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Australis is landing in Firefox Nightly

blog.mozilla.org

181–190 of 201 posts

Re: Australis is landing in Firefox Nightly

#181
post #137
post #92

So nitpickers might point out differences but you cannot deny that the basic tab looks just like Chrome's. When Chrome came out with this it was new and innovative. Now it looks like a copy. When this blatant copying happens (and it happens in many places; it's no wonder all phones look like a variation of the original iphone) I always wonder if the designers really did convince themselves that their design is differ…

Sounds to me like focusing on the slight shift in tab location, as pioneered by Chrome, is exactly the kind of nitpicking you're complaining about. It's not like moving the tabs up a couple pixels fundamentally changed the browser. When Opera first pioneered tabs they were found on the bottom. It was Firefox that made the drastic (though unsurprising) change of moving them above the page contents. One could argue may…

It's not just any "couple of pixels" that can make a crucial difference in the UX. It's not about the number of pixels, it's about moving the tab bar to the edge of the screen that matters. See http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/08/fitts-law-and-infin...

Yes obviously Google was not the first one to put that principle to some use, but their browser was the first one among web browsers.

Personally I hated how Opera left a few pixels gap between the tabs and the screen edge (I have no idea if they still do).

A few pixels was just enough to make sure that I had to move the mouse cursor a little bit back every time I wanted to click on a tab.

Re: Australis is landing in Firefox Nightly

#182
I love Firefox and I tried the Australis build for a few weeks, I found myself not very keen ultimately, it is OK but not mind blowing. The rounded corner thing is inefficient, I think they have only done this so it doesn't look too much like Chrome. The most annoying thing though is that Linux has the full menu bar stuck on top, wish they could integrate it better like on Windows/Mac.

Re: Australis is landing in Firefox Nightly

#183
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox 25 is currently quite good (with Pentadactyl I hide the address and search bar altogether) http://imgur.com/pSzvcAi This update will make it worse it seems and waste more vertical space (apart from the really ugly aliased curved tabs).

I could never get used to not having an address bar. I'm jealous. The good news is that if you don't like the new look of firefox, you don't need to see it: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemer...

You still have "an address" bar. You type `o` and start typing to search for history, bookmarks or enter new URL all in unified list. Usually a few chars + TAB is enough. This unified list pops from the bottom of the browser window and it respects your color scheme as well.

Of course there is `s` command to search any of your installed search providers and you can do all of this in new tab, window etc.

Pentadactyl is what keeps me using Firefox. When that stops working, it will take me back to stone age when it comes to speed of navigating and researching content online.

Re: Australis is landing in Firefox Nightly

#184
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox 25 is currently quite good (with Pentadactyl I hide the address and search bar altogether) http://imgur.com/pSzvcAi This update will make it worse it seems and waste more vertical space (apart from the really ugly aliased curved tabs).

Checkout the pentadactyl plugin "buftabs" for maximum vertical space and a friendly tab bar: http://www.leighbicknell.com/pentadactyl-setup/

Thanks. I don't know this existed. Can you control the width of the tabs? Right now the URL in the tab is clipped, which can be dangerous and makes you susceptible to fishing attacks when you browse casually.

Re: Australis is landing in Firefox Nightly

#185
post #128
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The look of it, certainly.

The look _and_ the performance. I used to be a die-hard Firefox fan. Then I moved to Opera because it was faster. Then I moved to Chrome because Opera was buggy. I tried using Firefox again a while ago and I went right back to Chrome. Overall, Firefox feels more sluggish than Chrome. In part, whenever pages are loading in Firefox, it seems to make the whole browser feel sluggish -- something which doesn't happen in C…

And, as always with browser wars. This is your anecdotal opinion.

Different users and configs have different experiences and the memory or speed issues are something from the past even if the features were comparable (You can't beat the amount and quality of FF's addons).

A concerning issue about FF is that it might be drifting away from one of the things that makes it great. The ability to customize.

Disclaimer: Chrome, Firefox, Opera are all great browsers and people should use whatever they like but if you start pushing a case for your subjective choice, be prepared to deal with arguments.

Re: Australis is landing in Firefox Nightly

#186
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish browsers were like emacs and that one could replace the whole UI on a dull rainy day.

uh, with firefox you pretty much can.

Try removing the button on the top left. The one with the three horizontal bars.

Re: Australis is landing in Firefox Nightly

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concur. The design people in Firefox lost me as a user when they decided to re-arrange an interface that had looked the same for the better part of a decade. Re-arrange, not improve. Apparently years of users' visual + muscle memory means nothing to these UX guys. I persevered with it for a while but eventually I just gave up and switched browsers. Shame, since I'd been using Firefox since its first release (called P…

FWIW, here's my user interface: http://imgur.com/ABi2XVO which is to say, damn near identical modulo the GTK theme emulation. AND importantly the nightly build linked in the article completely respected my changes.

How were you able to keep the toolbar at the bottom of the window (with the status and add-ons) with the new nightly? I lost mine when I tried the nightly and see no way to add a toolbar at the bottom of the window.

Re: Australis is landing in Firefox Nightly

#190
post #68

Looks pretty wasteful. I prefer how it currently looks on my machine: http://i.imgur.com/PvlTZ3k.png My tabs can get as small as the pinned ones on the left (which is the default behavior of every other browser). There used to be a about:config setting for minimum tab width, but one(!) Firefox developer decided to remove it, because: "Users can override this using userChrome.css if they absolutely want it. I don't th…

I agree on this old UI failure...I thought for a moment it had been reverted, but then realized I had installed the Custom Tab Width add-on. The realization brought me back to my own extreme frustration with coming back to Firefox and finding this behavior being the default and not easily changed. I'm generally OK with a lot of stuff being in add-ons. But, this one is not one of those things. I really don't think I s…

And I don't mind it! Truly, I don't really care about a scrolling tab bar or not. I do hate how Safari handles it though... My point is that Firefox is great in that you can at least fix that! I've yet to find a way in Safari :'(
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