Going to have to concur here. Unfortunately it appears that Australis presently isn't targeting those who change their userchrome whether by addon or directly.
I think the design looks good, I just hope that it will be given the same amount of customization freedom Firefox enjoys pre-Australis.
Australis displays at least 17 tabs before expanding into the tab-scroll view when full screen, which is more than I'd typically have open at a time anyway.
Tab-scoll, to me, makes a lot of sense as it prevents any confusion over the content of the tabs, especially when those tabs lack favicons: in Chrome, you simply get a blank page icon when the scroll bar overflows.
The only downside to Australis for me so far has been the removal of the "thin" address bars/small icon sets, there is no longer an option within Firefox to enable them, as far as I know.
To be honest, I prefer having a scrolling tab pane, instead of tabs getting so small you can't read their text (I have quite a few tabs open). It should definitely be a user config option though.
You might also want to look into Stylish, this is a firefox addon that allows you to add custom CSS, and apply it without restarting.
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.
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.
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 should have to install a plugin to decide not to have a scrolling tab bar (I hate the scrolling tab bar).
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 :'(
Well, I have tiny tabs and I just updated. The active tab obscures the favicons of the ones next to it, and the lines between tabs are in the wrong spot. But it works.
Hooray! Been waiting for this for a long time. I'll be especially happy if Mozilla can manage to improve the default look of Firefox on Linux, where it's just absolutely dreadful (and where I'm usually forced to resort to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fxchrome/ to preserve my sanity).
For example I'd like to have the Firefox button at top left orange, not gray. And slimmer (not as tall as a tab). It's clearly less polished than the Windows version. And yet I thanks them everyday for the browser
I only hope they're also getting rid of GTK icons on the main chrome. They make (unthemed) Firefox on a high-DPI screen completely unusable.
(Why? Scaling up page content (via layout.css.devPixelsPerPx) also scales up chrome, including the (already properly sized) icons— so every icon in Fx ends up being four times larger than it should.)
Huge agreement from a regular Chrome user on Linux here. I watched the video and the design is great. I'm really looking forward to this landing in a stable release.
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 different or they tried but just couldn't come up with anything better than their inspiration.
That's exactly the nitpicking I was referring to. If the corners are round or not makes little difference. The main thing here is the general outline of the tab and it's position in the window. If we can expand further we can also include the main menu which is in exactly the same spot with the same icon (maybe it's a standard icon, I've never seen it before Chrome and in earlier versions Chrome had, if I recall correctly, a wrench and screwdriver icon).
I don't know. I see the new tabs as an extension of the existing tabs [0]. All that's different is the curve flares are bigger. As someone who doesn't use Chrome much anymore, I thought these changes in Firefox seemed like natural extensions and refinements of existing designs.
Now, the elimination of the options bar ("File Edit View History ...") on Linux does seem more in line with Chrome, but on Windows it's been that way for a while.
I think this is a classic case of converging designs, not copying. A good idea is a good idea, no matter how you reach it.
I think that once you've used the two side by side, you'll change your tune. Australis is actually a much larger departure from looking like Chrome in the tab strip. Seriously, use it for a couple of weeks, then open the two side by side in the middle of a browsing session and it'll be clear to you that the visual experience is not at all alike in practice.
Well if you go that way, firefox tabs from the previous release look also the same as chrome and australis.. so uhm, you saying Chrome copied firefox tabs? (in fact, yes it did, but then again, everyone uses tabs, obviously)
Tabs are a design idea that predates the web. You'll find them on physical file folders, binders, and address books, for example. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that tabs were invented hundreds of years ago.
I think OP was talking about Chrome’s tabs specifically. Their appearance and the way they function. Firefox had tabs well before Chrome (and IIRC Opera had tabs well before Firefox).
> it's no wonder all phones look like a variation of the original iphone
There is only so many way you can make a phone that consists of a big screen with a few buttons along the bottom look. Since the big screen is the main feature, and big screens look like big screens, this is a limit of the function of the phone.
I have heard people argue that this design was done first in Firefox mockups many years ago, the Chrome team implemented it, now Firefox is implementing it too.
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 maybe Chrome should not have employed this "tired" design choice and perhaps placed their tabs on the left (a la Ubuntu Unity). But this whole line of argumentation sounds ridiculous when someone has already figured out a pretty optimal place for those tabs.
