Mozilla Plans Major Design Overhaul With Firefox 25 Release In October 250
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla is planning a major design overhaul of its flagship browser with the release of Firefox 25, slated to arrive in October. The company makes a point to discuss its plans for changes openly, and this upcoming new version is by no means an exception. In fact, even though Firefox 22 is in the Beta channel, Firefox 23 is in the Aurora channel, and Firefox 24 is in the Nightly channel, Mozilla has set up a special Nightly UX channel for Firefox 25. Grab it here."
Finally looks exactly like Chrome (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Finally looks exactly like Chrome (Score:4, Insightful)
not useless for me, it allow me to write things in the URL without sending every keystroke to Google, you know, like which host names I write there. The integrated search and URL field on Chrome behaves for me like the Ubuntu integrated search. I don't want to send everything I write there to Google. You can disable this in Chrome but you loose search predictions, so or you send eveything or we (Google) will not give you predictions. With Firefox I have predictions without sending every keystroke when I write a url
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Re:Finally looks exactly like Chrome (Score:5, Insightful)
The address bar is for addresses. It is a horrible horrible UI mistake to have turned it into a search feature. The url is correct or it isn't. Don't bullshit around with it.
Re:Finally looks exactly like Chrome (Score:5, Informative)
coincidentally, IE gets confused on the corporate intranet with aliases seemingly all the time, where i have to put the http:/// [http] in there to show I'm not searching for a corporate server on google.
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Exactly. not every valid URL has a top level domain, and this can consistently confuse browsers who have the UI error of using an address bar for searches.
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basically it doesn't play nice with local DNS always.
Re:Finally looks exactly like Chrome (Score:5, Insightful)
Its completely broken with perfectly legitimate local DNS URLs. And can also error on IP addresses entered manually.
Like it or not, it breaks standards. That may be cool with you, but its worth shit to anyone who is more than a trivial user.
Re:Finally looks exactly like Chrome (Score:4, Funny)
Hey now, whipper-snapper! We greybeards use IP addresses, not these new-fangled "names" you weak kids seem to need to find anything.
Now quick, calculate the tip on a $27.50 meal, without asking Siri!
Re:Finally looks exactly like Chrome (Score:4, Informative)
Safari 6 has a bug like that. I think Safari is overall a fine browser, and I use to be very happy to use it as an alternative to Firefox's slow pokey waitiness. But it has a one-two combination of Amazing Stupidity, which make it virtually unusable for me.
1) It removes the protocol from the URL bar, so that entering (or clicking a link to) "http://example" becomes "example" in the URL bar. That's unnecessary and could never possibly be useful, but nevertheless, alone it would be mostly harmless.
2) It asks some search engine what the things in the URL bar mean, if you don't enter a protocol. That's unnecessary and not very useful, but alone it would be mostly harmless.
Together, they add up to lethal unusability.
If I go to "http://example?foo=bar1" then it works. But if I then I change bar1 to bar2 and hit enter, it goes to something like "http://google.com/?q=example%3Ffoo=bar2"
Stupid, stupid, stupid. (And Safari 4 didn't have this bug. Never tried 5.) This one thing, switched me to Chrome at work. And it discourages firing up Safari to test things. Guess what that means for run-of-the-mill users. I really hope someone at Apple got fired over this staggering incompetence. If not, then in a few years, Mac OS will be about as useful as iOS, i.e. not at all.
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Only if they make the fundamental implementation error of not defaulting to resolving the address bar entry as an address first, and only if it is unresolvable as an address resorting to search.
Which, I would argue, is the only error involved, not the error of having a unified "what do yo want" bar that can be used either to provide an address or a search
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Did they ever fix that issue where using certain search engines to look for a URL would register that URL with an astroturfer? If not, then even your ideal case will produce unintended consequences if the user has the wrong search provider.
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coincidentally, IE gets confused on the corporate intranet with aliases seemingly all the time, where i have to put the http:/// [http] in there to show I'm not searching for a corporate server on google.
Trying putting a trailing dot or ./ on the server name, in some environments that works for me. Save yourself a bunch of keypresses. When it works it is because of the internals of how DNS does lookups.
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I don't like the "type in something and it will search" much, but what I do really like is the named searches you can do from it. For me, "g " will search Google, "w " wikipedia, "nws " will bring up the weather forecast, etc.
It's almost like a command line for common searches, and the space means it basically can't be confused with a URL.
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Oh good... this should have said, for example "g <blah<" and "g <zip>", etc.
