A fresh new Firefox is here

[Krenum]

Their title not mine!

Oh, no I wasn't fixing it for you.

I wish Mozilla gave us a choice to keep the old look. This new one looks like my browser is full screened all the time.

 

[Ebernanut]

My issue was where did the desktop go... and how do I get it back. Its super easy to switch back and forth once you figure out why the desktop went all broke AF. Its also the fact that now to get to the settings for things like say, microphone levels, what used to be two clicks is now something like 4-5... and its still exactly the same dialog it was in win 7, you just have to click through the settings ap first, now.

I've never had it change the desktop, I think full screen mode for applications and the start menu works differently but regardless everything returns to the way it was when I change it back.

The controls for settings are definitely all screwed up in 10, everything takes more steps and there's a few things that you can't even do without opening the old control panel or wading through device manager, I think one of the last major updates might have even removed the legacy control panel too.

 

[travm]

I think one of the last major updates might have even removed the legacy control panel too.

 

[ng4ever]

What is the state of the browser market? I know Chrome has the most but I don't care. What about other browsers how do they all rank ?

 

[MaZa]

I used Waterfox until it was quietly sold to a shady data mining company last year which is extra bad considering it started out as a privacy oriented browser.

Well, shit. From a fire into a firepit. Are there any other Firefox based builds that I should check? Chromium based ones are okay too, its just tabs must be under navigation/search bar or otherwise my OCD flares up badly. 😅

 

[sharknice]

What is the state of the browser market? I know Chrome has the most but I don't care. What about other browsers how do they all rank ?

On desktop it's about 70% chrome, 12% edge, 6% firefox, 3% safari, 3% are still using internet explorer.... 1% opera, and then 4% using others.

But most browsing is done on mobile now which is almost all Chrome and Safari.

 

[ng4ever]

On desktop it's about 70% chrome, 12% edge, 6% firefox, 3% safari, 3% are still using internet explorer.... 1% opera, and then 4% using others.

But most browsing is done on mobile now which is almost all Chrome and Safari.

Thanks.

 

[michalrz]

Got hit with it yesterday.
The UI (especially the tabs) slightly reminds me of old KDE-style controls. I loved KDE 3.

Too bright though, had to switch to a dark theme in order to keep the screen from burning my retinas come evening.

I see they added more vertical padding/margins between individual entries in the drop-down menus, and I appreciate the ease of aiming at things that that provides.

A solid 3.6 Roentgen, not great not terrible, which is already pretty good in my book considering the downward spiral almost every company has gone down these last few years.

I appreciate they didn't (yet again) disable this area, which is vital to my FF experience lol. Been using it like that since day 2 or so.

 

[DanNeely]

unfortunately, from what I have read, this workaround will be "fixed" in the next update and you won't be able to revert it.
I might have to look into the ESR version because I really can't stand this "new and improved" UI

It looks like they've missed the cutoff to remove it in v90, but will be doing so for v91 so they don't need to carry it into the next ESR release.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1709425

 

[SvenBent]

My claim is that as a company, Mozilla is working in the wrong direction, and that I'm not going to bother checking to see how they control my information. They already stated they have an interest in being gatekeepers, not browser builders.



It opens up with deplatforming isn't enough. That's literally the opposite of transparency. The article isn't seeking to be "transparent" when it goes after advertisers and content creators, it wants to dox people and block their voices.

Also, I a cannot stress this enough, the changes to Firefox make it look like hammered shit on a sidewalk.

To quote yourself "A *browser* company that aims to restrict what people see, think, and say, fails to perform in its *primary* function."
So stop changing your claim just because you lag the ability to back it up.

oh I see you are reading snippets/headlines making up your own interpretation of it and ignores where things are explained.
Because the article is clearly stating it is about transparency about who pays for what information to be delivered. Not stopping the info. Nothing is being blocked. you just stop reading after after a few lines.

But I can see now the issue here seems to be more of a political fanboys-ism than technical/logical arguments.


P.S.
Your "also" is irrelevant for your original claim.

