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Hourglass page loading icon

  • 3 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 1195 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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Some months before I used to have an page loading icon which was some dots, going left to right and backwards. Recently, I have got an hourglass which I didn't know how I got it and it doesn't look as neat as the previous one.

Some months before I used to have an page loading icon which was some dots, going left to right and backwards. Recently, I have got an hourglass which I didn't know how I got it and it doesn't look as neat as the previous one.
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Chosen solution

You get the hourglass when you have indicated that you prefer reduced motion. This can be via the OS or by having set ui.prefersReducedMotion = 1 on the about:config page.

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I accept the risk!" to continue.

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Chosen Solution

You get the hourglass when you have indicated that you prefer reduced motion. This can be via the OS or by having set ui.prefersReducedMotion = 1 on the about:config page.

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I accept the risk!" to continue.

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This should really be the default. I would love to see more people use Firefox and when the general population downloads this browser and start using it, they are going to feel like they're using a less modern browser and switch back to safari/chrome. The hourglass is extremely ugly & dated.

If you have issues with the movement of a tiny loader on the tab due to health reason or what ever, this should be something you consider as apart of the rest of the accessibility improvements you probably have to make to your computer anyway.

Additionally, people with motion issues are the minority, so again not sure why this is the default.

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Note that this "@media (prefers-reduced-motion) feature does more than using an hourglass instead of the moving dot.

  • In Firefox 78+ this includes the location bar breakout.
  • In Firefox 80+ this replaces the tab loading indicator with an hourglass.