Two popular web browser are overhauling their user interface, and the first to actually ship its new version is Vivaldi. Version 8.0 of this Chromium-based browser completely overhauls its UI, but retains its extensive customisation options, including the option to go back to the old look and feel if the new one doesn’t float your boat. I wonder if this update addresses some of my long-standing issues with Vivaldi where it just seemed impossible to integrate the browser properly with KDE or GNOME, since it opted for its own fonts and had a ton of very custom UI that made it stand out moreso than even other browser.
Before publishing this post, I did a quick install and check, and no, it seems not much has changed in that department. Not everyone will care – in fact, I think most people don’t – but I do, and I do whatever it takes to make my browser look properly native. Any Chromium-based browser is a hard sell in that area, and that applies doubly so for Vivaldi and its long list of custom UI elements.
The other popular web browser overhauling its UI is Firefox, which is bringing its new UI to testing now, with an actual release later this year. You can clearly see that both Vivaldi and Firefox seem to be following a similar trend, even if I’m not entirely sure if it has a name yet. The new Firefox design also overhauls the settings page, integrates Mozilla services like its VPN, and brings back the compact mode (which has been hidden behind an about:config flag for years now).
My biggest worry is how this will affect Librewolf and the KDE and GNOME themes I use, but it seems we’re going to have more than enough time to figure that out.
Thank {DEITY} for userChrome.css!
Why is it so hard to just stick to the “sufficiently native to satisfy” look that Chrome/Chromium has had all along?
It seems like every few versions I have to seek out or write up new userChrome.css patches to revert the efforts of some graphic designer put into a UI design role and trying to justify their job.
…and how long will we have to wait before tabs actually looking like tabs comes back into vogue?
Raymond Chen explained that they rewrote all of the Calculator code in Vista but people didn’t notice and still complained that Calculator wasn’t getting updates because the UI was unchanged. So you need to change the UI every now and then even if the current UI is perfectly usable just to assure people that the developers are still working on the app.
And yet somehow Chrome/Chromium doesn’t need to engage in performative redesign… probably because they’re adding tons of actual features like WebMIDI, WebSerial, etc. that lead projects on GitHub to say “When I wrote this, Firefox was missing required features. Use something Chrome-based”.
It seems clear to me that Mozilla has been taken over by people who worked at Apple and were habituated to their “As with cars and fashion, people must want this year’s new model, so change things for the sake of change” attitude.
…which would make sense, given how much useless visual bling I need to “display: none” out. (eg. Popup notifications to confirm that the star being filled in does indeed mean you successfully bookmarked something, thumbnail preview in the panel for bookmarking the page you’re looking at right now, big annoying “New” badges on context menu entries that never go away, etc.)
…that and it indicates a complete lack of formal understanding of WHY predecessor UIs wound up with the designs they had.
man, that firefox UI preview press release is kind of rough:
“The voice is warming up, too. Firefox copy is becoming more direct, more human, and sometimes more playful or fiery. Always genuine… because that’s what sets Firefox apart.”
I really don’t even know what that means. Unless maybe ‘copy’ is a typo and shouldn’t be included? That at least would make literal sense, if not convey much actual meaning. There’s sadly a lot of that feeling in the press release.
“Proudly made with AI” maybe? 🙂
(The press release, I mean)
I believe it’s “copy” in the sense of textual explanations. “Copy” is generally editor-speak for text.
Vivaldi on vertical tabs doesn’t pin it’s tabs to a single icon, but they still take up a whole row. That (partly) defeats the idea of pinning for me, for pins I just need the icon, and I want to gain space. I was hoping version 8 would be better…
FIrefox recently overhauled the UI on their Android version, and it is much better.
This looks to be a less dramatic, more stylistic change, whereas the Mobile version significantly altered the way you interact with much of the browser, to very positive effect
Why was this really needed?