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The new Firefox design is here

111 points · 163 comments · timpera

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MoraliaApp · 1790689386 · focus · HN ↗
“Warm, but still precise” is an interesting goal. I wonder how much users actually feel that difference, though.
1. PalmPilotProMax · 1790690491 · focus · HN ↗
  I still have hilarious memories of "aerodynamic tabs" in that era of Firefox design docs.
2. dennismenken · 1790691758 · focus · HN ↗
  True
thetallgeek · 1790689629 · focus · HN ↗
I want the page headings to look like tabs, not pills. You don't have to be different for the sake of it
1. serbuvlad · 1790690258 · focus · HN ↗
  It's not different, it's just what Apple is doing (Safari uses pills).
  In fact, I propose that all computer User Interface design proceeds as:
  D(s) = (1 / (c * s + 1)) * (A(s) + N(s))
  Where c is some constant, A is what Apple is doing and N is random noise.
  1. cosmic_cheese · 1790691524 · focus · HN ↗
    I daily drive multiple Apple products, but this is one of those things where I disagree with Cupertino. I find that pill-tabs are bad design and that the way they mesh with Liquid Glass is strange. Tabs should look like tabs.
  2. VCFundedGenYer · 1790692754 · focus · HN ↗
    Safari does almost everything wrong. They’re not a good role model.
    serbuvlad · 1790692984 · focus · HN ↗
    My model is not a value judgement on quality. It simply is.
2. SyneRyder · 1790793094 · focus · HN ↗
  I think that's exactly why I'm having a negative reaction to the redesign as well. I'm expecting page tabs, not pills. I'm also finding the excessive roundness terrible.
  Of course, I'm on Windows, where it doesn't make any sense to incorporate Apple's Liquid Glass design guidelines. When I do want an Apple-like interface, I'd rather have something from the 10.11 - 10.15 vintage please. I wouldn't mind if there was a clearer option to switch back, but I'm not seeing that in the Appearances preferences.
prodmod · 1790689941 · focus · HN ↗
Is their overview video doing it for literally anyone at all? I would love to not be infantilized.
1. glenstein · 1790690551 · focus · HN ↗
  Ooof, it's definitely not just you. I definitely root for Mozilla to succeed and think they're critical in the grand scheme of the browser wars, but that video is rough. It's practically Cocomelon.
  1. functionmouse · 1790696006 · focus · HN ↗
    I wish the best for Mozilla.
    Donate to Ladybird!
2. micromacrofoot · 1790691373 · focus · HN ↗
  They're trying to regain mass market appeal because the only people using it now are diehard nerds, the video isn't for you
3. thiht · 1790713942 · focus · HN ↗
  I thought it looked good, it feels polished, their mascot looks cool, and I like it when open source gives two shits about design.
palmotea · 1790689961 · focus · HN ↗
Let me guess: even more whitespace, hiding stuff for a "clean" look like a baby toy.
1. ASalazarMX · 1790703538 · focus · HN ↗
  Weirdly, I like the new redesign. I have vertical tabs on, a lot (lot) of tabs, some grouped and some in different containers. The new style makes all this easy to see, it was very crowded and indistinct before.
xoac · 1790689979 · focus · HN ↗
the ui fix still works, nice
<a href="https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix
drcongo · 1790690004 · focus · HN ↗
Remarkably few images of design on this page about design. No I'm not going to watch a video.
1. iAMkenough · 1790690252 · focus · HN ↗
  Most of them are creative renderings too, not actual screenshots.
  Besides the fake macOS window controls for some renderings, I don’t see how one would close, minimize, or zoom windows with this new design.
2. jeddy3 · 1790690361 · focus · HN ↗
  There are remarkably few examples in the video as well
3. kevincox · 1790690414 · focus · HN ↗
  Seriously, are you proud of the new look? SHOW IT TO ME. Even the video was mostly themed mock-ups that didn't show what the actual design looks like. Just post a screenshot of the whole browser.
gray_-_wolf · 1790690280 · focus · HN ↗
Out of curiosity, if you use the split view, why? I never understood what it can do that my window manager cannot, but maybe I am overlooking something?
1. yoz-y · 1790690404 · focus · HN ↗
  Sometimes is just nice to have a tab related to an activity, which might involve having two web sites open
2. zamadatix · 1790690533 · focus · HN ↗
  I suppose that depends what your window manager is and how it's configured? Most don't have an easy way to lock two windows together as they are moved as one though - especially on corporate devices.
  Practically, it's most useful when I have two references for the same thing I want to move together as I work on that thing. E.g. Jira + Functional Spec as I do things related to them.
3. poopoo · 1790690552 · focus · HN ↗
  [dead]
4. modified001 · 1790690725 · focus · HN ↗
  Well, for one I use it to watch two videos at the same time.
5. TheqO · 1790691035 · focus · HN ↗
  Convenience.
  For a non technical user it is much easier to right click a link (for example a reference in a news article) and choose Split View than arrange two windows (which may involve 2 different monitors).
  For a Teams/Zoom screen where you are sharing only one app rather than whole desktop, again split may help.
  Also good for mental switching, as you can open a link to the side and either promote to it's own tab/close and carry on with same page rather than have it open separately and break the flow
  It's just another tool.
6. bitmasher9 · 1790691038 · focus · HN ↗
  I do it sometimes for highly related work (referencing on tab against the other) that will be a longer running task (30+ minutes).
  It means that both tabs get maximized and minimized at the same time, and the two tabs are always side by side. Which means if I need to jump to another task, like answering a message or joining a video call, I can get back to my work faster. It’s a small thing that helps with context switching.
  I do it when I consider both side of the Split View one unified context I am working on. I do it not only with browser tabs, but sometimes terminal tabs. I most commonly do it with IDE tabs.
7. ac29 · 1790691134 · focus · HN ↗
  I use a tiling wm, but the split view is more compact because it doesnt have two (vertical) tab bars. Useful on a cramped laptop, less so on a large screen
8. cosmic_cheese · 1790691257 · focus · HN ↗
  I don’t use split view much, but I can understand the appeal.
