A lot of work is under way in designing the user interface for the next two releases of Firefox - 3.7 and 4.0 - and both of the currently proposed themes (Windows-specific) look interesting. These interface refreshes were needed as well, as the current Firefox interface is showing its age. Looking at the mockup for Firefox 4.0, it all becomes clear: This is Firefox - Chromified.
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2005-11-26
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2007-06-22
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2009-07-27
A two-year-old article from Wired, which I agree with: http://www.wired.com/software/coolapps/news/2007/05/firefox_bloat
Personally I try to keep Firefox look & feel maximum clean. And I want my Firefox to be as fast as possible.
By the way, it's my first post to OSNews (though I've been around for 2.5 years), so hello people 
Member since:2008-03-08
A lot has changed since then - Firefox 3 was faster than firefox 2. Firefox 3.5 is faster than Firefox 3.
As for Google Chrome (that someone else mentioned) - I may consider using it after they add the ability to automatically delete cookies etc upon closing the browser. Until then, I dislike the feeling that my privacy is not important that the lack of such a setting gives me.
Member since:2008-11-14
While I agree Firefox is really good on Windows, it is still slow as hell in Linux.
Try it both on Windows and Linux:
-Open 10 tabs at once.
-Change tabs while having 20 opened.
-Press Ctrl and make a few full turns on your mousewheel.
-Include Flash, Java, whatever plugins in the previous experiments for 100x effect increase.
Linux is unimportant for the Mozilla foundation, that's why I stick with Opera.
Member since:2009-07-22
I ABSOLUTELY agree with you. Mozilla doesn't care a ***** about Linux, and even less about KDE. They won't do anything about artwork neither performance.
From my personal experience with Mozilla foundations, they're far too bureaucratic and self-centric.
Member since:2006-02-15
While I agree Firefox is really good on Windows, it is still slow as hell in Linux.
I've been saying that for ages and ages: I use Windows and Linux on the same machine, FireFox on both OSes is the same version, but still the Linux one runs noticeably slower. It's not even a graphics card driver issue since I've had to change graphics cards several times, both nVidia and ATI, and still the same behaviour occurs. Why? I have no idea, do they even try to optimize the Linux version? Or is it some deeper issue, maybe not even related to FireFox at all itself? Every time I ask some developer about it they either change the subject or just completely avoid talking to me.
Member since:2005-07-07
I absolutely agree with you.
As soon as distro dvd is out, first thing on my list is removing firefox in favor of any GtkWebKit browser.
I don't like the feeling of being 3rd rate citizen and the more time passes, the more obvious this is from firefox side. I say... let them have it, there is now enough native browsers in linux which work decent.
Maybe they can count me as download since it came with my distribution, but as user they sure won't.
Member since:2006-02-05
Member since:2006-02-15
I remember reading somewhere that windows firefox under wine is faster then linux native firefox.
I've actually read and heard that myself too. Haven't tested it myself, but I wouldn't actually be surprised. The speed difference really is painstakingly clear and visible to anyone who uses both OSes. But do we got any FF devs here lurking around? Would be lovely to get atleast some explanation as to why it is like that? X? Some external library? Kernel issue? Or is it FireFox itself?
Member since:2007-02-17
Old news. Very old news.
This is like the reviews of IE8 beta versus Firefox 2 ... written when when Firefox 3.5 was also in beta. Go figure.
Why is it that people complain about versions of Firefox that are over two years old? It has moved on, people. Firefox 3.5 is here, and it is fast (perhaps not quite as fast as Chrome, but almost), and with its use of XUL it retains its abilities for customisation via extensions (without loss of speed) that Chrome has no hope of matching.
Member since:2005-07-24
Keep telling yourself that.
You don't work with any large tables do you? For our internal business apps, which do, legitimately, use large tables for reporting, Firefox is a nonstarter. I have to direct users to other browsers. Anything based on Webkit is fine. Opera works very well. Pretty much anything, even IE6, runs circles around FF3.5's table rendering speed. And as for memory consumption with large tables... FF 3.5 is obscene. 100k of text data should not take hundreds of megabytes to display. But it does with FF 3.5. Some reports push it up past 1GB.
I don't mean to pick on FF 3.5 here. All the previous versions of FF which I have tested were at least as bad.
Edited 2009-07-28 03:49 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-24
Any larger table will cause the problem. There is nothing specific to our apps. And the rendering time is *exponential* as the rows increase. If you prefer to bury your head in the sand and let IE7 under wine walk all over FF3.5 for performance, that's fine with me. We have other browsers to use which perform just fine.