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.
How can you say FF copied the tab design from Chrome when neither one of them created the concept of tabbed browsing in the first place? They are both using the conceptual model of tabbed folders, which have been around for ages. Curved-corner tabs and sharp-corner tabs are both variants of the same thing. Nobody even cares how the tabs look.
Clearly, both Firefox and Chrome are copying Avery. They are literally killing innovation.
The only thing that I'd label as being inspired by chrome is their proximity to the top, which is what people saw as new and innovative at the time. If they'd just stopped there, you might have a point. But they didn't.
I'm happy with the tabs provided with my OS theme and do not want each app to have tabs with a custom shape and wasted space. Do not want a rainbow in my title bar and have not met anyone > 12 that does.
What is it with these people and their obsession with skinz! and constant rearranging of buttons?
Do not want a rainbow in my title bar and have not met anyone > 12 that does.
You do realise that's an add-on skin, right? The entire point of that system is that people can do whatever the hell they like and you aren't affected by it.
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 Phoenix back then, later Firebird, finally Firefox).
Well design is always subjective.
I think before Firefox 4, the browser looked really stale and old (as does your screenshot)
And I don't think they really changed it much anyways. Many of the GUI elements are in the same position as before, there's nothing new to learn. A lot of them have been integrated, which is nice and reduces the unnecessary chrome.
I like Australis. To me, it looks more modern, even if it does look like Chrome. It feels like a step in the right direction.
I also don't mind them changing the UI of Firefox because most of the time, this is what I look at: http://d.pr/i/iEtP
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.
Apparently I went off and downloaded the nightly just before the australis drop because trying it again today fucked everything up. I'm pissed too now.
To be honest a lot of the changes from the new UI make sense to me. Specially the dreaded status bar. I much prefer the new tooltip style that doesn't take precious screen space.
I also like the contextual forward button, most of the time you don't need it. And the smaller icons ;-)
Design terms like these, when juxtaposed with the "curvy tab" language, get way under my skin.
What is a "comfortable" design, exactly? I suppose a better question would be, what made the other design "uncomfortable"?
What is a clean design? Do you really mean "modern" instead of "clean"? Wouldn't it be better to say the interface elements are more defined, or there are less textures, or whatever?
Perhaps this is Janet Murray speaking through me (GaTech), but using vague terms to describe minuscule changes is somewhat bombastic. Instead, use appropriately narrow and descriptive terms.
I guess the rant is here because the changes aren't really that big of a deal. It's pretty much a nod to Chrome, run through a few iterations, am I right? Or maybe I'm being short sighted.
A Mozilla coder gave an explanation for this several months ago:
"In case you wonder, the reason for which Firefox doesn't merge url and search bar is to protect user's privacy. If you prefer a Chrome-style UI, there are a couple of add-ons that provide just that."
It's interesting. The address bar currently doubles as a search input, but doesn't autocomplete. The search bar does autocomplete, but won't take you to an address if you put one in it. (it takes you to a search for the address)
In my opinion, they need to think this through a bit more. Each input bar is crippled in some way (one won't autocomplete, the other won't go to addresses), and it's all driven by wanting to keep incomplete searches private (until Enter gets hit). Do users realize that the search bar in Firefox is not private, whereas the address bar is? I'm betting not. Do users expect them to be? Chrome assumes not.
In my opinion, if the privacy thing is so important, they'd still be better off having just one input with autocomplete off by default, and easily toggled to on. I doubt that users understand the current setup as "address bar is private, search bar is not".
Well, I'm a Firefox user, and I understand the difference, and I use the input fields differently depending on whether I mind particular information leaking to a search company. So, I personally strongly prefer leaving things the way they are.
I'd actually vote for one change, though: I'd prefer the URL field didn't default to falling back to querying a search engine. One of my pet peeves is mistyping a URL and having my input sent by my system to Google. (That's easy enough for me to change, though, and the Firefox developers seem to be concerned enough about privacy and security to leave the ability to change it intact.)
I'm not suggesting no Firefox users understand the difference, just that a lot might not. I'm sure something close to 99% of the Firefox users on HN do understand the difference.