 

[RanceJustice]

Well, shit. From a fire into a firepit. Are there any other Firefox based builds that I should check? Chromium based ones are okay too, its just tabs must be under navigation/search bar or otherwise my OCD flares up badly. 😅

Well, baseline Firefox is likely suitable if you customize the appearance / settings or use addons. See if you can customize it to serve your needs and if not, exactly what is blocking you from doing what you wish ; it may not be necessary to move toanother entire project at all but if it is, its good to know which may have the solutions you needd

Forks tend to fall into two categories - some are "pre-Quantum" (ie prior to Firefox 56 I think it was) that changed over from XUL to WebExtensions among a ton of other changes for security and performance, but some features were lost thanks to sandboxing and restriction of the new extension API for security vs what could be done previously. Thus, some preferred the old way . There were some browsers that attemped to maintain the "old XUL" layout and features, attempting to support everything that Firefox changed with Quantum. A few managed to focus on the "old" features and support them yet also supporting modern web standards, features and updates, but a great many more became an outdated broken mess as time went on or - perhaps even worse - horribly insecure patchwork. A handful tried to meld the old and the new together, supporting XUL alongside WebExtensions and e10 multiprocess, but the amount who managed to do it safely and effectively were small and questionable. The best of the "old type" ( still libre) forks worth checking out are likely PaleMoon , Basilisk, K-Meleon, or SeaMonkey ; there are many more that are no longer updated.

There are a handful of modern Firefox forks that are often "pre-tweaked" versions of the latest tech. They may remove certain features or content that is deemed of concern (ie even the possibility of telemetry, WebRTC, the DRM plug-ins etc) and often bundle some privacy/security add-ons (ad/content blockers, HTTPS, anti-fingerprinting etc...often very similar or the very same addons you can find and install on Firefox or any compatible browser). Right now the most up to date and popular of these are GNU IceCat and LibreWolf, with the latter being particularly noteworthy in recent months as a "pre-tweaked" Firefox. I've pointed a few towards LibreWolf as good starting place for those who want the modern experience of Firefox but want some of the privacy and addon tweaks (ie like installing uBlock Origin) already provided.

Definitely feel free to give the forks a try, as I feel they are more desirable than simply moving to something Chrome/ium based when one disagrees with a design or feature decision Mozilla made for Firefox. Do keep in mind however that they all depend upon Firefox and Mozilla for development to a degree; the "modern" forks the vast majority for the important elements yet users at least will likely be counted as FF users by metrics, whereas the "old" forks less so though still of importance yet users are less likely to be recorded as FF due to more significant variations so consider a UserAgent spoofing addon . If Firefox usage across the board continues to decline, it will be unlikely that hobbyist developers could easily replicate Firefox development were Mozilla devs were to cease. Thus, in the interest of keeping Google with Chrome/ium + Blink engine from having nearly uncontested web engine use (among other privacy and security reasons) , it is worth it using Firefox in some form and to be sure that if you're using a fork or variant that typical metrics will record it as modern Firefox. Hope this helps!

 

[illli]

Firefox has an identity crisis. The organization wants to make it like Chrome to attract new users. But current users want the same old experience.

As someone that used firefox since before it was called firefox, I started to notice this trend around/after FF 4. Back then they had incremental version updates, but chrome had complete new version numbers for almost every release. I feel like the people at the company saw that google was doing, and next thing you know they were having rapidly inflating version numbers too. And today we are on version 89 lol

A few versions after FF 4, you saw them switch to "new and improved" Australis GUI... which looked too similar to be a coincidence like chrome. I remember back then a lot of people didn't like that look either. But at least at that time you could easily change it. Back then FF had a few hundred full themes, that could customize the entire look of the browser. Everything from icons to the tab shape and it was great. Then some years later they did their hardest to bury this (you had to really dig around the mozilla site to find them), and then they used the excuse of "hardly anyone uses the full themes" to gut it from the browser and only leave a very basic theming implementation instead. I don't remember when in the timeline this happened but humorously someone came out with an add-on for "classic theme restorer" that made it look like the older GUI of firefox. I think there was a high demand for it, but then FF eliminated XUL and that was the end of that.

 

[michalrz]

Whenever I hear the term "rolling release" I imagine a little dung beetle pushing a massive turd-ball in front of itself, which is so large it obscures its vision and in turn, causes the little guy to fall off a cliff.

 

[sunruh]

Whenever I hear the term "rolling release" I imagine a little dung beetle pushing a massive turd-ball in front of itself, which is so large it obscures its vision and in turn, causes the little guy to fall off a cliff.

ahhhh...you mean agile

 

[D-EJ915]

Only change I don't like is how you have to hover over the icon for it to show the speaker icon now where before it always showed.

 

[GNUse_the_force]

Slight update to my prior post regarding the firefox based 'librewolf' alternative. This has just been updated to FF89 and has the new look. For some reason it looked more compact than firefox itself side by side, until i realized that it is taking advantage of native window borders & headers. This means that the tabs themselves are located in the window 'frame' controls area thus saving space
Not only that you can still run compact mode (for now, until they decided to remove it) as explained in the previous post to make it even more space efficient.

example.. (sorry for the crap image quality, the compression nuked it) but yea very compact yet with all the standard information available.

edit* this also applies to the Linux version of brave to be fair (not sure about windowns TBH)

 

[ng4ever]

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Well,

I just got my desktop up and running again after the move, and the first thing I did was to update the 358 packages that had gone out of date.

