Mozilla Firefox 29.0.1

Change for the sake of change is an utter waste. You throw out something that works perfectly well, build something new that needs to be tested, honed and proven. And for what?

Change should mean either you're going *from* something or going *to* something. That you either move from something broken by fixing its deficits, or you move to something by adding to it. Merely making something different, basically for the sake of it, is no justification.

So, I will say it again: what actual benefit did this UI change bring? Did it fix any bugs? Does it make it faster? Lower memory footprint? Does it add new features?

From what I gather, it is a change for the sake of change, with an element of chasing the market rival in the hopes perhaps of boosting popularity. That's not what Mozilla was founded on, nor what it has come to represent over the last decade.
 
Change for the sake of change is an utter waste. You throw out something that works perfectly well, build something new that needs to be tested, honed and proven. And for what?

No, it's not. And in this case, it's not throwing something new out, but rather improving something.

Change should mean either you're going *from* something or going *to* something. That you either move from something broken by fixing its deficits, or you move to something by adding to it. Merely making something different, basically for the sake of it, is no justification.

So, I will say it again: what actual benefit did this UI change bring? Did it fix any bugs? Does it make it faster? Lower memory footprint? Does it add new features?

Changes shouldn't mean anything. You're asking for too much.

And how do you know there are no benefits?

From what I gather, it is a change for the sake of change, with an element of chasing the market rival in the hopes perhaps of boosting popularity. That's not what Mozilla was founded on, nor what it has come to represent over the last decade.

Change just for the sake of change is good. It's called trying to improve the layout, making things easier to find, etc., and this goes for anything, not just Mozilla Firefox.
 
I would understand if this was some groundbreaking change that transformed the core of Firefox.. I agree it probably wasn't necessary to change, but it did and that's just fine.

This has been in the works for years (Australis) and people had plenty of time to voice their concerns and opinions on it before the change took place in the stable version. It wasn't some unheard of surprise.

And I might argue the new UI is already tested, honed, and proven.. by Chrome's success and popularity. As an avid Chrome user who previously used Firefox since 2.0 I am actually considering going back to FF for the first time in years. And that's exactly what they're shooting for.

Tons of people had/have migrated from Firefox to Chrome, clearly willing to use Chrome's UI.. I'm sure Mozilla took into account that some people would hate the changes.. but many will like them too.

What's more is FF has such a great addon API that the old look can be emulated. There's even an official Mozilla support article on how to accomplish this.

I just don't see anything worth complaining about.
 
Mozilla is about open and forward thinking, and maybe changing the UI was a gesture towards google and the world that they are willing to meet halfway in order to make a standard that both G and Moz both follow completely so that when developing for the web just making everything work right on ff or chrome covers like 80 something percent browser share making developing for the web more about developing for the web and less about developing for a specific browser, maybe it's not.

I mean this is just wishful thinking but about the changing up of the UI they really did not remove anything, the way I have my browser setup did not change on update other than adding of the menu button and the bookmarks button...the menu bar which i always have displayed feels smaller which is cool, but other than that everything is still there and some things are more easily accessed. I don't see a problem with this update, I feel like things run fine, no stability issues for me and I don't feel like I got windows 8'd by the UI changes.

People also need to remember that if they rely on a browser addon to make their browser look and feel as they wish that they may need to wait for the addon/s to be updated before saying this FF update broke anything for them as addons are responsibility of the addon creator/owner.


Change for the sake of change is an utter waste. You throw out something that works perfectly well, build something new that needs to be tested, honed and proven. And for what?
They may have just felt that it was time for a change...or there may be things in the works that rely on changes to the architecture of the ui and maybe while they were changing it why not give it a facelift. Either way until an official statement and/or real world tests were to be made anything said is speculation including my own opinions.

So, I will say it again: what actual benefit did this UI change bring? Did it fix any bugs? Does it make it faster? Lower memory footprint? Does it add new features?

From what I gather, it is a change for the sake of change, with an element of chasing the market rival in the hopes perhaps of boosting popularity. That's not what Mozilla was founded on, nor what it has come to represent over the last decade.

Well one benefit that I noticed right away has to do with multiple tabs and windows...I usually have 10 + tabs open and when you go to close two or three of them it used to lag up before the tab title block would resize and if I closed enough of them too quickly (extreme cases like where I am doing something on my browser already and someone skypes me 100 links in 10 minutes and I forget to close tabs until there are too many), now it is instantaneous and smooth and I will see how it handles high numbers of tabs when that situation occurs again.

