Comments on: Firefox 4 looks awfully familiar…

By: Atmos42

Atmos42 — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:50:04 +0000

I’m late to this article, but I think that FF should give you the choice to set up the interface however you want it. You want tabs on top with the address bar integrated into each one? Choose the option to do that! Like the original interface? Choose that instead. Give me a seperate UI menu with seperate plug in support to make it however you want. That would allow for total UI freedom.
Another thing I think would be good, is an option to hide the entire URL and menu bar and only make it appear whn you either start typing of move your mouse to the top of the window.

By: ricky

ricky — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:55:09 +0000

Step in the right direction, but still a few improvements needed.

1. Get rid of all the wasted space around the edges COMPLETELY. Why can’t I double click/drag the Firefox logo if I want to move windows?

2. Get rid of URL bar. It firstly takes up space, and secondly takes a while to move mouse up there. I’d rather middle click and type URL/search term there and then so I can keep mouse on page.

3. Back/refresh. Mouse gestures can perfectly do this job, if not, (shift)backspace and F5 does.

4. Page + tools. Better suited to right click or a small logo next to Firefox logo. 2 HUGE buttons is not needed.

5. Minimise/maximise/close. Nothing here which can’t be done on the window manager. Left click on start menu to minimise, middle click to close. REMOOOOVE.

Guess that pretty much just leaves tabs, a firefox logo for movement and a tool logo for extra options. Nice and fresh… For now.

By: olive

olive — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 20:10:31 +0000

It’s year that this is the case on Opera – and it’s much faster to load than FF

By: Sergei

Sergei — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:28:10 +0000

What I’d like to see Mozilla do is build in the freedom to allow users (and extension developers) to choose where their tabs and address bars go. That’s the Firefox way. Other alternative browsers – and even IE in some respects – have caught up with many of its advantages, but its innate flexibility and development community remains its ace. Mozilla would do well to keep this in mind and build on the ways in which Firefox can be molded and transformed.

By: Alan

Alan — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:47:46 +0000

They are all crap

The thing that turns me off browsers at the moment is that the UI takes up far too much space in itself. My browser, working from the top

1. A window top border, which has the site “name” in it, and min/max/close gadgets
2 Standard windows UI tools – File, Edit, View. History, Bookmarks, Tools, Help
3. Navigation bar ( refresh, stop, home, url, search
4. Extra bar with most visited, Getting started, Headlines, etc
5. Tabs
6 FINALLY, the browser screen proper
7 Standard windows bottom border with “done” (status messages?).

Add to that, most sites use 60-75% of the working area to shop adverts, links, navigation, etc, and often I am left with a very very small visible display area, often less than 15% of my 1600×1200 display…

What would be nice is an abillity to customise the windows UI (1pixel wide borders, for example) – although this is nto germane to the browser discussion here per se – and the abillity to truly customise every aspect of the browser UI (and any other program for that matter) to remove unwanted “bars” COMPLETELY. Secondly, to allow me the option of wherther I want the url bar above or under the tab bar. Whethr I want the extra bar at all.

And buttons that work. The number of times I pressed the stop button, in IE and FF, to no avail.

By: JH

JH — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:16:05 +0000

Maybe ditch at least the ‘go’ button altogether – I can’t think of anyone who actually types in an address then presses ‘go’ instead of ‘enter.’

By: TJ

TJ — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:05:56 +0000

The one thing that turns me off to the other browsers is no RSS support like the Live Bookmarks bar in FF. If Chrome had that I would move to it in a sec, all the addon support for FF couldn’t stop me. But if Mozilla moves to the same sort of design I will stick with FF. The tabs should be above, I mean really who the heck really needs a bar that tells them what web browser they are using is….. it not only saves a bit of screen real estate it just looks nicer. I just hope they can speed it up again. Firefox seems to be getting slower and slower again with every iteration.

By: David Bayon

David Bayon — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:11:27 +0000

Thanks for the comments. Whilst I appreciate it’s all a matter of personal preference, I really can’t see how Chrome makes anything harder. The whole point of combining everything into one bar is that – at least in my experience – it makes things vastly simpler.

I want to go to a website, I type in the bar. I want to search, I type in the bar. The fact that the bar knows within a few characters what it is that I’m attempting to find makes it all the better. Going back to Firefox now, I try to type in its ‘Awesome’ bar and find it offers me no help at all.

But that’s the beauty of the browsers right now – they are different and everyone has their own preference as to how things should work. Which is why I really do hope they don’t all end up morphing into one copycat design.

By: Peter Comrie

Peter Comrie — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 08:49:20 +0000

Chrome works best for me, it is quick and logical. The only thing missing in it is a print preview, so I use FF for this. Combining the search and address windows is the way to go. I find the IE icons meaningless.

By: Tony

Tony — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 05:50:27 +0000

‘don’t make it harder for me to identify and sort through my tabs just because a handful of users enjoy the novelty of the look of Chrome. When everyone copies it, the novelty wears off and people will see if for exactly what it is… illogical and difficult to use.’

Hear Hear!
I have tried chrome.. can’t bear it!
I spent to long trying to work it, and that spoilt my browsing experience.

Im all for change where change equals an improvement, but where it make things harder?
No Thanks!