Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

How to change appearance of tabs for better accessibility

  • 1 reply
  • 1 has this problem
  • 13 views
  • Last reply by Terry

more options

Hello. I'm a long-time Firefox user but this is the first time I have posted here.

I just changed my OS (I'm now on MX Linux 19) and I assume the version of Firefox I now have (91.0 64 bit) is newer than the one I was using. (I was on ubuntu 16.04)

The appearance has changed in a way that has reduced accessibility for me. When the active tab is the first or last tab, I get confused and think that the active tab is actually the adjacent one. It is only a few seconds of confusion but it keeps throwing me off.

I've realised why this is. The active tab is now a floating box. It is not attached in any way to the area below. All the other tabs *do* look like they are connected to the area below but they do not have any visible borders, except for the tab next to the active tab.

I tried a few different themes and I found that some that break this new convention (yay!) but the text/background contrast was lower and made reading difficult. (I can read black text on white background easily but find many other colour combinations difficult.)

I'm now using a theme that sticks with the new convention but makes the active tab yellow while other tabs are mid blue, which makes the active tab very obvious. I can read the text fairly well but it's not as good as black on white for me: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/high-contrast-color/

I read in a stack-exchange question that installing the Firefox Color extension would allow me to have more control over appearance. Unfortunately, I don't seem to be able to change just one thing, e.g. just change the colour of the active tab in the system theme. Instead, as soon as I change one thing, Firefox Color changes the colours of everything else that it has control over.

Is there a way to make the active tab more prominent without taking on a completely new colour scheme and without having to do any coding?

Thanks for any help.

Hello. I'm a long-time Firefox user but this is the first time I have posted here. I just changed my OS (I'm now on MX Linux 19) and I assume the version of Firefox I now have (91.0 64 bit) is newer than the one I was using. (I was on ubuntu 16.04) The appearance has changed in a way that has reduced accessibility for me. When the active tab is the first or last tab, I get confused and think that the active tab is actually the adjacent one. It is only a few seconds of confusion but it keeps throwing me off. I've realised why this is. The active tab is now a floating box. It is not attached in any way to the area below. All the other tabs *do* look like they are connected to the area below but they do not have any visible borders, except for the tab next to the active tab. I tried a few different themes and I found that some that break this new convention (yay!) but the text/background contrast was lower and made reading difficult. (I can read black text on white background easily but find many other colour combinations difficult.) I'm now using a theme that sticks with the new convention but makes the active tab yellow while other tabs are mid blue, which makes the active tab very obvious. I can read the text fairly well but it's not as good as black on white for me: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/high-contrast-color/ I read in a stack-exchange question that installing the Firefox Color extension would allow me to have more control over appearance. Unfortunately, I don't seem to be able to change just one thing, e.g. just change the colour of the active tab in the system theme. Instead, as soon as I change one thing, Firefox Color changes the colours of everything else that it has control over. Is there a way to make the active tab more prominent without taking on a completely new colour scheme and without having to do any coding? Thanks for any help.

All Replies (1)

more options