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Yes. And that makes it a horrible horrible UI mistake. Search and URL are two very different things and should never ever be entered from the same UI element.
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ls and cat are not entered from the same ui element, not really. once you enter the ls or cat command the following data is distinct for its intended purpose. Your command line doesn't have to figure out what if you wanted to ls or car "stuff", because you used the appropriate command.
With a combo search/url bar, "stuff" can be a valid domain under your local DNS, but your shit-tastic box will search for it instead of navigating there.
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except your command line isn't "stuff" its "ls stuff" or "cat stuff". Entering the specific command changes the intent of the data that comes after it. Effectively making the "stuff" a different part of the UI based on the context of the "ls"|"cat" command that preceded it. But when you enter text in a combo url/search bar, you just enter "stuff" and then hit enter or the "Go to the address in the location bar" arrow. There is nothing you can do to distinctly tell it to search or navigate.
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ls and cat are not entered from the same ui element, not really. once you enter the ls or cat command the following data is distinct for its intended purpose.
What? I type both in the same place, and it shows the results in the same place. Works the same in a browser.
I'm positive that Nadaka is trying to gently remind you that you should actually have one keyboard for typing URI addresses and another keyboard for typing search queries. :-)
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Why am I focusing on "stuff" instead of the command? Hello! because that is what you are acting on. entering data into a command line is pointless without a command to run.
The thing is, you already have full access to a perfectly useful search tool in the search box (on firefox).
There is absolutely no need to dilute the purpose of the url bar with it.
This is a thing that has NO positive benefits, only negative.
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In the comparison with ls and cat, a unified search/url input in the same GUI element you would basically have to type something like "http://xxxxx" to go to an url ans something like "search://xxxxx" to do a search, wo work like the CLI. There is a huge difference between "ls 30_gig_file" or "cat 30_gig_file" or even "rm 30_gig_file". You have to tell the software somehow to do WHAT action with WHICH object when you want to be sure about the result.
So far in the browser there where two fields for the two d
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All of your benefits are meaningless.
1: You can adjust the relative size of the search bar and the address bar manually. And it could have been done automatically.
2: You only need one shortcut to switch focus to the either one, it just happens to be a different shortcut for each (as it should be)
3: the firefox search box allows you to select different search providers already. and your keyword searches could have been incorporated there instead.
You could achieve every advantage by updating the search box an
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There's several aliasing problems.
First, many valid searches are also valid URLs. You likely never encounter this if you don't have a local intranet that you go to.
Second, many typos of otherwise-valid URLs are indistinguishable from non-URLs and become searches. This can get confusing and also in the worst case leak some private information.
Third, there's the search provider. If you only ever search google, you're okay. I like to sometimes search wikipedia, sometimes search imdb, sometimes search hulu,
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Or, for that matter, mailto:intranet ?
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It breaks web standards and conflicts with local DNS and often times the manual entry of IP addresses.
It has no benefits compared to a separate search field, only flaws.
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It has no benefits compared to a separate search field, only flaws.
I disagree. In my opinion there is benefit to not wasting screen real estate. Some of us don't have much. That search bar is usually in the address bar, which shortens the address field, causing me to be unable to see some of the web address. If I am wanting to know what the web address says, then at that moment, I am not in need of a search field, and it would be nice if it could go away and make way for more address field. In fact, I cannot think of a time when I am even in need of an address field a
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If they were worried about screen real estate only, they could have added a mode button that switches it between search and url.
But as it is, they didn't and things are broken because of it.
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I don't care at all about the search bar.
What I care about is the functionality of the URL bar.
And the changes made to it have BROKEN it. It no longer works for many valid local DNS entries, it do longer works reliably for some IP addresses.
This and this alone is the problem. You want a fancier search option? GREAT! make a fancier search option. But don't you fucktards dare to corrupt and limit the function of the standard URL bar as it has existed for the entire history of the web.
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I am only being inflexible because they BROKE URL's.
Perfectly valid url's and in some cases perfectly valid IP addresses that I can not force to behave correctly in the browser by ANY means.
I type in what and I should navigate to what or get a server not found.
If I type in http://what just to be sure, I shouldn't be googling "what" (firefox) or going to what.com (chrome).
Damn right I am inflexible. This shit is deliberately broken, and there is not one valid reason or excuse for it.
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in firefox the search box shortcut is control-k. f5 just refreshes the current page, and has nothing to do with searching.
