Hi josh.carman, old versions of Firefox are always available, but not recommended. There's more info in this article: Install an older version of Firefox.

Since the feedback site is down and "ugly" is pretty vague, could you list out the parts of the UI you would like to modify? For example:

• the tab bar redesign => change floating buttons back to connected tabs
• the theme => restore dark background behind tabs
• spacing between menu items => reduce to previous spacing
• wireframe graphics style => change the artwork to...
• something else

Ugly is not so vague. Just look at 89 and all you see is ugly. All the colorful Icons on my favorites are gone and in their place is a plane jane file folder. My eyes could find the favorites faster with my colorful icons. I have no idea what the new tab sitting at the top of the page is good for. Web architects have to justify their jobs somehow I guess. I'm quite certain that security could have been improved without changing the look and forcing me to learn a new start page. Change for the sake of change is a pain in the butt and of no value.

How do I roll it back?

All the colorful Icons on my favorites are gone and in their place is a plane jane file folder. My eyes could find the favorites faster with my colorful icons.

Bookmarks from websites should have the website icon (or the annoying globe icon). The folder icon should only appear for folders. Something strange seems to be going on with your Bookmarks Toolbar.

I have no idea what the new tab sitting at the top of the page is good for.

Do you mean the way the "tab" is now detached and looks more like a "button" on the tabs bar? I'm not a graphic designer so I don't know the thinking behind that. There was a blog post on that (here).

How do I roll it back?

There is a temporary preference in Firefox 89 to revert most of the tab bar changes. You could experiment with this and see what you think:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

(2) In the search box in the page, type or paste browser.proton.enabled and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the preference to switch between true (new UI) and false (old UI)

This preference was retained only for testing and might be a touch glitchy, but give it a try and let us know how it goes.

sanderson6 said

All the colorful Icons on my favorites are gone and in their place is a plane jane file folder. My eyes could find the favorites faster with my colorful icons.

Bookmarks from websites should have the website icon (or the annoying globe icon). The folder icon should only appear for folders. Something strange seems to be going on with your Bookmarks Toolbar.

sanderson6 might be referring to the fact that the "folder" icon was yellow on Firefox 88 - more in keeping with the design language of Windows - but is now just a black 'wireframe' design.

</blockquote> Do you mean the way the "tab" is now detached and looks more like a "button" on the tabs bar? I'm not a graphic designer so I don't know the thinking behind that. There was a blog post on that (here).

Thanks for the blog post - it shows the total screw up making the page harder to read, more intrusive, and less useful was a deliberate design by people who don't know how users most frequently use Firefox. When I worked in IT the users called this kind of snafu a 'downgrade' when user utility dropped because someone decided to change things but didn't understand the user community's needs and values. Funny the rah rah for our stupid mistakes doesn't read any better now I'm retired than it did when management tried to get everyone on board the fail train...

I too am having the problem that my folder icons used to be filled in yellow and now very transparent and not filled in. And the help to fix it is so geeky that I can't believe that someone thinks this was a good idea. Yea I read the long statement about WHY this change occurred, BUT the result should have a way to get it back to the default and still provide the new functionality.

This may be enough for me to give up on mozilla and go to chrome....

Maybe that was the intent of this change.

UGH..

I searched google, mzilla support forum, you tube nothing useful... 1 hour later I feel screwed by the "man" at mozilla.

UGH UGH UGH

I too am having the problem that my folder icons used to be filled in yellow and now very transparent and not filled in. And the help to fix it is so geeky that I can't believe that someone thinks this was a good idea.

Hi Tom, I don't know what steps you looked at, but it's true that there isn't a simple way to replace the "wire frame" icons with other icons, unfortunately.

really a ridiculous change...

I hope they fix this VERY soon... there is NO reason it had to be broken with the change as described.. very silly

In the search box in the page, type or paste browser.proton.enabled and pause while the list is filtered Double-click the preference to switch between true (new UI) and false (old UI) This preference was retained only for testing and might be a touch glitchy, but give it a try and let us know how it goes.

Life saver! thank you please KEEP THAT OPTION in future versions!. I tried to go back to 88 but it refuses to maintain my profile. so I uninstalled and installed ESR version, same deal, want to create a new profile and doesnt give me ANY other option, i have thousands of saved passwords, specific preferences, opened tabs, it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to simply create a new profile, i don't game, i am an IT professional, this is a business and firefox team screwing with my browser is a serious thing i don't like it. please stop, changes like this should be optional. you cannot force us to adapt to whatever crazy idea the dev team has, a lot of ppl use this browser to work, and depend on it, don't force us to look for other alternatives please.

for the moment i disabled updates and uninstalled the maintenance service, i will have to go to all my other boxes, disconnect internet to prevent update and block updates in all machines.

this is a big deal because of the possible security holes.

please at least gives us the option to use ESR without have to create a new profile with is absolutely stupid thank you

I tried to go back to 88 but it refuses to maintain my profile. so I uninstalled and installed ESR version, same deal, want to create a new profile and doesnt give me ANY other option, i have thousands of saved passwords, specific preferences, opened tabs, it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to simply create a new profile, i don't game, i am an IT professional, this is a business and firefox team screwing with my browser is a serious thing i don't like it. please stop, changes like this should be optional. you cannot force us to adapt to whatever crazy idea the dev team has, a lot of ppl use this browser to work, and depend on it, don't force us to look for other alternatives please.

Hi David, I suggest making a backup of your profile: Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles.

Then, you may be able to custom install the ESR release alongside Firefox 89 by putting it into a separate folder. (See: Custom installation of Firefox on Windows.)

Then you can connect both installations to the same Firefox Account to share bookmarks and saved logins between them. Not all preferences sync; only a subset.

89 is revolting to look at. How did professionals mange to get to the point where this was released? Have none of them heard of the the term "visual stress"?

My suggestions are a) ask grown-ups before doing something just because you can b) add an option to return to the theme 88 used.

I'm now having to to go with 87. It might have flaws, but 89 is unusable, so it's that or Chrome.

Really, really terrible decision making.

Hi everyone, It doesn't look like the person who posted the original question is going to respond, and others seem to be using this thread for there own issues, so I'm going to lock this thread.

For better help, it would be best to use https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new where volunteers can get more details about your setup.