- cross-posted to:
- firefox@fedia.io
Hmmm, I think it needs more rounded corners and padding. - UI designer in 2026
Wtf are the symbols on the left?
- Display?
- Sparkles? (bookmark groups?)
- Star (bookmarks in the current ui)
- Time
FFS I miss drop down menus with text options instead of hieroglyphics.
Sparkles? (bookmark groups?)
Sparkles icon means stochastic parrot (already in current Firefox)

Thanks. And fuck. I guess you can remove it from the menus. So there’s that. Relegate that shit to extensions if you have to.
I’m thoroughly convinced UI designers are under the impression we cut ourselves on sharp corners.
in a few years they will suddenly forget it and it will be all sharp corners again
Bring back more drop shadows and skeuomorphism
I hope I can live enough to see that.
I just updated my Jetbrains Rider IDE and holy border radius batman.
I’m hoping this rewrite simplifies the ui code rather. The existing userstyle system is a headache to modify with the documentation being so scattered.
Old Firefox looked perfectly fine. I don’t know why they keep wasting so many resources on changing something that already worked.
Because aesthethics also change through the years. You have to make your product appealing to today’s standards.
While this may be true for commercial products and services, Firefox was never supposed to be one.
Every software application Is a commercial product itself. The more appealing, the more users and thus relevance…
There is way too much white-space in this design. I’m tired of getting higher resolution displays only to lose that resolution to applications that get chunkier.
the old one is fine
i don’t think the ui is your main problem mozilla, but ok i guess.
I really hate the trend of people just randomly changing UI in apps for no apparent reason. It’s just a pervasive problem at this point.
Well, their main problem is attention. And we are looking at a news article right now.
If they just want attention maybe buying some add would be a better way to put them forward honestly. Or even trying to go on B2B custom deal for larger companies thar want a corporate experience…
You’re right. It’s too few AI chatbots!
No thank you. I like Firefox the way it is. I hate big changes for the sake of designers keeping their jobs changing my tools and workflow and making things ugly.
Right. My sentiments exactly. Hopefully this won’t trickle its way into LibreWolf …
I don’t like gaps, included rounded corners. Let me use all my screen space dammit
Looks identical to Opera browser theme.
Actually, I have round edges. The reason I still prefer Firefox is its squarish design looks more professional and authentic. Anyway Mozilla will never add any features that users wish to have but actively changes unnecessary things. Anyway good luck Mozilla!
literally just fix bugs
Argh, yet another userchrome.css overhaul to do.
I prefer standardized OS wide appearances that are respected by all apps. The only skinning I want are Dark Modes or Mini Player modes (for media players).
Ultimately I just need Firefox to always support about:config, manifest v2 compatibility, and userChrome.css and userContent.css.
That said, usually changes like these break my extremely minimal redesign and configs I have on my desktop. So… boo, Mozilla, boo…
userContent.css is absolutely essential for me. I use that to limit the size of images on Thunderbird.
Ultimately I just need Firefox to always support about:config, manifest v2 compatibility, and userChrome.css and userContent.css.
Isn’t userchrome.cc already deprecated for quite some time?
It’d be news to me, I’ve used the same userChrome.css and userContent.css for years now and I keep my Gentoo Linux desktop up to date with weekly updates, so the Firefox I’m using is confirmed to be the latest version.
Additionally, a quick search on ddg reveals no recent mentions nor plans for deprecation of the feature as far as I can tell.
I found this Reddit discussion
The timeline fits (pre-covid), but I got the word wrong. I thought userchrome would’ve been killed of by now.
I really like it, I feel like it fixes some of the issues with groups and tabs looking a bit weird currently. Lol, I always like Firefox redesigns and really cannot understand how people go apeshit when that happens. I swear some people would use NetScape GUI if they could.
I swear some people would use NetScape GUI if they could.

