Firefox for Android developer here. First of all, thanks for the feedback. Just a quick reply/update on some of the points raised in the post:
1. We're currently working on a new iteration of the tablet UI which will replace the sidebar on portrait with a horizontal scrolling strip that goes away when you select a tab (see meta bug 817675). The sidebar will not be "stuck" by default anymore and will slide away once you select a tab (see bug 817728).
2. We mitigate things like this with anti-phishing/malware protection and the identity status icon. However, this is not guaranteed to cover every possible case. Anyway, I filed bug 839994 to get some discussion going.
3. I agree that the current approach is not ideal if you want to browse through your desktop/mobile bookmarks very often. The current UI is more oriented towards finding your bookmarks through the awesomescreen search. Two points about this: the UX team is working on a new design for bookmarks/reading list. It will definitely involve an overhauled UI for accessing bookmarks. In the shorter-term though, we'll be working on a new iteration of the start page that gives you quick access to your bookmarks from there (no extra taps). Work on some of these changes has already started. For instance, you can now 'pin' sites on your start page.
4. This is fixed in Aurora/Nightly builds (see bug 786982). You can close the last tab. You'll see the start page when you do so.
Hope that helps. We're an open source project. Next time, I strongly suggest you to file bugs. We're happy to clarify and re-discuss design decisions whenever necessary.
1. We're currently working on a new iteration of the tablet UI which will replace the sidebar on portrait with a horizontal scrolling strip that goes away when you select a tab (see meta bug 817675). The sidebar will not be "stuck" by default anymore and will slide away once you select a tab (see bug 817728).
2. We mitigate things like this with anti-phishing/malware protection and the identity status icon. However, this is not guaranteed to cover every possible case. Anyway, I filed bug 839994 to get some discussion going.
3. I agree that the current approach is not ideal if you want to browse through your desktop/mobile bookmarks very often. The current UI is more oriented towards finding your bookmarks through the awesomescreen search. Two points about this: the UX team is working on a new design for bookmarks/reading list. It will definitely involve an overhauled UI for accessing bookmarks. In the shorter-term though, we'll be working on a new iteration of the start page that gives you quick access to your bookmarks from there (no extra taps). Work on some of these changes has already started. For instance, you can now 'pin' sites on your start page.
4. This is fixed in Aurora/Nightly builds (see bug 786982). You can close the last tab. You'll see the start page when you do so.
Hope that helps. We're an open source project. Next time, I strongly suggest you to file bugs. We're happy to clarify and re-discuss design decisions whenever necessary.