  It makes a lot of sense if one uses subject-based browser windows (e.g. 1 window == 1 subject); it keeps all tab organization within the browser and makes it easy to minimize it, move it to different screens/desktops, save/restore it, etc consistently with less overhead (no secondary organization system [such as that of the window manager] involved).
  This becomes even more valuable for cross-platform users who sync and can’t rely on their favorite uberleet-haxor-wm package being available everywhere.
9. johncoltrane · 1790691409 · focus · HN ↗
  The big selling point is that everything stays in the same window.
  - The split view is a special looking tab you can come too easily. - You can have several split views in the same window. - Selecting what tab you want in the split view is much cleaner than tearing off tabs into windows. - No conceptual switch between "tab" and "window".
10. _flux · 1790692404 · focus · HN ↗
  I think the key here is that split view makes one tab show two sites. So when you switch the tab, you switch both views at the same time. You can't achieve this with a window manager, unless you already (instead of tabs) used only windows that your window manager rendered as tabs, and then comes also with this feature. Does any?
11. dingaling · 1790693127 · focus · HN ↗
  Every 15 years, MDI gets re-discovered and then deprecated.
12. thiht · 1790712951 · focus · HN ↗
  Because I want a split view of 2 tabs, not 2 windows. The 2 tabs go together but they don't go with other tabs
13. Gud · 1790748335 · focus · HN ↗
  Because I want two tabs next to each other, but not two windows?
richwater · 1790690312 · focus · HN ↗
Firefox needs to start adding actual embedded functionality improvements rather than constantly tweaking the UX. Chrome's integration with Googgle Pay for example (which lets you generate virtual card numbers on the fly) is what allowed Capital One to replace their browser agnostic extension. Now I cannot use Capital One virtual card number generator in my checkout workflow if I don't move to Chrome.
1. TheqO · 1790691543 · focus · HN ↗
  That's an edge case is it not?
  99% of users don't need to generate virtual card numbers on the fly, so won't be a high priority item.
  1. richwater · 1790691640 · focus · HN ↗
    It's edge case, but I think it's an example of how Firefox is not keeping up with demand for more functionality. Firefox is slowly becoming obselete and Mozilla won't acknowledge it.
    TheqO · 1790692131 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes, no doubt over the years it has not been well run from a business perspective, and it is of note that the browser that was created by it's ex co-founder is found above it in the download charts on app stores.
    Mozilla have been terrible at marketing and strategy. With the amount of guaranteed money from the Google deal they had annually, they should have done so much more.
hattar · 1790690436 · focus · HN ↗
I wish Firefox would stop rolling out redesigns, color themes, and other visual tweaks every couple years and instead focus on features and bugs.
Improve Adblock capabilities, better tab and session management, improve sync, improve site css and js management, built in dark-mode.
Hell, just look at the list of most used extensions, it’s a great place to start understanding what users want.
1. micromacrofoot · 1790691245 · focus · HN ↗
  they can't focus on adblock because most of their money comes from google
  1. TheqO · 1790692339 · focus · HN ↗
    Yup. They can only offer limited built-in protection due to their revenue source, but important to note that unlike Chrome they don't dictate on what extensions can offer.
    So they are practically speaking the only game in town (Brave being the exception on Chrome as they are keeping support for UBlock Origin)
    Firefox Nightly on Android also allows desktop extensions to be used.
2. coldpie · 1790691262 · focus · HN ↗
  > built in dark-mode
  It has built-in dark mode, check out the Themes in your settings.
  1. hattar · 1790693215 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    coldpie · 1790693934 · focus · HN ↗
    Are you talking about the color scheme of the webpage, not the browser UI? The thing reported by the prefers-color-scheme hint[1]?
    Building a whole user interface to declare the setting of that preference per-site seems like a pretty high cost for something that won't be used by very many people. Instead, websites usually provide a way to override the setting which is stored as a cookie or whatever. I think overriding that value belongs in an extension, not as a core browser feature.
    [1] <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/At-rules/@media/prefers-color-scheme" rel="nofollow">https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/A...
  2. glenstein · 1790693549 · focus · HN ↗
    Right, I had an option to choose it (I think I chose device default, though I'm not exactly sure what it means on Windows but I assume it's like "system theme" on Android).
    The whiplash from seeing that selectable on my screen to seeing someone claim it's not there in the same 60 seconds is really something.
    coldpie · 1790694023 · focus · HN ↗
    > The whiplash from seeing that selectable on my screen to seeing someone claim it's not there in the same 60 seconds is really something.
    Lots of HN users have a huge hate-boner for Firefox. It's almost funny how reflexively they jump into Firefox related threads to scream about how much they hate Firefox.
    coldpie · 1790694272 · focus · HN ↗
    There's a lot of HN users who are just absolutely furious about Firefox and will jump into any thread to scream about how much they hate it and everyone involved in making it. The heat behind the complaints is so out of proportion it would be comical if they weren't targeting real people. It's baffling to me the scale of negativity people have to this actually pretty good piece of software existing in an unbelievably hostile product space.
    roryirvine · 1790696024 · focus · HN ↗
    On the other hand, I've noticed that posting anything even vaguely complimentary about FF will often get a bunch of upvotes, so I suspect there's a large base of silent supporters who are similarly baffled by all of the noisy hostility.
    Sadly, I think some of the heat is driven by culture war issues so people feel the need to pick a fight rather than simply ignoring something which doesn't suit their needs.
    coldpie · 1790697060 · focus · HN ↗
    Meanwhile in this thread, the current top comment is:
    > OMFG! Look at the massive amount of space between the stupid pill shaped tabs ... If I wanted to use a shitty safari UI that sacrifices usability for cutesy looks, I would use Safari. ... Mozilla: why in the hell do I need to trust some extension builder to give me an amazing UI/UX?