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Actually, it's called an address bar, not a search bar. By your logic, why don't we just open our OS's with a single blinking cursor and imply what we want by typing it in. Thankfully we moved away from that in the 90s, lets not re-invent history.
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Have you missed the new Windows UI paradigm, where you just type in a few letters and - get this - it finds and starts the program you want to run? Finally, someone invented an easily useable interface. Thank you, Microsoft!
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My "useless search bar" lets me select between Google, Wikipedia, Amazon and (if I ever wanted to use it, which alas I don't) Twitter. So I can think "I wonder how much a breadmaker costs" or "which year did Henry VIII die" and find out the answer in one click. Can't do that by mashing keywords into the URL bar (as far as I know). I'd have to navigate to the site's front page first, and I've become accustomed to my technologically enhanced laziness.
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Can't do that by mashing keywords into the URL bar (as far as I know).
You can.
In Firefox, go to any website you want to set up a search for, right click on the search box, and choose "add keyword for this search". If you add, say, a keyword of "g" on Google, then "g foo" in your address bar will search Google. In Chrome, you'll choose "add as search engine."
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No, they made a lot of bad stuff fashionable. The only thing they did right was "Paste & Go" on the location bar context menu.
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No. Let's not forget Chrome's real claim to fame: it's multi-process. Different web pages don't need to be browsed in the same process. Give 'em some credit for that. Plenty of browsers still do the wrong thing here, Firefox being one of them.
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I disagree, Chrome did it wrong. And that's why the memory usage is so poor.
Firefox is still working on it, getting processes for the plugins and one for the UI at large and one for the content in the tabs basically. I wish they'd put more thought into that, rather than waste energy on stupid bullshit like this.
I do realize that it's different people, but I'm using Firefox because I don't want to use Chrome. At this point though, I might as well switch to Chrome as the Fx developers seem hell bent on turnin
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except ie did it first :/
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Please don't call that an invention.
Re:Finally looks exactly like Chrome (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps the thing that bothered me most about Chrome is there was no option to change history to:
Keep cookies
Keep downloads
But don't keep a log of the pages I've visited and don't change the colour of URLs that I've already clicked on (yeah, I know its minor but it bugs the crap out of me)
Instead, Google thinks you either need to be in super-secret-pr0n-surfing mode or keep a log of anything you visited (and show it in the address bar when you're searching).
Heck, I think even IE lets me have more control of my browsing history than Chrome does!
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Chrome also does a LOT of stuff wrong. I'd dump firefox but there's no reasonable alternative yet.
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Precisely, I've been using Firefox for over a decade now, and the developers seem hell bent on chasing everybody away from the browser. If I wanted to use Chrome, I would use Chrome. All the bullshit with the UI changes and the version number nuttiness aren't making me want to stay, the lack of reasonable alternatives is.
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But seriously, Chrome did a LOT of stuff right.
But they did at least one thing horribly, horribly wrong, and have at the same time managed to popularize it amongst many other products. Firefox jumped on board a while ago to some extent, but this new UI looks like they've gone balls-to-the-wall to "COPY CHROME" mode (just look at their new "Firefox menu" icon. It's a damned copy-and-paste of Chromes! What the hell! I don't understand why, but today's user interface designers are like marketing consultants -- they're all in a perpetual race to mindless
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This is the result of handing the responsibilities for UI design to graphic designers rather than to people who actually care about usability and logical consistency. A good UI is one that is out of the way when you don't need it, but easily accessible when you do. Where you can easily find the options that you commonly need efficiently, but where infrequently used options are located in a logical location.
And yes, getting it right is hard, but you're not likely to ever approximate it, if you're focused on
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It does look more like Chrome, although I think the curved edges waste even more space than the angled edges on Chrome (and they look different).
Re: Finally looks exactly like Chrome (Score:2)
Except the user experience that makes Chrome so popular was never its look. It had always been its responsiveness. Instead of copying superficial things like version numbers and menu buttons, Mozilla should have never abandoned Electrolysis, the multiprocess overhaul to Firefox.
Re:Finally looks exactly like Chrome (Score:4, Interesting)
Presumably because they think it'll stop the haemorrhaging of users to Chrome.
Ironically though it'll do the opposite, if Firefox looks like Chrome then I might as well just start using Chrome as that's the last thing stopping me switching to Chrome.
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Fuck me, curved tabs instead of square ones. This major change has totally changed my mind about Firefox.
