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Firefox Quantum is unbelievably ugly, how can I get superior, older design while using Quantum improvements?

  • 19 replies
  • 29 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by JamesAK

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http://prntscr.com/hap4ip

As you can see here... Quantum is just outright ugly. >Everything is square-ish and sharp instead of good, nice design Firefox was well-known for. >Inactive tabs are black instead of just slightly darker than active tab. >Most visited panels are super-small, and I had to turn off multiple redundant, useless options just to leave most visited panels only remaining feature on empty tab. How to make them go back to large 3x3 again? >Options tab is square-ish and sharp instead of looking good. http://prntscr.com/hap72f >Marked on red on this screen, there are huge unused spaces that don't look good. (Also, just to get this look I had to disable multiple useless options)

Please, help me get pleasant Firefox experience rather than forcing me to work with this eyesore :(

http://prntscr.com/hap4ip As you can see here... Quantum is just outright ugly. >Everything is square-ish and sharp instead of good, nice design Firefox was well-known for. >Inactive tabs are black instead of just slightly darker than active tab. >Most visited panels are super-small, and I had to turn off multiple redundant, useless options just to leave most visited panels only remaining feature on empty tab. How to make them go back to large 3x3 again? >Options tab is square-ish and sharp instead of looking good. http://prntscr.com/hap72f >Marked on red on this screen, there are huge unused spaces that don't look good. (Also, just to get this look I had to disable multiple useless options) Please, help me get pleasant Firefox experience rather than forcing me to work with this eyesore :(

All Replies (19)

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hi, some of your points are quite subjective - maybe give it a couple of days and see if you can get used to the overall look & feel. what you can change in any case is switching to a lighter theme when you go to the menu > addons > themes & you can get rid of the unused spaces around the address bar by right-clicking & removing them...

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philipp said

hi, some of your points are quite subjective - maybe give it a couple of days and see if you can get used to the overall look & feel. what you can change in any case is switching to a lighter theme when you go to the menu > addons > themes & you can get rid of the unused spaces around the address bar by right-clicking & removing them...

Did so (light theme, address bar). Still, I won't adjust to "overall look and feel". Its just bad. This is why people avoid newer stuff - because all this "sharp" design is pure eyesore. Is there no way to "get" nice-looking Firefox Quantum? With rounded edges, and, most importantly, proper "most visited"?

I mean... just look at this: http://prntscr.com/hapmrl

HOW do you manage to tell yourself that leaving this much empty space is good idea? Especially when you had *really* well-working version of this earlier?

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the more concrete you can get instead of saying before everything was better, the better we could help you adjust what's possible...

rounded tabs: https://github.com/wilfredwee/photon-australis

more top sites on the new tab page: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1185033

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Hi Nekomimi,

Change is always difficult. Some people hate rounded tabs, others love them.

Anyways, there's no simple way to change tab appearance or icons in Firefox Quantum (yet?), but have a look at this topic: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1182548#question-reply

Or/and you can use themes to change interface colors.

Best regards, BelFox

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philipp said

the more concrete you can get instead of saying before everything was better, the better we could help you adjust what's possible... rounded tabs: https://github.com/wilfredwee/photon-australis more top sites on the new tab page: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1185033

Thanks, Wildfree helped with... one of issues.

Now, how to fix these issues:

>"Top sites" being way too small (its not about amount of them, its about them being super-tiny and not looking like they looked in previous firefox editions). They are 3 times too thin and 2 times too short, and show not nearly enough details compared to superior original.

http://prntscr.com/haq1ij

>This (look at screen) still being ugly squares

>Also (look at screen) lack of clean "History", it instead shows me "library" that i have to click to use "History" - not to mention that "restore previous session" is no longer under History.

http://prntscr.com/haq3aq

>Even with that "Wildfire" there is still some ugly additional grey bar on top of tabs, be it active or not. It wasnt there in previous firefox editions. It makes entire "tabs" part too high.

>Even with that "Wildfire" right-most part is square. Even if right-most tab is selected, some background is added to make it into ugly square.

>There is some useless space on left side of tabs. Didnt find way to remove it.

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Oh, one more. "Wildfire" causes right-most tab to partially overlap with "new tab" button so I guess I will have to resign from it.

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Hi Nekomimi,

Regarding history, I believe there is a dedicated History button that you can add through Customization.

Best regards, BelFox

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Yes, there is. But you add it to Adress/Search toolbar as opposed to menu. And it was in menu for long time. It was good that it was there and there is no reason for it to change.