    Something about Firefox makes people act like absolute maniacs.
    kyleee · 1790728875 · focus · HN ↗
    It’s not inscrutable and you don’t have to feign surprise and rely on hyperbole - people have strong feelings about Mozilla because it could be so much more. It could be carrying the torch for principles of open general purpose computing, respect for users, etc. in a world of user hostile big companies and proprietary software, but Mozilla either either can’t or won’t do it, and it’s a bit shame. That’s a big source of the frustration you see commonly with any Firefox related announcement
    glenstein · 1790697002 · focus · HN ↗
    I definitely think it's partly that, but I do think visual redesigns also really strike something primal in the brains of an internet user for whatever reason.
    This will expose my internet user age but I remember Marcos Moulitsas talking about DailyKos redesigns, and he noted, correctly I think, that regardless of what you do, a visual redesign will be interpreted as an apocalyptic event to approximately 1/3 of the user base. But it tends to be a flame that burns bright but brief.
    Or for another version: there was a time in the history of Facebook where redesigns to the desktop version caused user outrage and mass organization into aggressively titled Facebook groups, protesting for a change. Now I personally think that in many significant respects Zuckerberg is a fool, his investment in meta and VR has been a joke and his perspectives on AI are naive. But I actually think the design and iteration of Facebook itself has been a savvy series of careful iterations, and going this long without shooting himself in the foot is not something to be taken for granted.
    Anyway, my point is as a going concern whenever you do a redesign you have to price in a certain amount of recreational outrage from a percentage of the user base that burns bright but brief.
    card_zero · 1790712921 · focus · HN ↗
    > But it tends to be a flame that burns bright but brief.
    That just means that, once it's been established that you're ignoring them, everybody who vocally hated the new design will switch to silent resentment of you for what you did, forever and ever.
    glenstein · 1790716628 · focus · HN ↗
    Or that given time to breathe and reflect, people realize their reaction was disproportionate to the perceived offense.
    ragall · 1790793009 · focus · HN ↗
    > people realize their reaction was disproportionate
    No.
    pessimizer · 1790701698 · focus · HN ↗
    > The heat behind the complaints is so out of proportion
    You're talking about a browser that has shed about 92% of its userbase since its peak. Firefox was never a default or a pushed selection, people were drawn to adopt it because they wanted it, and almost all of them were alienated and confused by the decisions that the browser made and continues to make.
    In trying to make sense out of this own goal, they see the massive payments from google to firefox, they see firefox intervening in google's antitrust case, they see executives being paid an enormous amount of money for continuous failure, and they watch the slide continue. To see these and avoid understanding this as firefox taking a dive (that should be illegal, would be nice if we had antitrust) is a sort of blindness. It's also not to be blamed on some UI designer who just got there a few years ago - those red herring "real people" - these are corporate decisions.
    If I invested with you, and you lost 92% of my money, there's no degree of heat that would be out of proportion.
    > unbelievably hostile product space.
    If you're subsidized a half-billion a year from your biggest competitor, and you started with a browser that was probably 35% of the market at peak, there is nothing hostile about this product space. It is the easiest job in the world. Especially if the job is to fail.
    coldpie · 1790702906 · focus · HN ↗
    > almost all of them were alienated and confused by the decisions that the browser made and continues to make.
    I don't think so. I've never been alienated by it. It's a browser. It does browser things. It's fine.
    What decisions have confused and alienated you? People in this thread are screaming bloody murder because of a couple pixels on tab bar and a low-contrast gradient. This isn't a rational reaction to a minor graphical tweak, it's bonkers hysterics.
    It turns out it's really tough to compete with one of the largest companies in the world when they are very highly motivated to capture as many users as they can (unlike Microsoft around the turn of the millennium). I think there are things Firefox could do to recapture the audience[1], but I also don't think turning the tabs into pills or whatever justifies the kind of language being used in this thread.
    [1] I think implementing this would generate some real positive conversation: <a href="https://www.smokingonabike.com/2025/12/31/web-browsers-have-stopped-blocking-pop-ups/" rel="nofollow">https://www.smokingonabike.com/2025/12/31/web-browsers-have-...
    glenstein · 1790708041 · focus · HN ↗
    Where's the 92% coming from? As far as I can tell the peak monthly active users was about 500 million [1] and they're currently at 208 million [2]. If they had shed 92% of their userbase I would expect their active users to be around 40 million. And if we're talking the past few years, they have lost users, but six years ago they were sitting at 231 million compared to today's 208 million, which if my calculator is correct, is a 11% loss not 92%.
    1. <a href="https://venturebeat.com/dev/firefox-on-fire-with-500m-users-and-50m-android-downloads-for-2013" rel="nofollow">https://venturebeat.com/dev/firefox-on-fire-with-500m-users-...
    2. <a href="https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity" rel="nofollow">https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity
    The inconvenient fact for these anti-Mozilla narratives is that most of those losses were in the 2010s before any of the side bets that people point to. The side bets era is approximately the 2020s, and the big market share losses were approximately in the 2010s, and so the side bets couldn't retroactively have caused the market share losses, and the actual market share losses of the 2020s are real but not consistent with the hysterical narratives that come out in the hn comment sections.
    And the other inconvenient fact for these polemics is that actual driver of market share change is Google's dominant position as the world's most visited website and as a distributor that gets to pick the default browser on more than one billion Android devices and counting.
    When Microsoft Edge grew it's market share, it wasn't because users A|B tested it against Firefox and found it more preferable, it's because it was a preinstalled default that gained ground over device churn. When Opera had practically the perfect browser in 2011-2012, they didn't conquer the world. When Mozilla did their massive quantum overhaul that delivered huge advances in performance and stability, their market share continued to decline. There are natural experiments left right and center testing the claim that market share is a perfect 1 for 1 response to changes in browser design.