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Well it also does more damage to the default UI... Those curved tabs are just wasting space horizontal space.
Definitely taking the "be like google" approach to UI's seriously. E.g. recollect how Google Reader's UI continued to add wasteful whitespace everywhere over the years. The remake, CommaFeed is glorious in its compact nature. Thankfully, Google Reader is dead.
And thank goodness Firefox at least remains straight-forward to customize, unlike the various Google sites. (And I've tried; greasemonkey s
More change for change's sake? (Score:3)
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I came here to post a similar comment. Keep your damn fingers off of my Seamonkey, you god-damned dirty apes. It's the last bastion for those of us who want an old-school browser.
Also, "What, another major design overhaul? How many is that so far in the past 2-3 years?"
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I'm not.
But I may be soon.
For a certain definition of "design" (Score:5, Insightful)
Based on the headline, I mistook this story for something that might interest me.
From TFA, it's clear that the design overhaul refers to design in the sense of "graphic design," i.e., superficial appearance, not design in the sense of software architecture. So the headline would be better phrased, "Mozilla is planning changes in how the browser looks."
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Yeah, I actually got kind of excited, too. It was stupid of me to think that they were actually going to change something that matters.
It seems like Mozilla does nothing but try to piss off their old-school users, while ineffectually trying to appeal to Chrome users. Some of their changes have been good, and some have even been great, but the vast majority have just been perplexing.
From experience (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't redesign the UI once it's accepted by the users, you can't possibly improve it, it's already been accepted... just add features as you need to and stay within the design constraints of the UI.
However, if their goal is to have new devs join their team and venting their frustration, then... score!
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Don't redesign the UI once it's accepted by the users, you can't possibly improve it, it's already been accepted... just add features as you need to and stay within the design constraints of the UI.
THIS! I wish the hell Microsoft would follow this behavior.... Witness the crapfest known as Windows 8...
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8 or 8.1? :)
Re:From experience (Score:4, Funny)
Yes.
Re:From experience (Score:4, Insightful)
Once something has been learned, its really hard to un-learn it. I don't care if your alternative solution is "better" or not its automatically less usable because I have to change my muscle memory. Incremental changes can be good and in places where the "normal" UI hasn't been solidified change can be good! For example, with smartphones and consoles its quite possible to create a new UI that improves usability, because the technology to interface with the hardware is fairly new (capacitive touch-screens for phones, new controllers for consoles), but when it comes to the keyboard and mouse, just keep it the same, Firefox hasn't added anything beneficial UI-wise in the past 3 or 4 "design overhauls" and instead has added a good 15 minutes of tweaks I have to do to any fresh install.
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Dedicated developers seem to have a brain tumor in regards to this, they're always looking for ways to improve an application, but can't emphasize with the users that they are creating for. My biggest criticism of the Moz team is this disconnect and the fact that anybody with leadership/management experience can spot it in under 5 seconds, yet they haven't remedied it and instead maintain the attitude of we do w/e we cause we're OSI.
The big feature is rounded tabs (Score:3)
The new big feature is rounded tabs. Really. I'm so impressed.
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But they're moving the menu button!
You totally needed an add-on to do that before.
But yeah the last time I checked out the UX channel there was an awesome new Customize toolbar UI. It was broken at the time, but it looked like it would be great when they got it working.
Also the XP theming support looks nice. Chrome doesn't even bother to go that far.
Kill the link (Score:5, Informative)
It is very irresponsible to link to a dev branch of firefox without even including instructions on how to set up a separate profile for it. There is a good chance that it will mangle your profile in ways that will be incompatible with the final release or the current release should you choose to go back.
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It is very irresponsible to link to a dev branch of firefox without even including instructions on how to set up a separate profile for it. There is a good chance that it will mangle your profile in ways that will be incompatible with the final release or the current release should you choose to go back.
I assume most of us know about Nightly being one of the dev branches. I am a nightly user (despite various posts more or less swearing off firefox since 2010).
This UI version of nightly is news to me: It's so bleeding edge that the DL still had version #24 in the filename when I went to check. What intrigued me is why that is compiled to only EXE (installer has bigger chance of overwriting your current live EXE, unless they now use C:\Program Files\...\Nightly) and no zip file.
Every time I go on a new compu
Kill off the add-on bar? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a balance between clutter and functionality. They're obsessed with what they must consider to be a "clutter problem" where there really isn't any; it's not clutter if the user wants it that way. Clutter is in the mind of the beholder.
