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Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

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Re: Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

#131

Post by chrismorgan »

crazy_hombre wrote: post #88
swalladge wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I'm still waiting for completion of the wayland support tracking ticket [1] that was opened a decade ago. [1]: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=635134

I've been using Firefox on Wayland for the past year or so. There are still some minor hitches here and there, but it's very usable right now.

The biggest problem I find with Firefox under Sway is that its child windows don’t get sane window types. The most significant place where this goes horribly wrong is notifications: whenever a notification arrives, bam! it’s a full tiling window that steals focus and probably takes half the screen, shuffling everything else around, rather than being marked as a notification window, which would make it float in the requested position, get no decorations, and not get focused. And there’s no good way of targeting them properly to work around this: they’re just Firefox windows with an empty title; but so are download prompts and one or two other things. Still, I decided to favour the notifications (at the cost of download windows and the likes) in my current compromise:

  no_focus [app_id="firefox" title="^$"]
  for_window [app_id="firefox" title="^$"] border none, floating enable, move position 79 ppt 88 ppt
I’ve been thinking I should confirm that there’s a bug report for this at some point, though I can’t imagine it’s unknown. But now I look, I actually can’t find anything about it on Bugzilla (though I can find a complaint about it on Reddit two years ago). There is an unacknowledged report about the About Firefox window not floating (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1681158), which I expect is connected. Hmm. Oh, and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1590909 which is fundamentally about this very notification issue, completely unacknowledged after two years. Hmm. Better file something.

Edit: OK, filed https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1712681.

Re: Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

#132

Post by dredmorbius »

elcapitan wrote: post #108
dredmorbius wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a UI/UX perspective, yes. From a security perspective: hell fucking no. You need those updates. Even if you're just doing plain-jane browsing, with no finance, commerce, professional, government, or personal interaction, you're putting your entire system at risk. (TailsOS users possibly excepted.)

Then why can't I have separate security updates? I'm fed up with some fashion people breaking my software usability all the time, just because some hot new way to arrange tabs has to be tried out.

You sometimes can, though you've got to know what to ask for, and what you're trading off.

FWIW, this is what platforms such as Debian attempt to provide. It's a challenge, and something of a losing battle, especially with complex and fast-moving tools, notably Web browsers, but also development toolkits (scripting languages, Web development environments, etc.). Debian stable attempts to provide a stable feature set + bugfixes for all packages. Increasingly, even on Stable, there is the option to install packages which continue to offer feature updates, including for web browsers. Though there is also the option of an LTS or ESR package install.

These are specified versions with extended bugfix / security support, typically called Long Term Support (LTS) or Extended Service Release (ESR) version of a package. You'll find these with the Linux Kernel, for example.

And yes, Mozilla has an ESR programme which "receives major updates on average every 42 weeks with minor updates such as crash fixes, security fixes and policy updates as needed, but at least every four weeks."

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/enterprise/

Firefox ESR is currently at release 78.10.1:

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/78.10.1/releasenotes/

I believe that's based on 78.0.1, first released in June, 2020: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/78.0.1/releasenotes/

Firefox Desktop is at release 88.0.1, release May 5, 2021.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/88.0.1/releasenotes/

Re: Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

#133

Post by pjmlp »

eknkc wrote: post #113
jansan wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people who I know switched to Chrome because I told them to.

I think people forget how good it was compared to both IE and FF. It was fast, responsive, clean and a major upgrade to whatever you were using. It was not Gmail advertising that pushed people.

Now we get to enjoy ChromeOS across all devices not only Chromebooks.

Re: Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

#134

Post by KirillPanov »

myphs wrote: post #84
reinforcedpaper wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only 10% of users are using compact mode: Time to remove it. Only 1% of users are using Pocket: Make it more prominent to increase usage. Data-driven design!

I wonder how many users who disable telemetry are also using compact mode and how many people are actually disabling telemetry.

I run a large farm of VMs with telemetry turned on. I programmed them to make happy mouse movements whenever Mozilla embiggens their UI elements. My herd of shill-VMs has totally swamped out whatever telemetry-votes you compact-mode people are casting.

Re: Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

#136

Post by jiofih »

nindalf wrote: post #85
jansan wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw criticism in the original comment, maybe cynicism, but no hate. Hate is a strong word, we should not set the bar too low for using it.

It is hate, but worse than that, it’s tedious to read. I saw their video and thought “yep, top comment is going to be about Pocket integration” and it was. It’s the same in every thread about Firefox - someone complaining about pocket, someone complaining about tree style tabs, someone saying they shouldn’t have changed the plug-in model. It would be nice to have some new comments for a change.

If you could predict it, maybe you should consider taking that criticism seriously then instead of brushing it off as “boring”.

Re: Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

#137

Post by enriquto »

nindalf wrote: post #85
jansan wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw criticism in the original comment, maybe cynicism, but no hate. Hate is a strong word, we should not set the bar too low for using it.

It is hate, but worse than that, it’s tedious to read. I saw their video and thought “yep, top comment is going to be about Pocket integration” and it was. It’s the same in every thread about Firefox - someone complaining about pocket, someone complaining about tree style tabs, someone saying they shouldn’t have changed the plug-in model. It would be nice to have some new comments for a change.

The thing is that these are anti-features. The world needs a minimalist browser, which is just single rectangular canvas that renders the web. All other features are unnecessary clutter best left to separate applications, because not everybody needs or wants the same.

Re: Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

#138

Post by enriquto »

foepys wrote: post #42
yosito wrote: post #28

Firefox doesn't need another UI refresh. It needs performance enhancements and bug fixes. I've been using Firefox as my primary browser for years, and I'm tired of feeling like I'm using second class software.

The people who are making the designs are not the same people who are fixing bugs and improve performance. If you replaced all UX designers with SWE you will gain development speed in the short term and end up with an outdated looking app after a few years.

> an outdated looking app

yes, please! That is exactly what I want. An outdated-looking app which is fast, has no new bugs, does not break randomly upon updates.

Re: Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

#139

Post by Semaphor »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #112
Semaphor wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As expected, the new tabs take up substantial vertical space I just tried it, the vertical difference is 5 pixels, horizontally it’s about twice as much with 5 pinned and 9 normal tabs. Amazing? No. But that doesn’t really seem substantial. This is with compact mode in both versions.

I don’t think testing it in compact mode is the idea.

GP said "and even compact mode barely helps"

Re: Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

#140

Post by pseudalopex »

dredmorbius wrote: post #73

For the Pocket haters: 1. Why? 2. How would you implement a replacement functionality, whether in or outside the browser itself? 3. If you're using an alternative now, what is it?

Pocket replaced a Firefox Sync based reading list. Firefox Sync is open source and end to end encrypted. Pocket is neither.

I used to trust Mozilla and recommend Firefox without reservations. Now I have to scrutinize every new feature and tell people some of Mozilla's privacy claims aren't true.[1]

[1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/pocket/

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