Essentially, I'm suggesting that they either merge the two fields or make them more distinct. At the moment, it doesn't seem accurate for one to be called "address" and the other to be called "search". The actual function is closer to "private" and "not private". Your suggestion is a good one for one of the directions they could go in, because it increases the distinctness of the fields.
I assume the location bar only auto-completes previously visited URLs, while the search bar auto-completes search queries by hitting google with every key you press. So in chrome's unified case, google knows how many times you type http://news.y..*, not just every potential search query you make.
I prefer it this way...The address box works as a search bar but the search is persistent (ie. I can search for something, close the tab and come back later in two key presses)
I also prefer them separate, but rather for ease of navigation. I use the address box as a form of "search my browsing history" to jump to pages that I've visited before, and it's convenient to keep that separate from the search box's own history and automatic suggestions. The fact that Chrome conflates these two concepts is its biggest turn-off to me.
... I never even thought of that. I always start with naive searches and then remember to add "site" refinements later as I mangle the search from the Google page, so I never actually try the "site:" qualifier right in the URL bar. That's a nasty one.
You can also press the down arrow button and press return as usual that gives the option to search even if what you type looks like a url to the browser. Also I just tried it and the default selection for what you quote is search not the url.
Just tried that (Firefox 25 on OSX). It didn't work. Down arrow does nothing, and there are no AwesomeBar matches, so there is no drop-down. Maybe you have some configuration option set?
Nope. When you type anything in the omnibox that chrome thinks is a url, it shows atleast 2 items in the dropdown one is go to url and other a search google for url. I can upload a screenshot when I am back home in a couple of hours.
The address wasn't understood
Firefox doesn't know how to open this address, because
the protocol (site) isn't associated with any program.
You might need to install other software to open this
address.
Firefox 21 on Ubuntu was giving me the same thing, I don't think I've tried it on Firefox 25 on my Ubuntu install.
> 1) 1-word searches/domains or searches involving a domain-looking piece of text throw it off.
With DuckDuckGo, it's easy to prepend/append "!ddg" onto the offending text to force a search. I sometimes have to do this for arithmetic operations, the first operand of which the bar interprets as an address. For me, the small amount of extra time this takes is worth it. A unified search/URL bar, particularly with DDG's bang functionality, feels like a command line. And a command line feels like home.
!ddg is quite a few extra keystrokes though. Isn't it easier to just keep a shortcut key bound to that search? For example, I have 'g' bound for Google. The result:
"blah blah" -> Google: blah blah
"blahblah" -> attempts to find a host named blahblah
"g blahblah" -> Google: blahblah
I've recently tried to switch back from chrome to Firefox but the persistent search thing really bugs me, as well as the fact that it doesn't always search when typing into the url bar.
If you want to get back so quickly there are recently closed, bookmarks, history and plenty of other ways. Always persisting the search term I find very visually distracting.
Edit: On the other hand, the current tab behaviour is more of an irritation. Middle clicking the tab closes the tab unless it's the last tab when it does nothing. This is irritating. Dragging a tab doesn't work well when that tab is maximised. In chrome if you have 2 windows both maximised it's easy to drag a tab from one window to the other. In firefox you have to make one window smaller first to do this.
I'm quite excited to find out if this new interface fixes this.
To be specific, starting a search with a % searches only in open tabs. + searches tagged pages, * searches bookmarks, and ^ searches frequently-visited pages that aren't bookmarked.
I created keyword search bookmarks for all my frequently used search engines.
For example, I often look up music releases on musicbrainz:
http://musicbrainz.org/search?query=%s&type=release
I bookmarked this URL and assigned a keyword (You can also right-click input fields and select 'Add a keyword for this search'). Now, everytime I enter "mb-r <name of the release I'm looking up>" into the url bar, it goes straight to musicbrainz and inserts my search string into the %s-placeholder.
It's handy unless you accidentally start searching for anything that could be mistaken for an IP address or domain. Typing in `0x10c` to find the site for the game, or `minimal-library.js`, or whatever, won't take you to a search results page.
Works alright for most things though, and I think it's still better than Google's default to Google approach, which is frustrating when you're working on a locally hosted site and keep getting sent to a search page.