    And the accusation seems to change on a nightly basis. Yesterday someone was outraged that anyone would dispute that average users don't care about any of this, they just want whatever browser is in front of them as long as it's fast and stable enough (so they claimed). Today, you've tagged in to claim users are hyperfocused on the minutia of Mozilla's design decisions on a day to day basis. Tomorrow somebody's going to claim it's really about something else. The only thing these competing explanations have in common besides hysterical exaggeration, is that they rely on unverified Trust Me Bro stories that never address the inconvenient fact that Google's distribution advantage is the primary driver of market share change. It feels like recreational outrage.
    ragall · 1790791486 · focus · HN ↗
    Graphical applications should never ever never change the UI. Change the default for initializing an empty config, like on a new machine, if you like but never change what's already a running config.
3. zawaideh · 1790692641 · focus · HN ↗
  A lot of what you are asking for is already there.
4. glenstein · 1790693331 · focus · HN ↗
  >and instead focus on features and bugs
  Who says they don't? They've pushed 23 new releases since 2025 with thousands of updates that include exactly the bug fixes, performance improvements and security fixes you're talking baout. This latest release, v157, includes the built in dark mode you're asking about (I just saw it on the popup on first launch when installing this new version) and the release notes describe improvements to tabs. v156 included huge performance improvements and they're regularly pushing tons of CSS updates across practically all of the releases.
  I don't understand why people claim these things aren't happening when they're regularly documented on their release notes page.
  1. throwawaydfasjf · 1790924871 · focus · HN ↗
    It's because they don't see bugfixes. They only see bugs.
    Like how I can't scroll on youtube anymore...
5. sunaookami · 1790693925 · focus · HN ↗
  They should also improve the bookmarks and history UI, it's unusable. They redesigned the history sidebar now and it takes a lot longer to show up...
  1. OnionBlender · 1790694271 · focus · HN ↗
    The Add Bookmark popup is so small and cramped trying to choose which folder to place the new bookmark.
tosti · 1790690439 · focus · HN ↗
Lots of pooh pooh, lots of blah blah, almost nothing on show.
formerffuser · 1790690477 · focus · HN ↗
FF has been my primary browser for 20 years. But in the past 6 months it spawns so many FF processes from a single web page with advertising like yahoo - 60 FF processes or more - that it's unusable. The X button to stop it doesn't work, and going to another website can take upwards of 10 seconds. I am looking for an another browser.
leawi · 1790690526 · focus · HN ↗
Hey! That's essentially Zen browser's UI?
1. mosselman · 1790690718 · focus · HN ↗
  Which in turn is essentially the Arc browser's UI
2. timpera · 1790690747 · focus · HN ↗
  "We have Arc Browser at home".
  More seriously, it's nice to see this UI finally copied by a major browser, but sad that there's still no real replacement for Arc.
3. cosmic_cheese · 1790691677 · focus · HN ↗
  Except Zen’s is more consistent and in my opinion, cleaner looking.
4. rwz · 1790696775 · focus · HN ↗
  As a long time Zen user should I give this redesign a try?
  1. rwz · 1790700967 · focus · HN ↗
    Answering my own question: no, they still don't have pinned tabs. Overall the new UI seems like a huge mess compared to Zen.
5. thiht · 1790713429 · focus · HN ↗
  Zen (and Arc) are much more than just vertical tabs. Native, neatly integrated support for vertical tabs is amazing and a step in the right direction but it's far from Arc in terms of usability, the main missing thing being the lack of "spaces" (ie. in the vertical sidebar you can swipe left/right to get a different space of tabs with different bookmarks)
everybodyknows · 1790690534 · focus · HN ↗
[delayed]
hackerbrother · 1790690549 · focus · HN ↗
I think Firefox is doing a good job overall.
timpera · 1790690565 · focus · HN ↗
I just updated. I think it looks great overall, but there is way too much lost space on the horizontal tabs.
1. coldpie · 1790690939 · focus · HN ↗
  Try out the Compact UI mode (Settings -> Appearance -> Window Density), which I didn't know about until I read this blog post. Tightens things up nicely.
clumsysmurf · 1790690614 · focus · HN ↗
I gave it a few minutes of trial and then disabled it.
With memory prices increasing, many people unable to afford new machines, and web browsers being one of those things that can potentially take a lot of system resources, I wish the Firefox team would prioritize CPU and memory performance of the core engine for users with lots of tabs.
I have stuff like 'Auto tab discard' installed but it seems to break other things, like 'Close Duplicate Tabs'.
1. IlikeMadison · 1790691096 · focus · HN ↗
  so sad you have to use the surveillance enabled chrome browser now, I feel so sorry for you
  1. clumsysmurf · 1790692243 · focus · HN ↗
    Don't feel sad or sorry :) There are other options, like Orion that runs uBo just fine. I haven't used it enough to say either way though.
2. anonthrownaway · 1790691171 · focus · HN ↗
  768 tabs open. Total suspender works great.
  1. coldpie · 1790692825 · focus · HN ↗
    Lol, there's enough people out there with hundreds of tabs open that there's clearly a real usecase for it, but I have just never understood this usage model. Feels to me like complaining you get bad gas mileage in your car because you're carrying around 15 years' worth of discarded McDonald's wrappers. The car isn't the problem! :)
    anonthrownaway · 1790693447 · focus · HN ↗
    Haha - if you read my post above, I detail my setup. I didn't cover usage there. Essentially, in my most used panels, I open a bunch of tabs that may be interesting in the AM, when I designate ~30mins to perusing sites like HN. I dedicate some reading blocks of time later in the day where I actually look at what I opened, usually kill a bunch of low info tabs quickly and maybe read/kill a few big info tabs. Others that I want to dedicate real time to float to the bottom of the list until I have time to read them. It stays fairly evergreen because I am a systematic reader...
n4bz0r · 1790690915 · focus · HN ↗
The UI was tidy and nearly perfect, now it's all over the place: weird paddings, different border radiuses even within a single element, clashing background colors, and boy, do I love rainbow gradients everywhere.