Firefox was one of them.

It seems to still work mostly the same. I don't know why they felt the need to insert wasted pixels between the tab indicator up top and the address bar. Not only does this make things (slightly) less clear but it also wastes screen real estate. They also reduced the contrast (I think?) adding to the lack of clarity.

IMHO, one of the top concerns in UI design should always be clarity. After this it needs to be a matter of making the most out of screen real estate, wasting as few pixels as possible on useless aesthetic features.

I preferred the old look, but I can live with it I guess.

I just wish these many operating systems, browsers and other software would just choose a freaking design language and stick with it, not continually change things every few years.

A browser does pretty much exactly the same thing it did 25 years ago. We've made some improvements in the interim, but there is really no reason a browser should look any different today than it did 10 years ago.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

For those who may not like the changes, you can sort of revert things-

In a new tab, go to about:config and search for the text "proton" and turn off a few things:

• browser.proton.enabled
• browser.proton.contextmenus.enabled
• browser.proton.doorhangers.enabled
• browser.proton.modals.enabled

Thank you for that.

Like with all of these options this will likely just delay the inevitable, but the classic look is much easier on the eyes and clearer!

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

New features won't bring me back, I've been using Brave for about 7 months, and it's just better.
They turned comments off on their video, probably so they don't have people like me saying that Brave is better.

I mean, Brave has a really shady history. Repeated "mistakes" they've only undone once they have been caught, like the browsercollecting donations on behalf of donors and inserting referral codes and redirecting URL's of cryptocurrency exchanges without user input.

I don't trust the brave project at all. Less than I do Google/Facebook/Microsoft.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Biggest change I notice is they replaced words with icons. Regression.

Yeah, I hate this trend. It just obfuscates things, for the slight benefit of the developer in reducing translation and testing costs.

It needs to die. I want all text all the time. I much prefer the Office 2003 menu based layout over the stupid ribbon, for instance, and wish I could go back, but I am stuck with this icon garbage.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I have mixed feelings on the new UI. I don't use the light theme, but HOLY LORD is it a retina destroyer and has very indistinct controls / areas. I almost suspect nobody actually used / uses it.

But whatever. Still the best browser for the things I care about. The areas outside the document are secondary to what is in it.

I can't seem to find any way in the menus to change the UI theme. How are you doing this?

Edit: Never mind, they put the themes with the addons. I didn't think to look there.

 

[DWolvin]

I mean, Brave has a really shady history. Repeated "mistakes" they've only undone once they have been caught, like the browsercollecting donations on behalf of donors and inserting referral codes and redirecting URL's of cryptocurrency exchanges without user input.

I don't trust the brave project at all. Less than I do Google/Facebook/Microsoft.

So, negative level trust? I can't imagine trusting someone less than facebook...

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Vivaldi is the spiritual successor to Opera. When Opera switched engines they never added all the features or customization they used to have. Vivaldi was formed by former Opera devs and has everything and pioneers new features that mainstream browsers get years later like what Opera did in it's glory days.

Did Opera really have glory days though? I tried it back in the day, and it broke the layout of almost every site I visited.

My conclusion was that it was horrible trash, and I never used it again.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

A FF account is actually quite useful if you're working with multiple systems. Virtually everything (settings, bookmarks, history, extensions, etc.) are synced.

Dare to say no to anything and everything cloud.

First thing I do on any product I use is to disable any kind of syncing or cloud backup what so ever. They claim it is encrypted. I don't trust them. They have the key. How do I know this? The only way they don't have a key they can use, is if I am forced to enter my own encryption key on every device I use, and I'm not.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

People actually made those?

Yeah, who the hell actualy made one? And what is this talk about FF political leanings and why it should matter for a browser that is free and highly customisable?

Yup, I do local only. Don't understand people who do this.

I don't have a Microsoft account either!

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

What is the obsession these days with adding so much useless whitespace everywhere in UI design? Haven't we learned to not bring touchscreen concepts to desktop?

This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Websites, applications you name it. They design it for mobile touch, and it winds up being shitty and unusable on the desktop.

