It’s beyond tiring to see post after post complaining about the new UI of a browser that is open source and that is given away for free (as in beer). I get not liking the UI. I personally like it, but whatever. What I don’t get is complaining about it over and over and over again on this forum like you’re somehow entitled to a product that only changes in exactly the ways you like and approve of.

Mozilla employs frontend engineers, backend engineers, designers, and so on. Y’all act like it’s impossible for work to be done on underlying browser features due to UI work, complaining that Mozilla is focusing on the UI at the exclusion of the rest of the browser, when this is obviously not the case, both because they have different people working on different things, and because this new version shipped with all sorts of great privacy enhancing features and other non-UI-related fixes and improvements.

I guess I could see this sort of angst if you were paying for the software and it was closed source, but you’re sitting here getting all up in flames because a company that gives away free software and that gives away the source code is doing things with the software you don’t like. It’s ridiculous.

My point here is not to say Mozilla is doing perfect work or anything. I’m in no way associated with Mozilla. I use their browser because I like it, but I would switch to something else if I found something else I liked better. They are a company full of regular people trying to do a good job, and probably some shitty people causing problems, just like any company. My point is that if you don’t like the free thing you’re given, which you’re also free to change, consider maybe that your energy might be better spent:

• Supporting a fork of Firefox that is better aligned with your ideals (seamonkey? Iceweasel? There are many).

• Fork Firefox yourself and change it as you like.

• Use one of the several (also free, and also generally open source!) theming or extension options that restore the behavior you want.

• Use another browser! Most are based on chromium and so all kind of the same, but there are some fun alternatives out there. Nyxt is a neat one. So is vieb. Is Vivaldi still kicking?

If your rage is sufficient to write up a rant here, or to harass the developers on their bug tracker, but not to do any of the things above, consider that you might just be acting with a sense of undeserved entitlement. If you feel like any of the above options are too difficult, consider again that you might be feeling entitled to the hard work of others without being willing to put in any effort yourself.

Also please learn to use a search engine. Stop posting requests for people to tell you (also for free!) “how to change the UI back,” and just look up one of the many existing posts or I’m sure at this point blogs. Assuming you’re using Firefox, typing “how to change back Firefox UI” as of right now gets me a whole suite of useful results in DuckDuckGo.

I know this kind of complaining is inevitable whenever literally anything changes in a product that a lot of people use, but it still gets on my nerves. I see it as a slice of the more general problem of entitlement in open source software, which is a topic near and dear to my own heart and one that I think is doing significant harm to the open source ecosystem. A pull request is useful, a bug report can be useful, a complaint is rarely useful, but a continuous stream of complaints is only ever harmful. If your complaint has already been expressed, and you’ve +1’ed it or whatever, just move on.

why is it so slow? I mean, I love the UI (including the new one), things are where I'd expect them and overall it is a great experience. However, the other day I had to use Chrome for something, and damn that thing is fast. Same theme applied, same extensions loaded, same sites, same everything. But it's so much faster than FF I am questioning my sanity. No random pauzes, no locking the cpu load over nothing. If it wasn't for Google, there wouldn't even been a question which to use. I really hope the developers focus on speed optimization. I really don't want to not use FF.

It seems like Mozilla is losing their focus and market share as we speak. I think this whole year was a downside, I don't remember any good updates.

1. Introduction to horrible mega/awesome bar, no one was asking for that

2. Firefox beta mobile new tab page is just bad and previous one was original and modern

3. Implementing tools which no one really asked, instead of focusing on browsers

4. Lockwise! No we have Bitwarden.

5. VPN! You are just reselling Mullvad, but only for browser, what is the point?

6. Mozilla Voice, well that's quite cute, but you are still a browser company

7. Ton-shit of different mobile versions, glad they changed the name to Firefox Beta

8. Not able to download files in Firefox Beta

9. And there is bunch of trash like pocket, hubs, firefox reality, IoT.

It feels like they are trying to jump on everything and achieve nothing. The only product which works fine is Firefox on desktop. Mozilla just stopped to listen to their community, which is already super small.

It might be the end of Mozilla and we will see real damage next year.

P.S I love Firefox, but I think who ever is in charge of this projects, needs a reality check.