Update: for those unhappy with the changes, you can roll them back for now:
```
  about:config -&gt; browser.nova.enabled -&gt; false
```
1. romanovcode · 1790691046 · focus · HN ↗
  I cannot find a setting to disable the gradient. It's very annoying indeed.
  1. alsetmusic · 1790691179 · focus · HN ↗
    I just turned off auto-updates after reading this. Safe for now.
    sunaookami · 1790693826 · focus · HN ↗
    Naive and outright dangerous advice, every release fixes important security issues.
    pureliquidhw · 1790695227 · focus · HN ↗
    Then separate UI updates from security updates. No need for them to be bundled. Gradients and insane padding pushing people to not update make them inherently less secure!
    mossTechnician · 1790709944 · focus · HN ↗
    It's possible to stick to an ESR release to avoid feature updates in the past, but recently, Mozilla has started bundling feature updates into bugfixes.
    e.g. <a href="https://www.firefox.com/en-US/firefox/152.0.4/releasenotes/" rel="nofollow">https://www.firefox.com/en-US/firefox/152.0.4/releasenotes/
    avazhi · 1790850501 · focus · HN ↗
    > Naive and outright dangerous advice,
    Well maybe these fuckass devs shouldn't force visual diarrhea down everybody else's throat and then users wouldn't block updates. If only Mozilla's devs could have learned from how people deal with Microsoft and Apple doing similarly asinine redesigns.
    Telaneo · 1790895888 · focus · HN ↗
    If users still find that preferable, then that shouls tell you something about how horrible the experience is to users.
    probablyStimmed · 1790759255 · focus · HN ↗
    You should probably use Firefox ESR instead, disabling updates just isn’t an option anymore.
  2. n4bz0r · 1790691336 · focus · HN ↗
    The gradient is part of the theme. Updated the post with how to roll back the UI changes for now. After rolling back, select an old theme.
  3. coldpie · 1790691480 · focus · HN ↗
    You can browse the Themes to try to find one you like better. But yeah it'd be nice if one of the default built-in themes was super plain. Closest they have available by default is a grayscale gradient ("Ash").
    justin-reeves · 1790712956 · focus · HN ↗
    > Proton by Firefox
    > A classic grey palette for a calm, focused feel.
    <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/firefox-proton/" rel="nofollow">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/firefox-proto...
  4. supermatou · 1790693932 · focus · HN ↗
    Here you go: add this to your userChrome.css file.
    /disable gradient / 1. Remove the toolbar/tab bar gradient completely / :root:not([theme-image-in-toolbox]) body, :root[theme-image-in-toolbox] #navigator-toolbox { background-image: none !important; }
    / 2. Strip Nova purple accent color/focus outlines from the URL & search bar */ :root { --toolbar-field-focus-background-color: var(--toolbar-field-background-color) !important; }
    .urlbar-input-container, #searchbar { --toolbar-field-border-color-focus: var(--toolbar-field-border-color) !important; box-shadow: none !important; }
    supermatou · 1790694168 · focus · HN ↗
    Bonus:
    /* Hide Kit mascot illustrations from menus, dialogs, and in-app alerts */
    .mascot-icon,
    .panel-header-mascot,
    [mascot="kit"],
    .onboarding-mascot-container {
    display: none !important; }
  5. supermatou · 1790694136 · focus · HN ↗
    Bonus:
    /* Hide Kit mascot illustrations from menus, dialogs, and in-app alerts */
    .mascot-icon,
    .panel-header-mascot,
    [mascot="kit"],
    .onboarding-mascot-container {
    display: none !important; }
  6. lopan · 1790899645 · focus · HN ↗
    A bit late to the party, but this is how I turned off the gradient...
    If your menu bar is hidden: Hamburger icon in top right hand corner > Original profile (or whatever profile is listed there) > Edit this profile > Choose a theme other than System.
    If using the menu bar: Profiles > Manager Profiles > Click the pencil icon on Original profile > Choose a theme other than System.
2. jsrcout · 1790694333 · focus · HN ↗
  I'm glad we can roll it back, but wonder how long that will be the case.
3. satya71 · 1790711627 · focus · HN ↗
  Thanks for the config. To their credit the UI change is instant. I double clicked a few times to find out why the old UI looks better.
  The old UI has less visual noise (at least dark mode on Windows). The new theme has random highlights and high-contrast lines everywhere that draw attention to the browser UI. I want the browser to fade into the background not stand out.
  1. cletusw · 1791065557 · focus · HN ↗
    You can remove the brightly colored (at least in dark mode) lines above every tab in your userChrome.css with:
``` .tab-context-line, .contextual-identity-marker { display: none; } ```
4. akrakesh · 1790765666 · focus · HN ↗
  And, adding this to userChrome.css removes all rounded corners :root { --border-radius-small: 0 !important; --border-radius-medium: 0 !important; --border-radius-large: 0 !important; --border-radius-xlarge: 0 !important; --border-radius-circle: 0 !important; }
5. probablyStimmed · 1790827849 · focus · HN ↗
  Thanks, that’s a hot tip. How long until it’s mandatory though, I’m wondering.
6. fender256 · 1790917834 · focus · HN ↗
  OMG, thank you so much, I was getting super irritated by the new design which I didn't ask for.
anonthrownaway · 1790691036 · focus · HN ↗
OMFG! Look at the massive amount of space between the stupid pill shaped tabs - this is the exact opposite of what I want as a tab hoarder! If I wanted to use a shitty safari UI that sacrifices usability for cutesy looks, I would use Safari.
I am still having to use an extension (Sidebery) because Firefox failed to implement vertical tabs half as good. On my MBP, I have two rows of small panel icons to switch between 2 rows of 8 different categories of tabs (16 panels). Below that, I have 3 rows of pinned tabs on each panel (24 pinned tabs). Below that, I can see 24 open tabs without scrolling. That's 48 visible tabs per panel and with a single panel click, I can see a different set of 48 tabs. That makes a total of 768 tabs accessible via a single click. [edit] I should add that I can see 32 characters of the tab title so it is easy to know at a glance what the tab is about. [/edit] Now that is an amazing UI/UX - not some designer pill shaped tabs (that Safari has had for years).
