Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 29th Apr 2014 15:04 UTC
Firefox 29 has been released, and the most prominent new feature is an entirely new user interface. It's smoother and less angular, and has clearly been designed to somewhat resemble Google Chrome. Hence, I personally think it's a major step forward - except for Firefox' version of the Chrome menu, which uses a grid of icons instead of a list (?!) - but I'm nearly 100% convinced many Firefox users will not like it. It's change, after all.
Luckily, Firefox is customisable to the point of insanity, so I'm pretty sure you can revert to the old look with the right themes and extensions.
Thread beginning with comment 587707
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2006-04-10
I run FF Nightly and first tried the "Australis" UI a month or so back, I found it just turns Firefox's UI into a mediocre clone of Chrome's UI - without any noticeable benefit (at least, speaking as someone who's been using Firefox since the days it was still called "Phoenix"). As others have said: if I wanted to use Chrome, I'd just use Chrome.
That's weird. I have never found the customize button in chrome. Where is it?
Member since:2005-07-06
"I run FF Nightly and first tried the "Australis" UI a month or so back, I found it just turns Firefox's UI into a mediocre clone of Chrome's UI - without any noticeable benefit (at least, speaking as someone who's been using Firefox since the days it was still called "Phoenix"). As others have said: if I wanted to use Chrome, I'd just use Chrome.
That's weird. I have never found the customize button in chrome. Where is it? "
I'm detecting high levels of sarcasm, but my sarcasm-detector is having difficulty honing in on an actual point. Are you contending that the ability to customize the FF toolbar makes Australis not a clone of the Chrome UI...?
Member since:2005-08-18
Member since:2005-07-06
I just updated today and to be honest I barely notice the difference. Sure, the tabs are rounded and there's a grid menu but it's not really anything I notice while using FF.
I dunno, maybe it's because Ubuntu's global menu that I don't notice this stuff much.
I dunno, maybe it's because Ubuntu's global menu that I don't notice this stuff much.
The changes are probably much less noticeable if you've stuck with the defaults/new UI changes from the past year or two of Firefox updates. I had previously disabled all of the more Chrome-y UI changes via options & about:config tweaks, but the update that introduced Australis ALSO removed/disabled all of those options.
Member since:
2005-07-06
I run FF Nightly and first tried the "Australis" UI a month or so back, I found it just turns Firefox's UI into a mediocre clone of Chrome's UI - without any noticeable benefit (at least, speaking as someone who's been using Firefox since the days it was still called "Phoenix"). As others have said: if I wanted to use Chrome, I'd just use Chrome.
Fortunately, the combination of Clasic Theme Restorer + Classic Toolbar Buttons + disable tabs on top (along with restoring the add-on bar via View > Toolbars) is fairly effective at reverting FF to the old UI.