Persistent. You type into the search bar and it stays there until you clear it out. Whereas url bar search you lose it. You have to click on your search engine's search bar on the page.
Well in firefox you can't do searches like cache:news.ycombinator.com or site:news.ycombinator.com (Edit: in the address bar)
I also prefer the way firefox acts with suggestions in the search and address bar being separate, I often find myself messing up where I meant to go because I thought pressing enter would take me to a site but instead goes to a search.
Firefox is easy for me because the address bar acts differently.
I think they have some data showing that when they're separate, people search more. Since Mozilla gets almost all of their money from searches, it seems like a good idea to keep it that way.
I agree. It's still more beautiful in my opinion though.
I don't like Chrome either, but a few parts of it are nice.
The thing I dislike most about recent Firefox releases is that the selected search engine influences URL bar search, which is rather annoying in my opinion, but then I removed the search feature from the URL bar, making them at least somewhat distinct again.
But there is a reason why Chrome looks like Chrome. Ironically, it's the lack of Chrome - the UI is unobtrusive and gets out of the way. I see the new Firefox UI in the same way.
I don't understand how curved tabs are supposed to get "out of the way". The new design seems to use less standard UI elements to push it's own (WinXP / Fisher-Price) agenda: I don't see any gains here and I reckon they just want to appeal to the chrome crowd.
Looks like Australis "borrows" a lot from Chrome UI.
It has pinned tabs with an icon, chrome like tab shape, chrome like options (3 horizontal bar) icon, chrome like simple settings and even chrome like icons (incognito, bookmarks).
shrug. Firefox already had pinned tabs with an icon, and the icons for incognito/private and bookmarks aren't much different from the current ones either.
I really, really dislike that the bookmark button has been taken out of the address bar, that's my biggest pet peeve, along with the slightly less customisable look.
Why is Mozilla trying so hard to make Firefox exactly like Chrome? I have been using Firefox since like 1.5, if I wanted it to be like Chrome I would use Chrome.
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 Chrome.
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.
I was prepared to deal with arguments, but all I got instead were downvotes.
I've compared Firefox with Chrome on different systems, and my perception of the performance was the same in all cases. Chrome is a memory hog, but it does not lag as Firefox does when it's loading pages.
Firefox has looked awful on Linux for a long time. I'm excited to see a consistent design on every OS, and I've been primarily using the UX build for months.
A lot of people say this looks a lot like Chromium, but I don't find that to be the case at all. The background tabs aren't rounded at all, while tabs are shown to be rounded on mouse-over. It's a significant improvement over Chromium's approach. I'm not a tremendous fan of the rounded design, but it's certainly an improvement over the previous design.
Maybe I'm blind, but it looks basically the same on Linux as it does now except the tabs are curved (and possibly take up more space!)
I notice the tabs aren't sitting up in to the window manager in their Linux screenshot (understandable). I've already hidden the menu bar, then killed the window decorations for FF in KWin, so my tabs touch the top of the screen. In fact, Chrome actually uses a few more pixels than FF for me.
Maybe it's your OS? They look very different to me on Windows. The orange Firefox top menu is gone, the tabs have gained an "x" button, the "+" no longer has a border, the padding above the tabs is reduced, there are 3 new buttons on the search bar which is now larger and lost its colored background, and the forward button is gone.
It looks more like Chrome than it does old Firefox.
I much prefer how it looks for me currently (Firefox 26.0b5 on XFCE, Greybird/Numix styles): http://i.imgur.com/XXzCFQZ.png
It seems like change for the sake of making things "glossier". That inactive tabs have no top border bothers me. As does the fact it seems to completely ignore my native window toolkit tab/widget styles.
I have simplified and totally removed the search bar.
Some tweaks to get just an icon for the menu in the top left and also remove the close buttons in each tab. Probably something else I don't remember.
I thought this australis revision would make firefox look better integrated in the environment, not less, it seems they want to make it look the same in all plataforms...
I'm not a huge fan of that, but I'll wait to see if it can be integrated better of not.
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.
One interesting feature is the ability to customize the layout of the UI. Opera had some really great features for customization of UI and it's nice to see another browser doing it.
One thing I still haven't seen except in Opera: Tabs on the left or right. With widescreen monitors, I prefer my tabs on the left. Even better, tabs with thumbnails.