Mozilla: why in the hell do I need to trust some extension builder to give me an amazing UI/UX? Instead of copying Apple's bad decisions - innovate!
p.s. I don't get why in the hell anyone who has more than 10 tabs open at once isn't using vertical tabs? Especially when most monitors have more horizontal pixels than vertical.
1. swed420 · 1790691235 · focus · HN ↗
  > Mozilla: why in the hell do I need to trust some extension builder to give me an amazing UI/UX?
  Because Mozilla is basically owned by Google, neither of them care about you or your UX, and Ladybird isn't ready yet.
2. vvarp · 1790691409 · focus · HN ↗
  Sideberry is GOAT, nothing can beat its flexibility.
  I wouldn’t really expect base experience to match what it offers, so as long as Firefox doesn’t break extensions for power users, I am more than happy to see them experimenting with stuff that could help to win back some of the audience.
  1. JohnFen · 1790692598 · focus · HN ↗
    > so as long as Firefox doesn’t break extensions for power users
    You mean, as long as they don't break them any more than they did a few years back? Yes, I'm still salty about that loss.
    But to your point, I agree with you. The native Firefox UI hasn't been one I loved for many years, and isn't getting any better. But I am still able to (mostly) massage it into something I'm OK with. As long as I can do that, then I'm fine with them doing whatever they need to do with the default look-and-feel.
    pessimizer · 1790700710 · focus · HN ↗
    > whatever they need to do
    They don't need to do anything that they have decided to do. The evidence of this is that nothing they do has led to them not shedding users. In fact, the only thing that gives them a user bump is on the rare occasions that they are allowed not to do exactly what Chrome did, such as V3 and not having AI for 5 seconds before having AI then backing away then moving forward carefully.
    Firefox is the browser that intentionally destroys itself. Massaging it into something I want to use involves so many chores and so many extensions (often obsolete and unmaintained, or migrated off the main site onto github or more obscure forges) that I can't recommend it to anyone normie and my attack surface is virtually infinite.
3. anonthrownaway · 1790695704 · focus · HN ↗
  {Adding to my above discussion} I installed the update on another macbook that's not my daily driver and browser.nova.enabled defaulted to false. Maybe because I have Sidebery? I switched to true and it didn't mess anything up, just added some strange minimal rounding to things. Whew. Keeping it off, but relieved that I can update the SW...
4. FeloniousHam · 1790696103 · focus · HN ↗
  > why in the hell do I need to trust some extension builder to give me an amazing UI/UX?
  Because you're a "long tail case" tab user? Your case might be the poster boy for an active extension ecosystem that caters to niche needs.
  1. anonthrownaway · 1790696698 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't buy that. I would guess there are plenty of "joe/jane users" that are tab hoarding using horizontal tabs because they don't know better. Since Sidebery already built it, it would be reasonably easy for mozilla to implement a vertical tabs solution that matches its functionality and would seem innovative as hell to joe/jane. Instead, they decide to copy Apple's bad UI/UX.
    Setting my browser up the way I did was a serious PITA and it didn't have to be.
5. laserDinosaur · 1790709988 · focus · HN ↗
  It really bugs me that the tabs now look identical to their text input fields. If I go the homepage I see a rounded pill shaped search input field- then above that is the browsers rounded pill shaped address bar input field, and above that a rounded pill shaped tab.
  1. thiht · 1790712846 · focus · HN ↗
    ... do you really get confused between a tab and an input? Come on, be real.
6. pllbnk · 1790715375 · focus · HN ↗
  Sidebery user as well for the same reason. I never thought Firefox's design was ugly or that it needed improvements. As long as the sites are rendered properly, there is little to no reason to contemplate browser's design as long as it doesn't actively impede browsing.
7. rekabis · 1790718526 · focus · HN ↗
  >I don't get why in the hell anyone who has more than 10 tabs open at once isn't using vertical tabs?
  If it was up to me, I would get Mozilla to hire the author of Tab Mix Plus and to fold that project directly into Firefox.
  The only reason why I am running with vertical tabs is because I am running natively-vertical EIZO monitors that are 2k, so I have enough horizontal space to throw up most websites.
EvanAnderson · 1790691206 · focus · HN ↗
I keep trying to switch from Chrome to Firefox. I had been trying pretty hard this last time but now this... >sigh<
Change for change's sake is so damn tiring.
throwawayAAUGGH · 1790691252 · focus · HN ↗
This is horrible. I still can't find out how to disable the new border radius. The compact option kind of saves it but this is absolutely horrible.
Are they forcing this? You have got to be kidding me. Why force a change like this instead of adding this as an additional UI customization feature? Why is this happening? Is this making them money or is this to cater to the ego of some product manager?
The "Ash" theme saves the theme for me. The sidebar is easily disabled by clicking the settings icon on the bottom of the sidebar and selecting the easily spottable option. I cannot find how to disable this border radius. "about:config -> browser.nova.enabled -> false" only slightly fixes it, does not disable it.
I can't believe they're forcing these pills. What a fucking hostile, brazen change. Yeah, fuck you too Mozilla. Looks like I can't do anything about it! You punked me!
1. hattar · 1790694071 · focus · HN ↗
  [delayed]
2. IdiotSavage · 1790694595 · focus · HN ↗
  [delayed]
3. throwawayAAUGGH · 1790703455 · focus · HN ↗
  No one in the Firefox forums are happy either. A majority of the comments simply request to make the UI changes optional:
  <a href="https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/the-new-firefox-design-lands-in-today-this-is-what-you-can/td-p/139524" rel="nofollow">https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/the-new-firefox-d...
