Firefox's massive overhaul moves to beta

Firefox's massive overhaul moves to beta.

Related: Firefox 29 Beta Pulls In Many Features.

-- Tom

 

If I wanted Chrome I would just download one. WTF is wrong with mozzilla team I hope iceweasel and seamonkey dont' fall for this nonsense.

If menubar disappears completely then I will run Internet Explorer in Wine....on Linux.

 

To all the whiners out there: Classic Theme Restorer

 

This is why the reboot
Usage
Chrome 46.60%
IE 24.64%
Firefox 20.37%
Safari 5.06%
Opera 1.33%
Others 2.00%

 

Why do I have to add an extension to have a normal browser. How hard is it to leave it as an option.
Thankfully iceweasel team will probably take care of this. But I dont longer recommend firefox to family and friends.

 

For the same reason you needed to install an app like StartIsBack in order to get a normal desktop on Win 8, because some developer thinks that it's their place to tell users what they want. In both cases, when an application or extension is needed just to get back what you had, the new version isn't worth having.

 

Have used it for 30 minutes. No complaints, I like it.

 

Is this actual usage or simply the number of downloads/installs? As for Chrome how much is due to the fact that it's bundled with numerous apps? I often see it on my customers' PCs and they don't know how it got there or what it is. To my knowledge Firefox is not bundled which means that people actually have to choose to download and install it.

 

Firefox doesn't suddenly become Chrome because they change the look a little. Firefox remains far ahead of Chrome in terms of customization and extensions IMHO.

 

I don't understand the fuss about about this change. Now we will have curvy tabs and a button was moved from the tab bar to the address bar. Or did I miss some other changes?

 

Mozilla need to go back to school and learn the meaning of too much too soon. There are a few people who always have to have the latest and greatest, but for me personally they've become a joke.

 

No status bar.
Moronity.

Mrk

 

Oh, haven't used that thing since ages because of these stupid wide monitors. All my buttons were moved on my address bar.

 

Gotta agree with Wroll here, I've been running the beta on my notebook & it seems OK. Certainly not the disaster I thought it would be. I haven't used the status bar on Fx for sometime. I don't really miss it. Admittedly it doesn't have the speed of Maxthon (for me anyway) but it's quite responsive. ABP & NoScript work fine. I reckon I will be able to live with the final release, the beta's not bad at all.

 

Same here. It's not as bad as I thought it would be. It really doesn't bring as much change as I thought it would.

 

Maxthon used to and probably still does call home in a surreptitious manner which the developer admitted to after it was squeezed out of him (figuratively speaking). This is not to say Firefox or other programmes do not.

A third-party firewall with user control is necessary to catch and stop this behaviour.

Best regards

 

Yeah, I expected more of a drastic change. I can still drag the GUI icons where I like them, have DDG as my default search engine and customise it with a persona.

 

I'm shagged then 'Q' as I have a Maxthon Cloud account! Nearly every browser I like to use, whether Android or Windows, phones home.

 

LOL, still need to check it out, but I did see some screenshots. I was thinking the same thing.

You know what´s a joke to me, ~Possibly offensive comment removed~

I´ve noticed that there is a delay in loading search results when you search from the address or search bar. It´s because they are redirecting searches.

They are probably getting paid for this stuff (by Google for example) and don´t bother to fix this.

 

Massive overhaul? You mean there is a possibility it could a) load fast, and b) load pages fast?

 

Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

 

Does it still have the Menu bar? I didn't see it in the screenshot.

 

I downloaded the portable apps version of "FF 29 Beta 1 Rev 2 with Australis UI" (http://portableapps.com/news/2014-03-20--firefox-portable-29.0-beta-1-released) recently. Played with it *after* disabling my network connections (since it lacks the protective configuration/extension changes my normal FF has). Some things I recall noticing:

- No status/addon bar or ability to create one. Having a "standard" bar where multiple extensions can display persistent status information is quite useful. Some would naturally prefer that being at the bottom as well. In part because it helps to keep status separate and visually distinguish the bottom of the window/page.
- You can move some toolbar items to the same horizontal band as the menu bar, but can't move the location bar up there. Which is a reasonable thing to want to do and something I've often seen done.
- The location bar and tab bar appear permanently joined with the tabs on top, which may account for why the location bar can't be moved up to the menu band. This arrangement may be desirable in a several ways for those who use tabbed browsing. However, not everyone does use tabbed browsing or would want to. Supporting tab-free arrangements is a pretty logical thing to do. The rigid arrangement/limitation will be a nuisance for some.
- The "Bookmark this page" and "Show your bookmarks" buttons are joined and inseparable. Poor assumption here... that all users will want both.
- The back/forward buttons and refresh button being permanently attached to the location field creates some inconsistency in UI elements and may not be desirable to some.
- Developer tools should be individually place-able on toolbars.
- Sign-in to sync should be a removable/hide-able item so admins can discourage its use.

I think these customization limitations will be.. justly... disappointing to some users. One of the main rules of UI design for personal devices is "maximize customization" because what's best for a user greatly depends on personal preferences, any physical limitations they have, the tasks they commonly perform, the form factor of their device/display, etc. I think Mozilla could have and should have done better.

Could you please elaborate on that second sentence and what you did to substantiate that conclusion? Have you examined network activity to verify some kind of redirection? If so, please explain what you saw. If not, no need to reply.