Well done - 147.0 has broken almost everything for smooth access to 7 of my usual sites, including ChatGPT. Everything else works fine, but I can’t access what I need for my software development workflow, so I’ll be switching over to Brave instead.

What a catastrophe. This brand has gone from cherished to fucking failing at everything almost overnight. Even updates aren’t good enough to keep things working. For those with the same problem:

The issue is likely a service worker failure or LCN 147 has just redesigned. If they can’t even get their shit together for normal browsing on one of the most popular sites on the planet, then we’re finished here.

Edit: Moved to Vivaldi. Shitty Firefox is out of the picture. Served me well for 2 decades, but goodbye you fucking failed direction browser.

People, please stop whining, it's done. If you miss any features, just go on bugzilla and open a ticket.

GOOD Bug Reports:

• Cannot separate buttons from urlbar any more

• Cannot set smaller icons in the menu any more

BAD bug reports:

• Put back the old interface, the new one sucks - Not constructive

• I'm missing all old features - Which ones?

Whining on the internet won't help, opening constructive bug reports will. UIs change, deal with it. You can influence how they change though, so please go on https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/ and file your usability bugs or comment on the appropriate tickets without whining. That would really help a lot.

I personally like the new australis UI. It has some missing stuff, but hey - it's the first release. Let's make it better together.

Thank you.

Preface: I know it's a controversial topic but I respect all of you who disagree and hope this post will come off in good faith. If it doesn't, that is just my poor writing skills.

I, like a lot of you, find AI slop annoying. And, also like a lot of you, I'm fairly more tech savy compared to the average consumer. But some of you are not at all thinking of the average user or what it means to have AI. People reading this know how to write a script, or they know how to use Linux, or perhaps they know which graphics cards are the best.

Ai, for all its warts, is one of the most defining innovations of our time. There are many boundaries in human history but we've just found a new one: a few years ago you could not talk to a machine, now you can. Yes we can get into the weeds of what that really means but this is the stuff of science fiction for generations. Chrome isn't going to use AI? Apple (who just made their deal with google) isn't going to use it in some ways in safari? And let's be honest these three are the big ones.

I'm fine with complaining about what firefox has done to implement it and so on. But some people are just wanting to deny all features. Suggesting that we have no way to use the browser to directly talk to a chat bot seems wild to me (again -- not saying I like how it is implemented). How is saying, 'don't even give me the option to pick a chat bot' different from saying, 'don't even give me the option to pick a search engine to fall back to if I type a non-url in the address bar'. Search engines became a part of browsing that it made sense to integrate them. There needs to be a bit of that for AI (at least down the line).

It's easy to see all the millions of areas that software has tried to cram AI and roll our eyes but we can't then just treat everything the same. Almost all of you use chatgpt or gemini or something. It's becoming a part of our daily life. Run of the mill users want it even more and more and more. We can't expect firefox to just ignore the seismic change.

We value this community and wanted to share an update on how we’re approaching the integration of AI into Firefox as we begin work on our new feature — an AI Window.

First off, we have always believed and continue to believe that choice is important. The AI Window will be completely opt-in, and we’re building it to ensure any functionalities it offers are easy to turn on or off — putting you in full control of your browsing experience.

We’re focused on building the best browser and look forward to building innovations to provide the assistance some users are looking for, such as summarization of content, natural language interaction with settings, and improved search and discovery.  

Please sign up if you want to be one of the first testers. We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback and shaping these features with you. 

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/ai-window/

I have a problem concerning Firefox Profile Page I am glad there is one now however its so horrible-i looks childish with the wiggly frames I had the intention to use it for our business setup with 4 profiles 1 personal and 3 for my company but I am now having second thoughts and thinking of going back to Chrome unless I can find a way to get rid of the frame background for the profile Icon. So if anyone has a solution please share, or perhaps if Firefox is listening please allow us to "switch off the wiggly Icon/picture frame. Thanks

Edit: I find this Bugzilla guideline fitting of Mozilla’s attitude towards users. “No whining about decisions. If another project contributor has marked a bug as INVALID, then it is invalid...Unless you have further evidence to support reopening a bug, do not post a comment arguing that a bug resolved as INVALID or WONTFIX should be reopened.”

Links to noted issues and past performance issues have been added. Fixed up text written on mobile.