  Now, will Mozilla listen to this overwhelming amount of feedback? Or smugly ignore it.
  EDIT: I found a combination that seriously helps. Commenting top-level with the solution.
4. encom · 1790707067 · focus · HN ↗
  >Why is this happening?
  Turd polishing. It's easier than doing real work fixing and improving the browser. This exact scenario has happened countless times before, and it will keep happening. Mozilla "reimagines" their UI. There's huge controversy. Userchrome.css files gets published on github and then abandoned. Bugzilla reports are created and locked for being toxic (ie. disagreeing). /r/firefox mods work double shifts to silence dissent. HN has a >1000 comment argument. Some percentage of users flee to Brave/Vivaldi/etc., while the rest settle in to their stockholm syndrome.
  v89 was when I got out.
chriswarbo · 1790691277 · focus · HN ↗
I struggle to use UIs like in the image shown under "Compact Mode". I can't tell what is/isn't clickable, since there are no bevels or other visual indicators (maybe something changes on mouse-over? but that's too late to indicate that I should try mousing-over!)
Thankfully user-chrome still seems to work, so these things can be overridden (and LLMs make those overrides easier to write & maintain).
righthand · 1790691326 · focus · HN ↗
Finally, the one thing users have been asking for! The N+1 Firefox redesign!
baggy_trough · 1790691661 · focus · HN ↗
I like the idea of Firefox, but the UI has always been awkward on macOS. It looks a little better, but I don't like the huge tab pills in the window header, or the popups if you linger for more than a moment on the tab pill or favorites.
1. coldpie · 1790691894 · focus · HN ↗
  > or the popups if you linger for more than a moment on the tab pill
  You can turn that off in the settings if you like. Settings -> Tabs and browsing -> Disable "Show an image preview you when you hover on a tab".
  1. baggy_trough · 1790691959 · focus · HN ↗
    Thank you, but there's still a popup with the page title and site name.
    coldpie · 1790692315 · focus · HN ↗
    Ha, yeah. If you really want to get rid of those almost entirely, you can tweak "ui.tooltip.delay_ms" to something really big like 10000 (10 seconds).
    baggy_trough · 1790695356 · focus · HN ↗
    Ah, that sounds promising!
VCFundedGenYer · 1790692609 · focus · HN ↗
They’ve done this so many times I’m just numb to it. These designs aren’t how I use a browser.
Vertical tabs are the dumbest thing they are wasting effort on.
1. rwz · 1790697393 · focus · HN ↗
  I disagree. When done right, tab management can make or break the browser. Extensions can't do all the things a native UI can. See Arc for example. Aside from amazing tab management story that made it hugely popular, it was a pretty uninspiring Chrome clone overall.
  I'm currently using Zen since it's the closest thing to Arc with full MV2 support. If native Firefox with the new UI can do what Arc/Zen can do, I'll switch to it probably.
josefritzishere · 1790693288 · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
bananaquant · 1790694443 · focus · HN ↗
Meanwhile, support for Firefox from web developers seems to keep on sliding.
Whenever I have to fill out a new web form on a random site, there is about 50% chance that it will break. Regrettably and unsurprisingly, they do work perfectly in Chrome-based browsers.
1. coldpie · 1790694991 · focus · HN ↗
  Can you provide an example? I don't think I've ever encountered this. Firefox would probably be interested in a bug report if you have an example of it.
  1. bananaquant · 1790695347 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't have a case right now. I usually report such problems to site maintainers while I'm at it.
    But your comment motivated me to discover the "hamburger" > "Help and Report" > "Report Broken Site" menu. Will use it next time I come across a broken form.
    coldpie · 1790695434 · focus · HN ↗
    Is it really 50% of the time you visit a site you have a problem? That seems crazy high for you to be encountering when my rate is approximately 0% across decades.
    bananaquant · 1790695789 · focus · HN ↗
    I should qualify that 50% is the figure for new websites I've never used before. They typically belong to smaller non-tech organizations who probably outsource the web work and don't get around to fix things unless they are broken for virtually everyone.
    My first reaction is to disable adblock and other extensions, but lately that has not been helping. I blame the lack of testing/support from web developers.
    coldpie · 1790696046 · focus · HN ↗
    What kind of breakage is it? I feel like these days the devs would have to go way out of their way to create a breakage. Web standards and frameworks are so well designed & supported today that I'm baffled how they could screw things up so badly that they break it in one browser but not another. I could see it if they're getting into advanced features like direct hardware access (USB, hardware graphics acceleration), but it doesn't sound like that's what you're talking about.
    bananaquant · 1790891023 · focus · HN ↗
    Last time I encountered it, I vaguely remember it was around a POST request. It went through and returned a 200, but the page then failed to react and redirect. Must be something weird in site's JavaScript.
    functionmouse · 1790695822 · focus · HN ↗
    50% but can't even cite one is crazy
IdiotSavage · 1790694804 · focus · HN ↗
[delayed]
1. functionmouse · 1790695901 · focus · HN ↗
  Grabbin' Pills.
develoopest · 1790695731 · focus · HN ↗
I think this is the first Firefox redesign that I actually dislike.
Why is every border completely rounded?, on the tab bar it's almost touching the favicon, with container groups it looks even more busy.
At least the colors for the tab groups are better than before.
Markoff · 1790698733 · focus · HN ↗
Redesign for the sake of the redesign, I am using Vivaldi on desktop as daily driver, tried updating Firefox, after update received some gayish pink browser, which I resolved by installing Dark theme for firefox (I don't want dark pages), not really optimal since I would prefer the current tab highlighted in white, the density can be resolved by using Compact setting, but still dunno:
1. how to have rectangular tabs instead of pills
2. how to have tabs touching the top of the window so I can easily switch between them by having cursor on top of the screen since there is gap between top of the window border and tab border
3. how to hide close tab button and close it with double click
4. and I need to install gesture control, can't imagine anymore using desktop browser without mouse gestures (left to go back, down to close the window)
osener · 1790699659 · focus · HN ↗
I usually try to keep an open mind but wow this is so bad. I was a loyal Firefox user but between the memory and perf issues and now this, I've now switched to Helium. I miss the "Multi-Account Containers" but that's about it.