There IS a clutter problem (Score:2)
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I'm currently typing this in Firefox 21 via Ubuntu (with Unity) on a 10" screen, and I don't see any clutter problem. The top line of my screen is taken up with the system tray, including the File, Edit etc. menus. Next row is the tabs. Next row is my URL bar and Search bar. Rest of the screen is all content. What on earth could be further reduced without breaking my experience? Get rid of the tabs? Get rid of the URL & search bars?
At some point, there is nothing to be gained from reduction, only things
Booo, hissss (Score:5, Insightful)
First: Search for the addon Status-4-evar [sic] to keep/replace your status bar.
Second: Product manager Asa Dotzler, is this the same person responsible for some of the abominable changes in 4.0?
Third: "Separate Bookmark Star from locationBar and merge with Bookmarks Menu item", well that sucks. (Also, if you hate having stop and refresh as one button, edit the tool bar and drag stop to the left of refresh. Who's bright idea was it to combine those two? I want to hit stop, and if I hit it more than once, it starts to refresh the entire page. The exact opposite of what I want!)
Fourth: Tabs under the address bar please. I don't care about your ideas about how it's illogical, I am more likely to want to change tabs than to click on the address bar, and if I need to get to the address bar I can use ctrl-L or alt-D.
Fifth: I hate the Chrome UI, the new MSIE UI and similar. Don't do it to Firefox as well!
Sixth: From the article: "In this vein, there is a discussion of removing the Add-on Bar completely, killing user-created custom toolbars, and having the main toolbar feature a dedicated area for add-on buttons and widgets instead." What a bloody awful idea. What will I do with my Web Developer toolbar [chrispederick.com] than?
Seventh: It doesn't matter what anyone thinks, Mozilla will push these changes through regardless. Just because. We can only hope that addons will be developed to revert the more moronic changes (like getting rid of the status bar).
Re:Booo, hissss (Score:5, Informative)
Sixth: From the article: "In this vein, there is a discussion of removing the Add-on Bar completely, killing user-created custom toolbars, and having the main toolbar feature a dedicated area for add-on buttons and widgets instead."
Heh. "Discussion". This is what discussion means [mozilla.org].
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Yeah I agree, I've had to find ways to "undo" most of their UI changes in the last couple of years.
I like my statusbar with add-on info on the bottom of the window. I didn't like losing the statusbar but at least there still was an addon bar I could use for the info at the bottom of the window. I don't want add-on info being moved to the top toolbar area.
I like having a forward/back dropdown so that I can see where I am in my back/forward history and select how far forward or back to go next. I had to insta
Now that I use Chrome... (Score:2)
Dear Mozilla, (Score:5, Informative)
If I wanted such Chrome, I would have installed Chrome. Fuck off.
Signed, the internet
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Dear the internet,
despite your declaration of love, I see you've been unfaithful lately:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Usage_share_of_web_browsers_(Source_StatCounter).svg [wikipedia.org]
hugs,
Mozilla
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Dear Mozilla,
Try plotting those dates on the X axis against the Mozilla 4.0 alpha/beta/release cycle and the final end of support for 3.6.x. Go on.
So, since that UI change to be more like Chrome was demonstrably a failure, you're going to try being even more Chrome-like? Did you fall and hit your head?
My advice? Dump that Asa Dotzler shithead and actually try to win us back.
Your ex,
The Internet
Why Do Users Need Two Chromes? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's been widely known for sometime that Firefox developers have been suffering from a terrible case of Chrome-Envy. When Chrome started gaining market share, and Firefox stagnated(market-share wise) there was great gnashing of teeth. What did people see in Chrome? They couldn't figure it out, so their answer was to slowly but surely turn Firefox into a Chrome clone. Rapid release? Check! Remove most of the UI? Check!
Much to their shock, however, this strategy hasn't increased their market share any as users continue to defect to Chrome over Firefox.
In the very near future, Firefox will be almost completely indistinguishable from Chrome. Oh, sure, Gecko and Blink will still have some differences in the way they will handle things, there will be some minor differences in the browsers themselves-but these will be the kind of differences that are completely non-apparent to your average user.
Once this happens, and Mozilla has successfully eliminated everything that made Firefox unique and valuable, people will ask 'why do we need a browser that looks and acts like just like Chrome when we already have Chrome?'
How about OS integratoin (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, nice going making a new look and feel that you carry over across OSs. But how about respecting the look and feel the user chose? You know, on gnome, use gnome-like tabs, and gnome-like menus. On plain linux, try and see if the user configured gtk or qt with some theme, and use that. On KDE, use KDE's theme, etc...
