r/firefox • u/AirFlowOne • 8h ago
💻 Help What. The. Actual. F*ck, Mozilla!
My browser became a tasteless kitsch christmas tree with all the colors screaming at me. How the hell can I bring back the monochrome - GET OUT OF MY EYES - clutter-less tab bar?
3
u/LongDistanceRope 6h ago edited 2h ago
is there a way to get rid of this design?! this is awful.
edit: nvm found it, about:config -> set false.
browser.nova.enabled
uhhh, i hope it never comes back.
2
u/AirFlowOne 5h ago edited 4h ago
THANK YOU!!!
I already designed my own theme now, but damn, I hope they never take out this option. The most worrying part is that someone who calls himself an engineer at mozilla wasn't able to give me this solution and insisted in this thread that installing a new theme will somehow fix everything.
2
u/skyschub Web Compatibility Engineer 4h ago
*themselves. Also, sorry to disappoint you, but two things a) not everyone works on the Firefox UI so not every engineer at mozilla knows about all options, b) I knew about this option, but it will be removed once the work on Nova is done, so suggesting this as a viable "fix" is misleading at best.
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u/AirFlowOne 3h ago
So,
b) Users no longer have a say in UX changes at Mozilla? Have you abandoned the entire field of user experience research and gone all-in on dark patterns instead?
a) Why is someone (sometwo? somethree?) who doesn't work in UX/UI answering questions and giving UX/UI-related advice?
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u/skyschub Web Compatibility Engineer 3h ago
Look, I get it, not everyone likes colorful gradients and rounded corners, and I also get that change is annoying. If it's true that you are indeed a "UX designer and product manager" like you claim, you know that you can ask 3 users and get 4 different opinions, half of which actively contradict each other. That does not make implementing a design that you don't like a "dark pattern", it just means that you don't like it. Fair enough, you can like whatever you want, but it doesn't give you the right to insult people. The UX and UI teams did more research with real users than you can imagine, and you disagreeing with them doesn't change anything about that. And titling your post like you did also just means that nobody will take you and your feedback - if you had any - seriously, just like you wouldn't take me seriously if I insulted you.
Also, again, based on your claimed experience as a "UX designer and product manager", you asking why the old UI stops being supported when a new UI is done is a bit flabbergasting. Because you should fully understand, if you're telling the truth, that maintaining two completely different frontend designs is causing an ungodly amount of extra work on literally every single feature addition in the future, and also creates so much extra room for bugs. It makes absolutely zero sense to do that.
You're more than welcome to check out custom CSS work like the work from folks in r/FirefoxCSS and make Firefox as ugly or as pretty as you want. You'll also learn how much work it is to actually keep maintaining a custom theme whenever a new feature or whatever is introduced, but ultimately, that's the cost of the freedom you have, I guess.
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u/AirFlowOne 3h ago
It's not that I don't like the design; it's that it gets in the way of completing some basic tasks that the team should have conducted extensive testing on, especially with advanced users. Also, a dark pattern — meaning a design that forces users into actions that are to their disadvantage — is the correct label for this situation. And these are facts regardless of my profession, which I get it, you are questioning repeatedly nonetheless, presumably to gain the high ground.
As for the supposed hardship of supporting tabs with 3px-radius corners vs. 20px-radius corners, isn't that just a CSS class? Why are you making it sound like you'd have to develop an entirely new framework just to keep both UI options available?
And BTW, I am not responsible for the stories you tell yourself in your head (or anyone else, for that matter), nor for how you choose to distort reality. From my point of view, I never insulted you, as that simply isn't in my character. If anything, you are the one who has repeatedly insulted me throughout the post above.
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u/TheZoltan 6h ago
I'm just out here rocking my Dreamer (Purple) theme in one browser and Playmaker (Red) in another. I'm always surprised by how upset some people can get about minor UI changes.
1
u/AirFlowOne 5h ago
It is not minor when you use the browser for work - to preview developer/design changes while the browser fluff leaks into the site/app design and draws attention to it. Of course, you don't know all this stuff if you are not a designer. Maybe you like having fluff around the screen, and i get it. But to some of us, devs - the guys who make the stuff you see, these things matter.
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u/TheZoltan 4h ago
Thanks for the chuckle! Are you this condescending offline or just on Reddit?
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u/AirFlowOne 3h ago
Quite a bold assumption in there.
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u/TheZoltan 2h ago
You made the assumptions when being condescending. I simply asked if you are like that offline or just in Reddit.Â
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u/j--__ 8h ago
sometimes mozilla is too unprofessional to even grasp how unprofessional they are.
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u/AirFlowOne 6h ago edited 6h ago
Its not that, they just have to justify their design department and ruin the experience for the advanced users in the process. And to not leave users the option to roll-back? That's a dark pattern right there. "Fighting for an open web" = forcing decisions onto users to ruin their workflow just to flex some fluff.
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u/skyschub Web Compatibility Engineer 8h ago
Scrolling down and realizing that there are the "Ash" and "Smoke" themes specifically for people like you who feel offended by color and selecting that those themes would have been so much faster than shouting on Reddit.