Firefox update 89 (windows 10 64 bit) very poor use of small screen geometry - backed out - yecch
FEEDBACK FROM A VERY UNHAPPY FIREFOX USER 01-JUN-2021
I received a push update to Firefox 89.0. On my machine (which has a small screen geometry) the new layout is very (very) inefficient - waaaay too much space between screen widgets.
I looked for how to reverse the UI in 89.0 and the procedure was too complicated and time consuming to do in the time available.
I downloaded Firefox 88.0.1 and installed that over 89.0, but upon startup it will not accept the profiles and insists on creating a new profile or exiting (either option BAD).
Fortunately I had imaged the whole machine about a week before, so I was able to get back to 88.0.1 and resume use of my profiles (which have lots of stored data and specific preferences.)
MOZILLA FIREFOX TEAM HERE THIS:
1. Pushing down a non-trivial change to UI is very Windows-8-esque and is bad form without an option to (easily) back out. Microsoft has evidently learned this lesson - each Windows 10 update comes with an option to back out.
2. Leaving Mozilla's "feedback" page inoperative when pushing this extent of update is bad form.
3. My trust in Mozilla is somewhat damaged at this point; I will not accept any update after 88.0.1 I am running now until I have time to pre-test it in a "safe" environment.
All Replies (6)
I'm now "frozen in time" at 88.0.1 (for Windows 10 64-bit) until I'm comfortable that Mozilla has addressed this problem - this appears to work (so far, at least) ---
https://winaero.com/disable-updates-firefox-63-above/
I wish this weren't necessary - I recognize that there are potential issues connected with preventing updates and freezing at 88.0.1, however, I can find no other satisfactory solution.
I hope someone with Mozilla sees this complaint, as Mozilla's feedback mechanism (the function in firefox browser) leads to a page saying:
https://qsurvey.mozilla.com/s3/Give-feedback-landing-page
"Please check back soon We've paused submissions to this form so that we can improve how we collect feedback."
/s/ unhappy user
Hi,
The people who answer questions here, for the most part, are other users volunteering their time (like me), not Mozilla employees or Firefox developers. If you want to leave feedback for Firefox developers, you can go to the Firefox Help menu and select Submit Feedback... or use this link. Your feedback gets collected by a team of people who read it and gather data about the most common issues.
If you need to file a bug report or feature request for Firefox and other Mozilla products, see File a bug report or feature request for Mozilla products for details.
Hi wb0gaz, The reason why the feedback link doesn't work is because you're on an older version. ☺️ It has been updated in Firefox 89 to the link Seburo provided.
I'm not sure what you mean by "very poor use of small screen geometry" but there's a Firefox theme on the addons site called Photon Colors, which I found helps a lot.
Go to https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/photon-colors/ and click on Install Theme.
I'm going to sit tight on 88.0.1 and wait for a "compact mode" which appears to be a very frequent request due to 89.0.
My screen resolution is 1366x768, screen scaling is 125%, and the biggest problem with 89.0 is the (ludicrously large) whitespace surrounding screen widgets where bookmark folders are rendered. This leads to far more scrolling (to find a given bookmark in a folder), and folders of bookmarks which now need to be scrolled where before the selections could be seen at-a-glance.
Could you try the solution in the following article, and see if it helps: Compact mode workaround in Firefox
Thanks, Chris - I'll try those steps next day (I need some time so that I can make backup copy of profile data because 89.0 does irrecoverable change to profile data preventing simple restoration back to 88.0.1.)
I will advise result.