I'd like to find whoever is teaching UI design classes and telling people this is the way to go, and strangle him.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

This is interesting - yesterday after disabling Proton, I noticed the UI theme stayed on light. Couldn't get System theme to work, but all other themes worked. This morning, system theme is working fine and now have the light gray back rather than white.

Yeah, now that I've found where to change the themes (in addons) I have explicitly set it to system theme, and it appears broken. I tried logging out and logging in again, and rebooting, but that didn't help.

I found a third party theme that is pretty close to my system theme though, so I ma using that.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

unfortunately, from what I have read, this workaround will be "fixed" in the next update and you won't be able to revert it.
I might have to look into the ESR version because I really can't stand this "new and improved" UI

Figures.

I never understood why these projects are so adamant about forcing their users to use their preferred aesthetic settings.

I mean, for fucks sake. Just let people hvae it their way. Even Burger King gets this. It's not rocket science.

 

[1_rick]

I never understood why these projects are so adamant about forcing their users to use their preferred aesthetic settings.

Because they think they know better than you, you pleb.

 

[cybereality]

It took a few days to adjust, but I like the new UI. Had no problems with the theme, outside of the fact that it seems you can't go back to the system theme if you install a custom one.

Maybe I missed something, or there is some flag I didn't check, but it lets you choose the built-in themes after install but I didn't see them there to switch back.

Not a huge deal, I think change is welcome.

 

[mlcarson]

Looks like I'm going back to Chromium. Was never a big fan of Firefox anyway.

 

[bigdogchris]

I think the System theme is still broke when Proton is enabled. I do not see a difference between System and Light. When Proton is disabled, there is a difference. It's mainly the tile bar is darker.

I'd be willing to give the new tabs a try but I can't stand the Light Theme. Makes it too hard to see the tabs.

 

[Format _C:]

Figures.

I never understood why these projects are so adamant about forcing their users to use their preferred aesthetic settings.

I mean, for fucks sake. Just let people hvae it their way. Even Burger King gets this. It's not rocket science.

I have it my way but they still get it wrong some how LoL!
Anyway I switched to edge and it seems to be a lot faster now Facebook was really lagging on Firefox but is like 100 time better with edge!
I have been using Firefox for over 10 years as it was much easier to save my favorites and other stuff when I did a reinstall which is not needed as much these days.

 

[cybereality]

Go in security settings in Firefox and try changing the DoH DNS server. I found CloudFlare to be slowing down Firefox.

 

[ThreeDee]

Go in security settings in Firefox and try changing the DoH DNS server. I found CloudFlare to be slowing down Firefox.

It's under General>Network Settings in mine .. (89.01)

 

[cybereality]

Thank, that is probably right I might have mistaken.

 

[kamikazi]

Yeah, who the hell actualy made one? And what is this talk about FF political leanings and why it should matter for a browser that is free and highly customisable?

Eich was ousted as CEO of FF years ago because he wasn't woke enough for the rest of the company. They made things political.

 

[Mystique]

Relying on cloudflare or any other DNS while using firefox is kinda like going 2 steps forward 4 back. Even with dns over https without something like unbound, you're just shifting the trust around instead of clipping the data.

Why use FF over any chromium? Privacy.

Not using unbound + pihole to resolve domain names? Goodbye privacy anyways.

That said, I am beating a dead horse, since apparently people are using horrific things like facebook in this thread.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Relying on cloudflare or any other DNS while using firefox is kinda like going 2 steps forward 4 back. Even with dns over https without something like unbound, you're just shifting the trust around instead of clipping the data.

Why use FF over any chromium? Privacy.

Not using unbound + pihole to resolve domain names? Goodbye privacy anyways.

That said, I am beating a dead horse, since apparently people are using horrific things like facebook in this thread.

The lesson learned over the last 15 years ago is that it is impossible to opt out of tracking.

You can get fancy with VPN's and unbound (both of which have performance impacts) and still there are ways they collect data on you. Even if you don't use the internet at all, they find ways to get your data into their records via financial institutions, phone records and other sources.

Want to watch modern TV or film content? A lot of it isn't even available outside of streaming services, and when you have an account, they are tracking you and selling it forward. It has gotten to the point where if you start a company and look for venture capital funding, you will get turned down unless you have provisions for monetizing user data in your business plan.

Facebook's model is terrible for privacy, but it is the only tool you have in many cases to keep up with relatives and friends you are not able to regularly see.

Since becoming antisocial, living in the forest and drinking your own piss is ineffective no matter how hard you try, the solution here is not to keep doing what doesn't work, but rather to fight for change, and regulate the collection and monetization of user data out of existence. It is an uphill battle, but it has to happen to bring us out of our dystopian future.