Edited 2009-07-28 12:27 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
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I want a real world test case. Not a contrived one. A public website demonstrating the problem would be useful. Barring that, a script that generates such a troublesome webpage would do. I am not claiming that the problem does not exist but I am merely interested in getting it reported if it there is a demonstrable test case. Been using Firefox 3.5(.1) for quite sometime in Fedora 11 and as a very heavy user have generally have found the performance to be much better. No doubt about that.
Member since:2006-07-14
It is much faster in my experience. It is also, however, less stable, especially on OSX. Sometimes I'll be focusing on another task and I want to go back and look at a web page I was looking at five minutes ago. And Firefox ... is nowhere to be seen, save the Ooops Fire fox crashed notification. Oh, well its fine for casual surfing of everyday sites, but for research I switch to Safari.
Member since:2006-01-16
This is due to firefox's session restore feature. It is trying to store all the data in the forms elements, so that if the browser crashes, it can restore all the form data along with the page. (using an XPath query for each element which is very resource expensive)
Unfortunately this causes it to shoot itself in the foot when it comes to large tables/forms.
It's a known issue and is being fixed. (supposedly in xulrunner 1.9.1.3)
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=477564
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=478107
For security reasons, the data is not stored when using an https:// connection, so the problem disappears when coming from an https:// URL.
Member since:2005-07-24
Session restore might have made the problem worse. But this problem dates all the way back to FF 1.x. Back then we did not have much in the way of alternative browser choices and we just had to suffer with it.
Edited 2009-07-28 12:35 UTC
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2007-06-02
I have switched to Chrome for about 5 months now. Firefox is not on my system anymore. Only sleeps on my Linux box, yes, sleeps because I am not using it any longer (and it is sadly integrated with Gnome-Ubuntu). It would take much more than UI changes now, for me to deconvert from Chrome. Chrome is faster, and webkit has certainly an advantage on Gecko (faster on my end).
I am wondering here... where the Mo community were going to head if it wasn't for the brilliant glorious Chrome: Would we be watching the mediocre fight between Mozilla, IE and Opera, stagnant, unable to recreate the browsing idea until these days? Conservative UI's that fill the entire space of my screen, thousands of options at which I wouldn't even know what means or where to start from? about:config screen nightmare? Certainly without Chrome, the Mo community would not have moved a finger...until who would know WHEN!
Actually, something like this has to happen to both GNOME and KDE projects.
Member since:
2008-08-19
They seem to be making bookmarks much less visible - no bookmark toolbar in any of the mockups, just a button that I assume drops down the equivalent of the current bookmarks menu.
Not sure I like that - while the fancy address bar is useful, I still use bookmarks a lot in FF3.5 - particularly in the form of javascript bookmarklets on the toolbar, and groups of related links. Nothing I've seen here addresses those requirements...
Member since:
2009-03-19
I really hope there will be plugins to enable the classic 3.5 look. I for one do not like Chrome's UI and do not want Firefox to move in that direction.
I don't see anything wrong with Firefox's UI the way it is now (apart from not having a builtin option to disable the menu bar, but a plugin takes care of that).
Everyone always calls Chrome's UI innovative. Frankly, I don't see it. What's so innovative about it? That the tabs are on top? The word innovation used to mean something, now it seems like any little gimmick is hailed as a ground breaking and innovative.
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2006-01-22
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2007-03-09
If I have understood it correctly, the idea behind the tabs-on-top concept is that each tab together with browser controls would be better associated with each web page. This is very understandable from Google's point of view with their vision for the web and their web applications.
However, I think that it would a big drawback for usability since the tabs are arguably the most used feature in the browser interface and therefore should be the most accessible, i.e. the closest items relative to the content and your mouse cursor.
Why put the more infrequently used chrome between the most used chrome (tabs) and the most important (content)?
P.S. I can't believe they are FINALLY going to combine the Stop and Reload buttons in 4.0! This is the way it should have been done from the beginning... The "hidden menu bar" is also a must-have!
Edited 2009-07-28 00:35 UTC
Member since:2006-01-11
Why put the more infrequently used chrome between the most used chrome (tabs) and the most important (content)?
Well, there's the Fitts's Law argument that the edges of the screen are some of the easiest places to reach, since you can't overshoot them.
Combined Stop/Reload has some drawbacks:
- You have to double-click to reload a loading page.
- If the button changes the instant before you click it, you can end up reloading a page instead of stopping it as intended. This was a bigger annoyance in the dialup days, but still somewhat holds true. (Not to mention some people are still on dialup.
In any case, I'm glad they aren't planning to put Stop and Reload on opposite sides of the screen like Chrome. Not even IE does that.
