/Ueqq29i.png](http://i.imgur.com/Ueqq29i.png) is what my
current vimperator browsing window looks like (ff27), the new changes make
this very difficult to replicate via changes to userChrome.css, but hopefully,
as it gets more exposure, these things will get ironed out

------
wingerlang
A bit of topic here. But does anyone know of any browser that has the URL-
field and bookmarks 50/50 on the same row? I don't really need to see the full
URL at all times, and I only have small amount of bookmarks. On top of that I
use a fairly small screen, so it would be great to combine them.

~~~
Boriss
Actually, you can do this in Firefox 29! Click the Customize hamburger-button
on the right and then click "Customize." Drag the search bar from the menu bar
down to the tools page. Then drag "Bookmarks Toolbar" up next to the URL bar.
It should display as your bookmarks, listed next to the URL bar. Here's how it
looks on my machine:
[http://cl.ly/image/1M3N3L0h3v1s](http://cl.ly/image/1M3N3L0h3v1s)

~~~
wingerlang
Neat. I might just go ahead and try it then and hope for it to come to Chrome
at some point.

------
Silhouette
Edit: Remove unnecessary snark.

It is still frustrating that a bunch of plug-ins appear to have been disrupted
because of removing the add-on/status bar, though. Not everything has moved to
the new location automatically, and it's not immediately obvious how to get
some of them back.

~~~
Osmose
I just installed JS Switch on Nightly and clicked the Menu(burger) icon, then
Customize, and was able to drag the JS Switch button into my toolbar.

(This does not address that it's crappy that icons that were in the addon bar
don't, say, automatically get put into the toolbar or trigger a message
notifying you how to get them back or anything, but oh well. EDIT: According
to another reply this may not be the case with all addons, seems like some
automagically get moved.)

~~~
Silhouette
Thank you, that did work for me as well.

------
mseri
You can already download it using the official link

[https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-29.0&os=osx&la...](https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-29.0&os=osx&lang=en-
US)

(change osx with wath you ned)

I assume they will update the website very soon

------
johnpowell
Has anyone figured out how to get the tabs below the address bar again? This
is horrible. I'm not really sure how to describe my hatred of this but it is
there. I love FF but if the tab bar can't be moved I think I might have to
switch to Safari.

~~~
id
Is there a browser.tabs.onTop preference in your about:config? Should be set
to false.

~~~
agapos
Even if it is there, it no longer works. Australis is tabs-on -top only.

------
joaomsa
While Australis is neat, doesn't bother my experience much since I use
pentadactyl heavily and most things seem to just work.

My pet bug still lays untouched though.
[https://bugzil.la/444284](https://bugzil.la/444284)

------
apunic
> Gone are the bulky angles and edges of tabs and menus. In Firefox 29, you’ll
> see streamlined, almost aerodynamic, curves giving emphasis to your current
> tab and subtly understating the rest.

5 years after Google Chrome introduced them [rounded tabs]

~~~
subsection1h
Horizontal tabs are so 2007. ;-) I'm still waiting for Chrome to have a
vertical tabs solution that's as good as Tree Style Tab for Firefox. Tabs
Outliner and other Chrome extensions are inadequate.

------
calpaterson
Have they tested this design on users? Did they make the records public?

~~~
kijin
Thunderbird has been using a variant of the Australis theme (rounded tabs,
menu button in the right) for over a year.

Firefox for Android also has been shipping with a similar theme for quite some
time.

So I suppose they've had ample opportunity to see how people react to it.

------
wwweston
"The Firefox UI is a moving target. It is under constant 'improvement', which
means 'change' which means every few months I'm forced to upgrade it and shit
has moved around and I need to re-learn how to do a task that I was happily
doing before. This does not often happen with Safari. Their UI has been
remarkably stable for many, many years."

[http://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/04/why-i-use-safari-instead-
of-...](http://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/04/why-i-use-safari-instead-of-firefox/)

~~~
batiudrami
That's not entirely fair - the last major Firefox design change was with
Firefox 4.0 - back in March 2011.

------
anandpdoshi
I am finding the new version to be snappier than usual. I like it. Now please
make the developer tools as good as chrome's.

------
z3phyr
I thought that they are switching to servo, but it turns out that they have
redesigned the interface?

~~~
robin_reala
Servo’s progressing well (it can render Acid2 now without problems) but it’s
missing a bunch of features that are pretty essential for a modern browser.
It’s absolutely still at ‘research project’ stage.

------
lonelycrypto
Already used these features in Nightly build

------
abus
Firefox really hates the users who like it because it's customisable and only
caters to minimalist-preferring Chrome users who will use Chrome anyway.

------
lnlyplnt
looks good, I'll have to try it out. Chrome has been acting up for me lately.

------
JasonFruit
It's still a browser from the people who allowed a mob to push Brendan Eich
out because he donated money to support a political cause that was and is not
only legal but reflective of the views of a large minority of Americans. It's
pretty, but I think I'll pass.

~~~
RodericDay
I believe exactly the opposite of this. I use Firefox in no small part due to
ideological reasons (ie: I would use it even if it wasn't the best, just
because I like the values they allege to stand for), and if they had let the
CEO get a pass I would have literally uninstalled it and looked for something
else.

~~~
JasonFruit
I'm not surprised to find that there are people who disagree with me. I'm
pleased, however, to hear that you would have acted on your convictions.

~~~
zobzu
im surprised people choose to use or not use firefox depending on the ceo. the
ceo doesnt take many decisions, the whole community does. some of them paid,
and many unpaid.

by taking these - IMO - baseless decisions, you're only hurting the thousands
of people putting their time, blood and tears without any commercial interest
into firefox, not the ceo's you agree/disagree with.

remember that mozilla has no shareholders, the ceos dont get stock options,
just a salary. its wholly owned by the mozilla foundation.

------
frozenport
Looks like Opera!

------
blueskin_
...and here's a contrasting opinion:

[http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/p/30903/355158.aspx](http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/p/30903/355158.aspx)

Australis is removing configurations options for absolutely no reason. If
people want chrome, they'll use it. I don't care if mozilla want to ruin the
default as long as they give people who want a normal browser a way out, but
instead they are removing everything they can get their hands on.

Firefox is dumbing down. That's fine if it's IE, Chrome or Safari where the
majority of users think said browser _is_ 'the internet', but Firefox is for
power users. People who like their privacy, who want to customise their
software to their own use case, and who are rapidly running out of options in
a world filled with shitty software that assumes the user has a room
temperature IQ, removes options and metro-ifies everything while primarily
existing to make money off your private information. Even Mozilla are not only
dumbing down, but switching to privacy invasion mode with in-browser ads, and
replacing their secure sync with one that drops it all on their servers
presumably unencrypted as it works with a basic username/password.

Classic theme restorer: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/classicthemer...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/)

What we really need is a fork of Firefox.

~~~
quicksilver03
> What we really need is a fork of Firefox.

The Pale Moon and Cyberfox browsers are forks of Firefox and they will not
merge the Australis UI. I'm already using and liking Pale Moon, it's still not
on par with Opera 12.17 though but is better than Firefox.

I'll see how Australis looks like on my boxes, but I'm not very hopeful: I
like having a proper menu bar, tabs at the very bottom of the window, and a
status bar, I couldn't care less for a touch-like interface on a desktop where
I have a functioning mouse and keyboard.

~~~
agapos
> The Pale Moon and Cyberfox browsers are forks of Firefox

Those are hardly anything more current source codes complied differently, with
a few switches flipped here and there, certainly not real forks.

Also, the only reason many of these so called Fx "forks" do not ship Australis
is because they are on the ESR line.