It looks like firefox worries more about branding these days than it does about OS integration. Sure, we love firefox, but why don't you make it more integrated into our everyday lives, instead of making it stick out so much? We already have Chrome for that!
Ahhhh (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't you just love change for the sake of change?. Incidentally, can any of you fine /.ers point me in the direction of some Firefox forks so I can be prepared when they force this change on everyone?. I'm not a slave last time I checked, I hate being forced for silly reasons; especially reasons that are the result of jealousy of other browsers.
If they do this, you might as well just use Chromium or Chrome, it would be a whole lot faster at least.
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If you want to avoid change, try the extended support release.
It's currently on v17: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all.html [mozilla.org]
It gets security patches from the current version without any nags to upgrade.
Re:Ahhhh (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you might be making an entire mountain range out of a pygmy molehill.
No, OP is not. OP is voicing a widespread concern amongst users. Obfuscating controls is trendy right now as the web is continuing to morph. Creating reliance on 'cloud' services, 'app stores' and 'search' serves only the providers and removes options from the masses. Call this 'walled garden' mentality paranoia, evolution or behavior modification... the fact is usability is being eroded in lieu of monetization.
This is a concern for me, the customer. Not me, the 'product'.
Curved Tabs? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not really sure what the point of changing to curved tabs is except to make Firefox look exactly like Chrome. And I'll be pretty annoyed if this takes away the ability to enable the menu bar at all.
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They foisted curved tabs on thunderbird users some time ago. It's possible to correct it with themes, but as I couldn't find any themes that were basically "default theme but without ugly rounded tabs" and there's no about:config option for it, I had to resort to editing the userchrome.css file - something that I'm now probably going to have to do on all my FF installations too.
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=2110991&postcount=5 [wilderssecurity.com]
No HiDPI support? (Score:2)
According to these mockups [mozilla.com], all the sizes are pixel-based. One would think that with hidpi displays already coming out (including retina), they'be be designing vector-based and some unit relative to font-size or something.
A hostage to fortune. (Score:2)
One of the things I've liked most about linux (and other *nix systems, such as FreeBSD) is that a system is build up of small programs that you can combine in various ways to get someone that pleases you, the user. That's the unix way. For example, my "desktop" is a combination of a number of programs, including a display manager, window manager, terminal, and file manager. It turns out that I can replace one part (for whatever reason) and get an overall desktop that works in the same way. And it has
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NCSA Mosaic (Score:2)
Opt-out (Score:2)
Can I at least opt out of this crap? I still have my installation of Firefox set up to use the classic menus and no tabs. I'm not going to be a happy camper at all if they start breaking that layout.
If the current trends with Firefox development keep up, it might be time to create a "Firefox Classic" fork, with the traditional UI, traditional status bar, and traditional address bar so you don't have to grub around for add-ons to get it to work the way we're used to.
More important things to do (Score:2)
Such as fixing the fact that it has a tendency to peg the CPU while loading pages? with multi-core machines, there's no reason why it should lag my computer while waiting for a page to download. TCP/IP isn't that hard on a cpu.
They are *way* more important things to fix than try to be another Chrome.
Always eye candy (Score:3)
Why do they always focus on eye candy? The browser is in a need of some serious overhaul for memory usage, memory leakage, crashes, threading, multi core and some serious basic core fixes.
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Why do they always focus on eye candy? The browser is in a need of some serious overhaul for memory usage, memory leakage, crashes, threading, multi core and some serious basic core fixes.
Because the eye candy is easier and more fun to implement. This is a chronic problem with OSS development: difficult but necessary tasks get pushed back, while developers advance work on the features they want to work on.
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about how a company is forcing a UI design on to you.
I guess you could go completely hardcore and use Uzbl (http://www.uzbl.org/) as your browser, where you can actually script the UI (or have the script be the UI) around the actual browser core. At least that's the impression I'm getting from it.
What keeps me using Firefox is the add-ons, though.
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They have had nightly, beta, and stable forever. I remember tinkering with those channels back in 2005.
The only thing that has changed is that today's geeks apparently have a hangup with any sort of change in version numbering.
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Also,I use Firefox because (among other things) its interface is not like Chrome. I hate Chrome style interface. If FF forces me to use Chrome style interface I'll switch to Opera - last time I checked it was possible to configure it as I want.
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