They just had to look at Arc for what people want out of the future of browser design and instead they committed this own goal.
mostlysimilar · 1790700980 · focus · HN ↗
Horrid. What the hell are they doing?
0manrho · 1790701420 · focus · HN ↗
Thanks, I hate it. So much space wasted on an AESTHETIC I don't want. Stop rounding everything off and using whitespace like it makes you ad money.
So tired of this infantalization of software and design these days.
glimshe · 1790702344 · focus · HN ↗
Firefox, I used to love you but you can't UX your way out of a decline.
keybits · 1790703552 · focus · HN ↗
Surprised at all the negative comments here. I'm on macOS, using vertical tabs with a default theme and the UI is clean and just gets out of my way. Been very happy with Firefox since I switched a few months ago.
1. thiht · 1790713017 · focus · HN ↗
  Same. Maybe it's made for macOS users, and Linux/Windows users will hate it on principle
  1. samtheDamned · 1790716130 · focus · HN ↗
    I use linux/Gnome and it feels more in-line with the Adwaita design than the previous design. I'm happy with the update as well.
throwawayAAUGGH · 1790703918 · focus · HN ↗
This combination seriously helps the new update for me, but according to the Firefox forums and the comments here nothing truly reverses it:
- Disable sidebar using settings icon on the bottom of the sidebar
- Enable compact mode
- Use new Dark theme (NOT ASH)
- about:config then browser.nova.enabled -> false
borschtplease · 1790711219 · focus · HN ↗
Gradient tabs. What a nerve. You don't like put very questionable design style as default. What next. Replace favicons with flowers?
Blurry misaligned icon set.
thiht · 1790713692 · focus · HN ↗
HN really does kill the joy of open source announcements. This is cool news, the redesign looks great (it made me reinstall Firefox after years of using Safari and Arc) and I like it. Yet look at the comments. I don't understand why people bother posting when they clearly seem to hate whatever Mozilla does
1. samtheDamned · 1790716043 · focus · HN ↗
  I agree this is the first FF redesign I really like. I don't use vanilla firefox tabs so I understand that I'm not in the best place to critique them but if anything they seem more compact than the previous default.
2. attendant3446 · 1790720893 · focus · HN ↗
  Why would anyone use a proprietary browser in 2026?
  1. thiht · 1790749155 · focus · HN ↗
    I use Safari and Arc because they’re both innovative in ways that’s not matched by open source counterparts.
    I tried ditching Arc for Zen, but it just doesn’t have the same level of polish. It feels like a copycat, which it is. I hope it gets better with time so that I can switch to it some day but it’s not there yet. They should be able to match Arc though since it’s development is stopped.
    I use Safari because it syncs well between macOS and iOS and I like how Apple has been experimenting with it for the past years (since iOS 21 iirc). They try new stuff with the UI and it works for me.
    amazingman · 1790781562 · focus · HN ↗
    How long ago did you try Zen? The recent releases have crossed the threshold for me. Specifically the syncing of all tabs across devices. I tried twice before in the past 12mo and bounced off both times. Currently I'm a few weeks in and I'm not switching back to Arc.
    thiht · 1790791790 · focus · HN ↗
    A few months ago, but good to know, I’ll give it another try!
3. Sabinus · 1790727836 · focus · HN ↗
  The "perfect is the enemy of good" guys really come out of the woodwork for every Firefox announcement.
4. Telaneo · 1790896126 · focus · HN ↗
  > I don't understand why people bother posting when they clearly seem to hate whatever Mozilla does
  Because they want Mozilla to do better. To them, Firefox is the least bad option, and it is seemingly growing worse.
pjmlp · 1790754868 · focus · HN ↗
Well, it is nice, but not really solving any of the Firefox real problems.
thinker5555 · 1790765840 · focus · HN ↗
I use multiple Firefox profiles because I have a couple of websites for work that seem to wind up with issues loading every few months, and for some reason keeping those sites in their own profile keeps that from happening. I use Firefox Sync to keep things in sync between the two.
Anyway, I've had a different theme for each profile for a couple of years so I can tell them apart at a glance. My main profile is dark gray, and the other profile is green. With this new update, now the themes keep syncing and winding up the same. I tried changing the sync.prefs for all of the activeThemeID keys to false in both profiles, but the themes keep syncing up. Has anyone else noticed something like this?
PurpleRamen · 1790771088 · focus · HN ↗
And it again sucks... Seriously, one day there should be a documentation about the delusion or corruption that has to happen with Mozilla's designer-teams. For decades now they regularly make things worse again and again, break things and annoy users. Not to mention all those pointless garbage-projects, like those personas-stuff, or the renamed personas, or the new type of themes, or the other new type of themes...
avazhi · 1790850351 · focus · HN ↗
This is the most diabolical fuckass looking thing I've ever seen. Imagine waking up to this shit autoinstalling itself with no straightforwardly obvious way to disable it.
Hey Mozilla - I have transparency and color tinting disabled in Windows. What the fuck are you doing? Literally everybody who signed off on this UI redesign should resign and leave software development, it ain't for you. And the rest of your employees should get tested for lead poisoning, something isn't right around there.
about:config
search nova and disable this shit. Fire these people into the sun.
NordicNode · 1790934646 · focus · HN ↗
Why force these changes onto their users. I hate round corners.
arnavpraneet · 1791006777 · focus · HN ↗
This caused me to check how many tabs I have open and it is 2338, I think I have a problem - and the new tab design does make it worse for me, but I believe it will grow on me, seems positive
ycombinator_acc · 1791008651 · focus · HN ↗
I don't see a compact mode. Liars. Compact mode = horizontal tab bar with an integrated address bar a-la Safari, Helium, Orion.

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