So much wasted space 🤮
firefox’s photon theme uses the same amount of space and that’s without the menubar enabled ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But the space isn’t wasted. Its used for greater legibility and generally improved accessibility and UX. But also, I dont think you’re right 🤔
People have different tastes of course. Mine are dictated by a reading disability amongst other things.
But also, I dont think you’re right

i respect the need for accessibility, but i don’t like not having options. if your vertical resolution is lower than 1080 going into about:config and re-enabling the deprecated compact mode is almost a necessity, and who knows how long that’s going to last.
the netscape theme does use a lot of space by default, but importantly, it doesn’t have to. text below icons can be turned off, icon size can be reduced, toolbars can be merged, etc. and if it’s still too much, this browser a complete theme library, which was something firefox killed off years ago.
But the space isn’t wasted. Its used for greater legibility and generally improved accessibility and UX.
Just looking at the photo you provided, OC’s words fall flat.
I know people are expected to understand the one and only design language currently in use (with its bajillion little dialects).
Even this is the same inherent lanuguage. “Home”, “Back”, “Forward”, “Address bar”, etc.
It’s the same exact stuff, just displayed differently.
But the space isn’t wasted. Its used for greater legibility and generally improved accessibility and UX.
But whatexactly makes the Netscape UI “inaccessible”?
The fact that it has large buttons? The fact that the buttons are realistic drawings, and not abstract lines? The fact that the buttons are labeled?
If anything, the older UI is more accessible.
Someone who doesn’t know how to use either UI is bound to prefer the second one. Because it is more accessible.
There are two types of accessibility I can think of when dealing with UI: accessibility to stuff like screen readers, and accesibility to new (as in never used a computer before) users.
The Netscape UI is better in both regards: it doesn’t have dropdowns (which are quite comolex to model for screen readers, and are usually full of jank). The old UI also has helpful captions for the actions. You know, the things the screen reader reads to the user. In the new Firefox, they may become “Left Arrow” if accessibility is an afterthought and generic alt text is used. Modern UI designers heading the project surely won’t bother with screen readers too much anyway.
So let me ask again: Which of these is more accessible, and to whom?
Hey. You’ve cut a whole extra bar off the top of the Netscape theme! 😆 Still it is interesting to me that they’re pretty equivalent. Personal I’d find the tabs particularly annoying, but like I said, people have different tastes.
I wonder why compact mode was deprecated. Are there still many devices out there with a significantly less than 1080 screens? Steam Decks I guess?
i cut off the titlebar from both screenshots tbf
Are there still many devices out there with a significantly less than 1080 screens? Steam Decks I guess?
lots of pre-2020s devices mainly
i often use a thinkpad X230 where the resolution is a whopping 1366x768 lol
Don’t threaten me with a good time
I’d use it if it provided blazing fast performance. For me, usability and performance beats any nice looks
do you actually use it? lol is that even possible without everything breaking?
yes and yes
it’s a custom build of seamonkey (the continuation of the mozilla suite/classic netscape) using pale moon’s goanna engine.
works well enough for most sites, the browser itself is super modular and useful (it has a really strong addon ecosystem courtesy of seamonkey and pale moon’s addon libraries respectively), and honestly i just enjoy utilitarian retro UX
do you have a link? I’d like to try it out.
not yet (it’s still a bit of a work in progress) but in the future it’ll be posted here
morbidly curious abt this 👍
is this palemoon?
no, but it almost is
it’s a custom build of seamonkey using pale moon’s UXP engine
is this iceape-uxp or something? would appreciate if you share some links or info :) seamonkey seems to have a lot of compatibility issues lately, i have to use firefox for most stuff these days :(
the tab bar on the top also looks pretty interesting, i don’t think i can do that on seamonkey…
it’s an updated fork i’m working on. i don’t have much to share yet because it’s still a WIP but it’ll be available here in the future
Mostly we want them to make the browser itself not suck before worrying about cosmetics.
GUI and UX are totally related so it can improve the not suck part.
While I agree overall it looks nice, I hate gaps and rounded corners. I’m sick of wasted space. And I’m sick of rounded corners.
I swear some people would use NetScape GUI if they could.
Now that would actually be nice!!
i think the space is the same but its just camouflaged to look like it’s wasted, maybe we should count the pixels tho
I don’t think pixel count would be a fair comparison for a 30 year old browser. You used to actually be able to count all the pixels back then.
I meant between Proton and Nova.
All 10 years or so is fine. General design (what people are used to) does change. But all 3 years, is annoying.

