I hope they don't make it harder for add-ons to have the tabs on the left / right side. It's such a no-brainer to have the tabs there. Viewport is still big enough, and you can see the tab content mor easily.
I don't care if they've taken heavy inspiration from Chrome. I love the UI of Chrome and I am glad Firefox aren't embarrassed or afraid to take such obvious inspiration from a great looking browser and build upon it. This is exactly what Firefox has needed, a properly designed UI.
My knee-jerk reaction is that I like the old UI better... I do feel that the tab layout is preferable to Chrome's tab layout because the inactive tabs are faded and not round.
This is awesome news. One thing that I'm still hoping the Firefox team would integrate is the ability to clear all downloads from the dropdown menu once they're finished instead of having to open the downloads window.
When is this curved tab experiment going to end already. I hated it in every peace of software that ever used it, and it always forces me to find ways to get rid of it.
Why not just stick with native tab implementation?
It's great that you use pentadactyl and you don't have to worry about these changes :v
Btw, I don't find that the menu list looks nice. The way it shows history just doesn't fit.
edit: a new update is now available with the new changes, I _like_ it!
edit': a minor quibble though, I preferred the star button when it was directly integrated in the url bar. I find it too excentred from the url for my eyes, I often give a quick look to check if an url is already starred or not.
Technically speaking, the Nightly Build is only for testing purposes and is the most unstable version of FF available.
Here's a brief explanation:
In order of development - some new features may come and go from channel to channel.
Nightly - Under heavy development. Least stable/secure. First tests of new changes/features; some changes/features introduced in Nightly may be removed before Release and other versions. Only for testing. Should only be used by very experienced users/testers.
Aurora - Still under development. More stable/secure than Nightly. Some bugs may still be present that need resolution. Should be used by experienced users only who can post/report reproducible problems and work around issues.
Beta - Final development stage before Release. Usually good stability/security. Major bugs resolved. Working out final bugs. Preview of what Release version will most likely contain in the way of changes/features, though some changes/features can still disappear before Release.
Release - Final channel released to public for everyday use.
Also this only affects the nightly and add-on developers should be testing nightly anyway so they should prepare to update their add-ons in the future to adopt to the new UI.
That's a feature, not a bug. Yay! (Chrome) I have 40 tiny tabs and I don't know what any of them are! At least Firefox + tabs provides real tab management options: scroll bar, Tree Style Tabs, Panorama, etc.
As long as the themes I use keep working, great. One of the best parts of Firefox (which Chrome seems incapable of picking up) is that themes work: You can change the whole look and feel to what you want, as opposed to it being what some self-styled UI expert thinks you should want.
Not only that, it's faster as well. Try closing a session of Chrome with 20 tabs open and then reopening it. On both Windows and Linux, Chrome can be extremely unresponsive in this scenario. FF lazy loads tabs so doesn't care to reload everything in the background when you restart your session.
I've noticed the reverse with Firefox, closing an instance with 20 tabs takes quite some time. However I've yet to notice Chrome take any time in opening 20 tabs.
People still seem to make the statement that Firefox uses more RAM, when in fact, since Firefox 20, it has consistently used LESS ram than all the other browsers.
I have 40 tabs open now, and it's using 1.16 GB which is awesome. I actually want it to take up more because I have 6GB of free RAM not being used, which is a waste.
Compare that to chrome. Using the same number of tabs and it can easily take up more than 3GB of ram on my system, which is expected since each tab is a different process.
I wonder when Firefox's tabs will run on their own separate process. I'm looking forward to that. I think I saw some updates a month ago but I can't find that now.
The only thing about using separate processes is that you increase memory usage, since every tab has overhead, and tabs can't share resources (chrome tends to go process per domain).
i think electrolysis currently does something like grouping tabs like 10 per process or something.
In nightly:
about:config
=> browser.tabs.remote
set to true
restart firefox.
bang, you have multiprocess firefox.
a word of warning: it doesn't work so well, so i guess it's experimetal. you'll probably want to revert to false ;-)
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 think the prefs are worth it."[1]
Now I have to use a custom user chrome CSS file and disable the tab animations to get the same effect.
I really hope this pointless update won't make me jump through a dozen hoops again. I'm tired of it.
[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=574654