The ≡ menu icon being added also makes things easier to get to and my menu bar is still there and tight so I get extra shortcuts without forgoing extra space. It uses space that was otherwise wasted for how I used ff with the default layout so it is also a definite + as far as I am concerned.

At any rate after a day of use...the only thing to me that is drastically different is the the shape of the tabs themselves, everything else is business as usual and just a bit cleaned up.
 
I would understand if this was some groundbreaking change that transformed the core of Firefox.. I agree it probably wasn't necessary to change, but it did and that's just fine.
It's not some massive issue, but it's not something I personally like. Matter of opinion and personal taste, I agree. But saying it's "just fine" or that there's "nothing wrong with it" is as well. ;)

This has been in the works for years (Australis) and people had plenty of time to voice their concerns and opinions on it before the change took place in the stable version. It wasn't some unheard of surprise.
Speaking of someone who only uses the stable version, it was a surprise to me. Seeing as the average user tends to be even less informed than I am, there's a good chance a lot of people were caught by surprise regardless.

And I might argue the new UI is already tested, honed, and proven.. by Chrome's success and popularity. As an avid Chrome user who previously used Firefox since 2.0 I am actually considering going back to FF for the first time in years. And that's exactly what they're shooting for.

Tons of people had/have migrated from Firefox to Chrome, clearly willing to use Chrome's UI.. I'm sure Mozilla took into account that some people would hate the changes.. but many will like them too.
On the other hand, a big majority of the people still uses Internet Explorer and plenty even still used Windows XP. Not to mention that saying "people use Chrome so they must like the UI" is a bit of an assumption.

What's more is FF has such a great addon API that the old look can be emulated. There's even an official Mozilla support article on how to accomplish this.
And I did (more or less) just that. :)
 
It's not some massive issue, but it's not something I personally like. Matter of opinion and personal taste, I agree. But saying it's "just fine" or that there's "nothing wrong with it" is as well. ;)
Definitely, though I meant more them making UI changes is fine.. not the design itself. I disagree that making changes for the sake of making changes is inherently a poor decision.

Speaking of someone who only uses the stable version, it was a surprise to me. Seeing as the average user tends to be even less informed than I am, there's a good chance a lot of people were caught by surprise regardless.
No doubt, though it's not the first time the UI has changed drastically. However I suppose the relatively new auto updater probably left a lot more people feeling caught off-guard this time. I would point a finger at Mozilla for not communicating the changes well, I just think they definitely left the door open for people who carry strong opinions about the project and its updates to peer inside and give feedback.

The UI effort started at least 2 years ago.

On the other hand, a big majority of the people still uses Internet Explorer and plenty even still used Windows XP. Not to mention that saying "people use Chrome so they must like the UI" is a bit of an assumption.
Only, I didn't assume they must like the UI or claim that's even the reason people made the switch in the first place.. but they're clearly willing to put up with it every time they want to use the internet, which I reckon makes up a lot of their time on a computer.

Google's pretty big on R&D, being a marketing agency at the core. I think if enough people were having any fundamental problems with the UI they would have made some changes over the past.. 5+ years.
 
Definitely, though I meant more them making UI changes is fine.. not the design itself. I disagree that making changes for the sake of making changes is inherently a poor decision.
Well, changing things for the sake of changing things ultimately serves no purpose. If they try to improve something (which is probably the case, otherwise why do it?) it has some purpose, it's just left to opinions whether or not it's a good purpose / change I guess. :)

No doubt, though it's not the first time the UI has changed drastically. However I suppose the relatively new auto updater probably left a lot more people feeling caught off-guard this time. I would point a finger at Mozilla for not communicating the changes well, I just think they definitely left the door open for people who carry strong opinions about the project and its updates to peer inside and give feedback.
Definitely, and if suddenly the whole userbase would complain about it, I'm sure they'd change it back anyway.

Only, I didn't assume they must like the UI or claim that's even the reason people made the switch in the first place.. but they're clearly willing to put up with it every time they want to use the internet, which I reckon makes up a lot of their time on a computer.