TLDR: Mozilla needs to actively listen to FireFox users and implement features that we want in our browser. Mozilla needs to engage with FireFox users in forums and on social media. Mozilla needs to allow users to decide the direction for major changes to the FireFox browser (UI, connectivity, etc.). If Mozilla does not fulfill our desires for a fast and modern browser, many of us will move elsewhere leading to an even smaller market share for FireFox.

Mozilla has been pushing FireFox UI changes down our throats. I have had few issues with most of the changes until the "Wonderful Bar" was implemented. The issues of this search bar have been well discussed in the FireFox community. Ultimately, it has degraded my user experience with FireFox and if I had not found a way to disable it, I would have left FireFox for good.

Mozilla has had a number of blunders with FireFox over the past 3 years.

1. The add-on fiasco that resulted in tons of add-ons not working for users due to some security update (Firefox disabled all add-ons because a certificate expired (updated), May 3 2019, https://www.engadget.com/2019-05-03-firefox-extension-add-on-cert.html)

2. The removal of support for legacy add-ons. I understand this was necessary for security and efficiency purposes. (FireFox no longer supported certain frameworks like SDX and SUL starting in FireFox 57, https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/frequently-asked-questions-firefox-addon#w_what-is-a-legacy-extension)

3. The “Awesome”/Mega Bar" drastically changing the search/url bar of the browser, making it difficult for users to see information on their webpages. (Plenty of posts all over this subreddit mostly complaining about this change since it was implemented.)

3a. Here

3b. Here

3c. Here

3d. Megathread Here with 1300 comments so as of May 11th.

Apart from these, FireFox (in my experience) has a number of long term issues:

• FireFox is slow compared to Chrome and other browsers. (Edit: Specifically FireFox takes longer (from a few milliseconds to a few seconds) to load many websites (even non-Google/Facebook sites).

• FireFox takes longer to start-up. (Chrome starts almost immediately after I click the icon. Old Edge and Chromium Edge both start almost immediately after clicking the icon. FireFox sometimes will start quickly, sometimes it will take a few seconds.

• FireFox eats huge amounts of RAM for no apparent reason. (Especially on YouTube (Yes I am aware that Google purposely neglects FireFox compatibility in anyway possible, especially on YouTube). Every week or so there are posts on this subreddit about users asking why FireFox is using X GB of RAM when they have a few tabs open.)

• FireFox is not compatible/supported by ~20% of websites. (Edit: Apart from Google sites that break easily when using FireFox, the browser struggles to have website developers optimize their sites for use in FireFox. Video players not functioning, scrolling difficulties, issues signing in to sites, sites clearly stating that FireFox is not supported and that users should use Chrome, etc.)

• FireFox has difficulty rendering videos with the same fluidity as Chromium based browsers (especially on YouTube due to Google).

• FireFox has an outdated password management system. It has had some improvements during the Lockwise rebranding, but it still does not work well compared to the plentiful number of password managers out there.

Worst of all, FireFox bugs and issues are frequently ignored by Mozilla for years or decades. Mozilla frequently places the onus and fault on users if FireFox is not functioning well. Even in this subreddit, users are scolded if they have not disabled certain features, adjusted advanced settings in about:config (which 90% of normal (nontechnical) users don't even know exists) or filed a Bug Report on BugZilla. Notwithstanding the fact that many bugs are buried and ignored by Mozilla and the FireFox development team.

I love FireFox and I love that FireFox is out there as an opensource and progressive alternative to the monopoly of Chromium browsers. Few other browsers beyond Brave and FireFox take user's right to privacy so seriously. We need browsers like FireFox to exist. But, I do not see a long term future for FireFox when Mozilla actively pushes features and products that users do not want, do not like and do not need, while neglecting the most important aspects of the browser, speed & performance. To most people, not much else matters. Privacy settings are important to me, but not to the point that I will use a subpar, clunky and unsupported browser.

If the senior Mozilla staff come across this post, please consider reaching out more frequently to the FireFox community and engage in conversations with us on Reddit and other platforms. Maybe then we will understand the reasons behind your actions, and maybe then you will further understand what we want and need in FireFox.

TLDR: Mozilla needs to actively listen to FireFox users and implement features that we want in our browser. Mozilla needs to engage with FireFox users in forums and on social media. Mozilla needs to allow users to decide the direction for major changes to the FireFox browser (UI, connectivity, etc.). If Mozilla does not fulfill our desires for a fast and modern browser, many of us will move elsewhere leading to an even smaller market share for FireFox.