Regarding Chrome, the devs (or rather, Ben specifically) flatly refuse to change the default button layout, so vote/comment on Issue 1656 instead, if you care:
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1656
(Provide ability to create custom toolbar buttons)
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2005-07-26
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2009-04-24
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2006-07-12
If its customizable to my liking like the old versions im all fine whatever changes they pick.
I like my browser to look like this: http://judgen.googlepages.com/browser.jpg
Member since:2008-04-23
That screenshot reminds me of opera 3 :-D
http://files.myopera.com/tarquinwj/albums/45511/Opera3.png
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2007-12-27
Member since:2007-03-06
Also you could have no title bar at all, or a 2 pixels high one (on Linux at least).
Title bar and window contents should stay separated, and these tabs belong to window content. If I had tabs on the title bar that would be because I'm grouping windows myself through the window manager.
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2006-05-10
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2007-07-24
Good to see that they're at least shaking things up and soliciting feedback. Part of the reason I haven't been using FF in the last couple of years is that its interface is plain FUGLY. Happily, Opera and Chrome have forced the Mozilla peeps to give FF some UI love (which Thunderbird also badly needs).
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2006-01-11
I hope that the final versions aren't too far from what's depicted in these mockups, the versions with conventional tabs looks a lot like my current Firefox setup in Win 7, which I can't be arsed to take a screenshot of since I'm using my Linux box.
If anyone wants to make Firefox 3.x look a bit more like this then they can follow my reminder guide at http://portunus.net.nz/rtfm/bls
Way to go Firefox!
Member since:2006-04-10
Seriously? A black page with bright green text and dark blue links? Why would anyone take your advice after seeing your bad taste?
Member since:2006-01-11
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2005-07-06
I'd say it's visual underload. I like the tabs-on-bottom mockup, but I'd like to see a status bar and a full size bookmark bar (it can be autohidden, or off-switchable, I don't care, but it should be available). I never liked any recent trials to make browser more clean, since more clean ment less usable. Gee, I still fail to understand how these mockups can mean a visual overload to anyone.
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2005-07-06
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2009-07-28
One of the things I like most about FF is the customization. That's why I wasn't distracted by Chrome at all. I personally don't like my tabs above or below the address bar; I like them on the left side of my screen. It works really well with wide screen monitors. I also like my address bar up there with my file menu, so I don't have any wasted space.
I'll take whatever speed/memory enhancements FF 4.0 has to offer, but I don't see any of this being much of an improvement to the UI.
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2006-05-28
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2009-07-28
The tabs on top is actually the better concept, since the address bar is very specific to the current document (your current 'view') rather than some meta thingie (like a toolbar, which sometimes does relate information, but often nothing more than is already visible (think 'bold' button in some office suite, which is on when you're in a bold text and off outside it).
But these discussions leave me wondering whether or not we're still to focused on the "current URI" design. Why not something closer to what some filebrowsers do: A nice representation (which mortal users understand, not just power users). This could be a bit breadcrumb like or pherhaps the website host (which is pretty important information) with the title of the current page. Ofcourse you can simply access the raw URI by clicking on this "titlebar".
Beter highlighting of the hostname of the website is a good thing as it helps people better understand where they are in general. See all the work in chrome and other browsers since where the hostname is highlighted.
All other information is pretty much too site specific and non-meaningful (often numbers for items and such or simply the title of article (see your uri bar now ;-))
Currently 99% of all my browsing needs would be satisfied by 1 big field with this title/address-bar thing, a back button, stop/reload button, a (optional, I don't use it on all my computers) bookmark bar and a status/activity bar at the bottom (where i'll hardly notice it, but where it can display some additional useful information ranging from downloads/ page propertes/ page search/plugin thingies (firebug/ comments/ whatever))
Search may be correctly incorporated in some awesomebar logic, as long as i can simply do 1 click/shortcut websearches.
Forward buttons don't really add anything for me I think I can count all times I *ever* used them on my two hands but it's not too intrusive.
What I do very much like about firefox is that it's context menus almost always contain what I want, which is sorely lacking (too simplistic) or too bloated in a few others.
All in all I think savings can be made (and it should always be very customisable) and that some changes might even make things more useable for the non-tech savy.
But that's of course just my €0.02 ;-)
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2006-04-05
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2009-07-28
the option to put the navigation buttons on the side panel. This seems, to me, like a natural evolution as more widescreen displays are used. The address bar and tabs could still be at the top, while the back/forward/home buttons are vertical on the side, opening up more vertical real estate for webpages, especially on the smaller screens such as netbooks. my $.02