Google's pretty big on R&D, being a marketing agency at the core. I think if enough people were having any fundamental problems with the UI they would have made some changes over the past.. 5+ years.
Yes, I agree, but:
I didn't say that the UI is bad (it's not), just that I don't like them changing it, as I get used to it. (again, personal preferences). It's the change I dislike, not necessarily the new UI. Also, just because it's okay for Chrome doesn't mean the same should happen to FF, who has always been entirely different in appearance.

The other point is that "putting up with something" doesn't tell much either. I complained about the change but still use FireFox (and would have done so even if I wouldn't have been able to use an addon to change it), because I like it the most. Even if I thought the UI was horrible I probably would have stuck with FireFox as I'm the most familiar with it and I like the other browsers less.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my thoughts on the changes and I didn't quite intend this whole discussion to start. :)
 
Well, changing things for the sake of changing things ultimately serves no purpose. If they try to improve something (which is probably the case, otherwise why do it?) it has some purpose, it's just left to opinions whether or not it's a good purpose / change I guess. :)
Well, I agree the change was made with the goal of improving the interface.. and that whether or not it is actually an improvement is down to the end user's opinion. I was referring to @Arantor's post calling it "change for the sake of change."

My disagreement is that there's more to improving something than tacking new things onto something that already exists, or moving away from bad design decisions. Changes can be radically different and still be for the sake of improving what was already there.

The other point is that "putting up with something" doesn't tell much either. I complained about the change but still use FireFox (and would have done so even if I wouldn't have been able to use an addon to change it), because I like it the most. Even if I thought the UI was horrible I probably would have stuck with FireFox as I'm the most familiar with it and I like the other browsers less.
Actually, that was exactly my point. While surely many will not like the new look, people are going to put up with it anyways.

I'm not arguing it means the UI is good, just good enough. If most people are just reluctant enough to accept change as to voice their distaste for it but still use it... then Mozilla will probably accept the criticisms without doing anything about them.

Perhaps a better route would have been to make the new design an optional bundled theme and then eventually change it to the default theme, leaving the old one intact and supported for as long as it has a strong userbase.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my thoughts on the changes and I didn't quite intend this whole discussion to start. :)
I only meant to contribute my thoughts as well, in a respectful manner. I apologize if it seemed like I was calling you out in particular. I always look forward to hearing divergent thoughts and opinions and I don't mean for this to be an argument or anything.
 
Nope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Moon_(web_browser)

Think you mixed those two up. Aviator is Chromium based.
Oops, probably did, I've been dealing with an annoying UEFI frozen clock for the last few days so didn't pay much attention.

Thanks for correcting me.

I'm giving Firefox another try (mainly due to being able to use global media keys with Google Play Music) but am still finding it to have all the hang ups I had with it before... Then again, it also has working bookmarks and I didn't realize how much I missed them from using Chropera.
 
Oops, probably did, I've been dealing with an annoying UEFI frozen clock for the last few days so didn't pay much attention.

Thanks for correcting me.

I'm giving Firefox another try (mainly due to being able to use global media keys with Google Play Music) but am still finding it to have all the hang ups I had with it before... Then again, it also has working bookmarks and I didn't realize how much I missed them from using Chropera.
No problem. :) Actually, I'm still stuck on an older version out of preference. I'm now experiencing strange issues with the flash plugin for Firefox. Sometimes it'll freeze the browser and then I get a plugin notice asking me if I want to terminate the plugin. I'm not sure if it's flash related because my flash is older too.

Remove CMOS battery for 15 sec. doesn't help?
 
No problem. :) Actually, I'm still stuck on an older version out of preference. I'm now experiencing strange issues with the flash plugin for Firefox. Sometimes it'll freeze the browser and then I get a plugin notice asking me if I want to terminate the plugin. I'm not sure if it's flash related because my flash is older too.

Remove CMOS battery for 15 sec. doesn't help?
I've tried a few things, including the official "fix" (http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?36676-Frozen-Time-Clock-in-UEFI-The-Fix) but it comes back after a while.

Supposedly, this is an issue that spans almost the entirety of that generation of boards, and ASUS hasn't been able to track it down (if they are even attempting too). I'm going to get in contact with a friend who works at ASUS to see if he can help me figure it out, or pull some strings for me.

EDIT: I get this on two of the ROG series I have, a Hero and a Gene. Luckily my more expensive boards aren't doing this, or else I'd be seriously annoyed.
 
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