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Nekomimi said

Now, how to fix these issues: >"Top sites" being way too small (its not about amount of them, its about them being super-tiny and not looking like they looked in previous firefox editions). They are 3 times too thin and 2 times too short, and show not nearly enough details compared to superior original.

please note that at the moment you can still switch to the "old" newtab design - over the long run i'd expect that option to go away though: enter about:config into the firefox address bar (confirm the info message in case it shows up) & search for the preference named browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.enabled. double-click it and change its value to false.

http://prntscr.com/haq1ij >This (look at screen) still being ugly squares

sorry, i do not understand that point

>Also (look at screen) lack of clean "History", it instead shows me "library" that i have to click to use "History" - not to mention that "restore previous session" is no longer under History.

you can add the dedicated history button to your toolbar in case you often use that function when you go into customization mode. please note that the "restore previous session" option is placed in the top section of the main menu now.


in regards to the wildfire css twekas - if you are having issues with them, please report them like it's mentioned at the bottom of the readme...

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Changing value to "false" worked. Too bad its not default and many people are suffering from new "standard".

Point you don't understand is that it looks as if it was designed purely for use by soulless automatons, with no knowledge of basic design.

"dedicated history button" adds between "Search" and "download" (or between "download" and plugins. I want to add option (not button) back to *menu* where it belongs. (that prntscr with part you didnt understand? Thats where History option belongs)

Also, to move "restore previous session" back under "history".

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sorry, i don't like to argue with points like "designed purely for use by soulless automatons" any more and going to focus on other threads. a bid of flexibility also wouldn't hurt...

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philipp said

sorry, i don't like to argue with points like "designed purely for use by soulless automatons" any more and going to focus on other threads. a bid of flexibility also wouldn't hurt...

Too bad. If you do find way to put "history" and "restore previous session" back in their places, can you let me know?

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I downgraded to an earlier firefox because quantum will not let me do tabs on the bottom or have clearly defined tabs like classic theme restorer. If you hate it like I do you might need to downgrade to 52 or 55.

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inzaratha said

I downgraded to an earlier firefox because quantum will not let me do tabs on the bottom or have clearly defined tabs like classic theme restorer.

Those are not built-in features, but can be accomplished with custom style rules in a userChrome.css file. There already have been several threads here and on Reddit with examples and steps. For example:

/* Tab bar below Navigation & Bookmarks Toolbars 
   For best results, show Title Bar or Menu Bar */
#nav-bar { /* main toolbar */
  -moz-box-ordinal-group: 1 !important;
  border-top-width: 0 !important; 
}
#PersonalToolbar { /* bookmarks toolbar */
  -moz-box-ordinal-group: 2 !important;
}
#TabsToolbar { /* tab bar */
  -moz-box-ordinal-group: 3 !important;
}
/* curved upper tab corners */
.tabbrowser-tab:not([selected]){
  border-top-left-radius: 6px !important;
  border-top-right-radius: 6px !important;
}

Any style recipe can be tweaked to meet your requirements and tastes. I set up a website about the userChrome.css file, when you have 5 minutes: https://www.userchrome.org/what-is-userchrome-css.html

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I see. jscher2000 do you know about some css that would bring browser closer to how Firefox 3.6 or 4.0 looked like? If we are already at hard modifications like this, we might as well try restoring best visuals Mozilla Firefox had in last 15 years... Since, well, they started to downgrade over and over since 3.6 version, with only good addition being pre-quantum new tabs (that quantum tries to remove)

I posted details on reddit in case other people wanted to help too... If you can help by giving some code parts to make it happen, please do!

https://www.reddit.com/r/FirefoxCSS/comments/7d5q8s/originally_wanted_to_ask_about_simply_bringing/

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Hi Nekomimi, /r/FirefoxCSS is a good place to ask.

A lot of what Classic Theme Restorer could do is covered by heavy duty style rules the author has posted here:

https://github.com/Aris-t2/CustomCSSforFx

I've poked around on that site, but I don't know which files correspond to which changes. Maybe someone can do a visual index.

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philipp said

hi, some of your points are quite subjective - maybe give it a couple of days and see if you can get used to the overall look & feel. what you can change in any case is switching to a lighter theme when you go to the menu > addons > themes & you can get rid of the unused spaces around the address bar by right-clicking & removing them...


A couple of days won't fix damn ugly. The previous version was fine. Why is this crap being forced on us???

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JamesAK said

A couple of days won't fix damn ugly. The previous version was fine. Why is this crap being forced on us???

I'd rather try to answer support question than dig through archives of user interface designers discussing how to shape tabs to answer the "why" question. It is what it is, until you change it.

Is there something specific you would like to change in the UI right now that a support volunteer might be able to provide a specific workaround for?

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jscher2000 said

JamesAK said
A couple of days won't fix damn ugly. The previous version was fine. Why is this crap being forced on us???

I'd rather try to answer support question than dig through archives of user interface designers discussing how to shape tabs to answer the "why" question. It is what it is, until you change it.

Is there something specific you would like to change in the UI right now that a support volunteer might be able to provide a specific workaround for?

Well, putting the appearance back to what we had previously would be a good start.