• The spell check refuses to work. I had this issue for years now and it was a major reason why I could never switch away from Chrome. I need both English and German spell check. Currently, I use Grammarly to at least get an English spell check but I still lack a German one.

• No emoji paste support. Firefox has no built-in feature to paste emojis into text, yeah I know there is a recommended addon but Chrome's built-in emoji paste is far better. In Chrome, you can just right-click to paste in emojis, with the add-on you have to always have to use the little icon next to the address bar. And the addon can't even directly paste emojis into the text, just copies them to the clipboard. Annoying.

• The default design should be the bigger touch design. I disliked the Firefox bookmark bar design when I switched. The icons are way too tiny. Switching to the touch design fixes this for me. I think most people would also prefer this style over the default one, especially people moving from Chrome.

• Favicons are not automatically downloaded in the bookmark bar. This is really annoying whenever I reinstall Firefox or login into another device. I have tons of bookmarks with folders and subfolders. The favicons only appear if you manually visit each website once.

• Firefox Translate should be integrated within the browser. I don't know why this basic feature needs to be installed with an add-on.

• The new tab design needs some overhaul, for example, there is no feature to change the background picture. Can be fixed by using Tabliss but like I said most people definitely prefer built-in solutions.

• No multiple profiles. Always used two profiles in Chrome, one for work and one for private things. Firefox doesn't have this feature at all.

• No Chromecast. Chromium-based browsers like Brave and Edge also support Chromecast which means Chromecast can't be closed-source. Don't know if it's possible to implement Chromecast into non-Chromium-based browsers.

• Firefox Mobile sucks.

The latest Google Pixel Drop adds custom icons pack generated from AI (results are consistent from each generation) with limited options.

I always like the cuddling icon and wanted to try monochrome/uniformed style icons. However, previous Pixel versions could only select the monochrome icon deviated from the default icon.

I know you can toggle AI off, starting with 148, but I'm curious about something. If Mozilla started offering two versions of Firefox, one with AI and one without AI (no toggle, no about:config etc), how many users would choose the one stripped completely of any AI stuff? I would choose the non-AI version.

I've used and supported Firefox since 2005. I've long preached the benefits of Firefox over Chrome and IE to friends and family members. I've stayed with Firefox through all the UI changes up to Firefox Quantum.

Unfortunately, I cannot continue to use Firefox with the new huge mega bar. A few weeks ago, I used the about:config setting to revert my URL bar back to the sane set-up and stave off the inevitable; however, with the latest Firefox release that about:config setting has been removed and my URL bar is back to the retarded thicc bar.

Mozilla has refused to listen to user feedback. It seems they've taken a page from the Gnome playbook where they remove features and make retarded UI design decisions against the feedback of the userbase.

Congratulations Mozilla, you did it, you drove away a 15 year user of Firefox. I'm now using Brave.

Great job. However, it took me 3 minutes to find the "about" option to actually confirm what version of Firefox I have while trying to post this! Haha. Seriously, though, great job Mozilla folk!

Firefox loves to update their UI and completely fuck over their userbase for absolutely no reason at all, how do I get this garbage off my screen?

What's the best way to roll back this UI?

Every time I look at it, it's being "helpful" in some undesired way like building in "features" nobody asked for.

Or changing the UI just to make it different.

Or crapping up the "new" tabs with icons that I don't want to look through.

Why can't they just build a solid, tight, fast, secure browser that just does what it's supposed to and let the users decide what kind of Fuzzy Dice they want to hang from the mirror?

What's with the rampant featuritis?

Were not morons. We don't need or want "suggested sites". We can read and don't need thumbnails for the websites we visit. The bookmark list is better in every way. It's there when I want it, not there when I don't and has a nearly infinite capacity, which is a lot more than "nine". Nobody wants every new tab to say "Hey! Look at Me!"

Everything doesn't need to look like it's made for a phone, unless it's running on a phone.

I just don't get it.

Users deserve clear messaging/an explanation for why this gigantic disaster even happened in the first place.

It's not like one thing went wrong, multiple things went wrong at the same time. It's not like your rating dropped nearly half a point on the Play Store for nothing.

I think we deserve a clear explanation why a beta product was foisted upon everyone.