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Designing Firefox for the future
(blog.mozilla.org)
I think Mozilla has lost the plot
This reads like such corporate nonsense tbh
Greek Stays
Glad the translators weren't laid off to cut costs /s
On mobile they did a really good job with this version, lots of very useful new options. Still haven't gotten around to trying it on a computer.
Make it do less, a LOT faster, using less resources, with good extension support.
That is a good browsers only job.
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They probably haven't fulfilled their RAM usage quota yet
Didn’t think they could make the tags any less clear and contrasted than they did last time, so I guess they sure showed me.
eh it looks cool and all, but why do we need a redesign every 6 months?
shouldn't they be using those man-hours to like, solve the fingerprinting problem for example?
https://arkenfox.github.io/thorin/items/02browserfingerprinting.html
you can't "solve" fingerprinting. spoofing makes you more unique. and you cannot spoof everything. looking normal helps more than trying to hide. the only real solution to it would be creating a standard to all browsers, which is what tor does, and it's why it works. same settings, same window size, same engine, etc. if you want fingerprinting resistance, use tor!
how does spoofing make you more unique? If I change my browser resolution to a more common resolution that would make me less recognizable, for example.
You can lie to the website and say your resolution is 1024x768. But what happens when the JavaScript fingerprinting checks the actual width of the view port? Your view port is most likely larger than your stated screen size.
Sounds like a limitation of the spoofing technology, and shameless spying on the websites part. I'm not a tech expert but is there nothing that you can lie to the websites about and they can't check or verify it? For example the list of fonts?
That one in particular you potentially could, though it does raise the question of what would happen if you report you have a don’t you don’t, and the site tries to push content using that font.
I had an add-on at one point (or possibly a uBlock origin setting?) to block all remote fonts and just use a local one. Might work fine if it's integrated with something like that.
because when you spoof whatever is fingerprinting you sees that you're actually providing fake data, so now you enter the list of the "hidden" instead of blending in. this is the core philosophy of tor browser, and a known fact. if you read partially the article i linked it talks about this.
I think he meant amount of human hours spent on total bs like redesign and real engine improvements, nithing more.
the only real solution to it would be creating a standard to all browsers, which is what tor does
there you go. do that to firefox.
this would imply not being able to resize your window for example... you cant do that to a general purpose software. you need to useba tool that fits your needs. it would be the equivalent of complaining about Debian not being an amnesiac distro. Tails exists for this...
this would imply not being able to resize your window for example
Or it would let you resize and report the same size as everyone else.
that's spoofing, spoofing makes you stand out more...
What do you mean? If all Firefox users report the same size, than you are one of many. That's the point. It makes you stand out less. Off course this works only if you are not the only one that sticks out and its the default.
This is the philosophy of the Mullvad browser, which is basically as close as you can get to Tor for browsing the clear net. If anonymity is the goal, however, you don't want to use it to log into any accounts.
this is one thing, do you understand how limiting it would make the browser? its not just window size, this is one example. and afaik if you spoof your window size you can break rendering of pages. again, you're comprimising everyday usage. im not saying there isn't a way at all, maybe there is, but it's not some trivial thing, ive followed arkenfox for quite a few years and they've been saying the same. the amount of time it takes to make a redesign is nothing to making an unfingerprintable browser. if that's even a thing. and remember that you cant spoof everything.
I didn't say that? I'm just talking about the point you were making earlier about resizing the window. You said it would imply that not being able to resize our window for example, and I just provided a possible way to do exactly that. That's all. And then counter argued your follow up point it would contribute to make me stand out more, that it in fact would decrease the possibility to stand out, not increase.
I'm not arguing that it would work for every webpage without breaking it, nor did I talk about the entire finger printability of a browser.
Users report the same size, fingerprinters now ignore this. They do still use JavaScript to determine the actual size of the window, and likely your resolution along with it.
If the browser is programmed to report a single size, then its impossible for JavaScript to determine the actual size. Because all JS would get is the same resolution. That's the idea of the suggestion.
That simply doesn’t work.
Okay, let’s say that the standard “what is the window size” JavaScript method is intercepted and altered, how do you handle setting an element to a specific percentage width and then determining how wide it is in pixels? Or any of the other ways I can think to accomplish this same thing?
If you intercept all of those, you effectively break any site with relative movement of elements with JavaScript.
And that’s just one example.
...and then your websites break, because you actually need to render them correctly.
...or it needs to be your actual window size, too.
If the browser size is a standard size which is often tested to work with, then i don't see it as such a big of a deal. Most sites are also resolution independent. We are no longer in 2010. Do you know any site that could break because you don't use a specific resolution?
I don't think you understand.
If you spoof your resolution and window size to the degree that it's undetectable you effectively have to render it in that resolution.
Guess how websites make it so that they work on any resolution? They use relative units and whatnot that make it work that way, and all that is detectable one way or another. So you'd have to spoof it all in order to resist fingerprinting - and that is either going to break the rendering, or it's going to effectively render that website at that resolution, making it a bad experience for regular users either way.
I do wish this was an option for more "normal" browsers, and that they resisted fingerprinting better in some other ways, but you have to make serious compromises to make it work fully.
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Not sure I'd be okay trusting designers to solve fingerprinting.
i'd trust mozilla to pay for developers instead of yearly redesigns.
oh fuck no please don't break my userchrome(desktop) and muscle memory(android)....
I hate everything about "modern design" ... Rounded corners, gradients, blur and transparency effects, fading in/out ... fuck that! I want my browser to look and feel like the rest of my UI.
oddly enough all these things have repeatedly appeared, disappeared, and reappeared in my lifetime, e.g. titlebars on Windows became transparent with Vista, then stopped being so in, I think, Windows 8?
Yes, it’s fortunately just a trend. Just like websites. At one point tiny 10px font for main text content and absurdly small navigation buttons were seen as “modern”, nowadays huge empty spaces and 30px fonts are the norm.
Or Javascript vs no Javascript, this also changes every few years.
I just hope this ugly mess will just be the annoying design fad of the year.
This is basically what I was thinking. I customized Firefox to be less rounded with sharp edges, single color and much denser. I don't know why every application is treated like a new abstract art (off course I'm exaggerating here).
That’s mine (resized to not have a huge screenshot file)
Custom fully custom labwc theme, customized GTK theme, modified Firefox (userChrome.css)
Thunar for reference.
Anything more and I’d feel super distracted and annoyed.
I go even further on the minimal UI personally lol. Black box over the date/time is an edit and the theme I have is animated so it has rain partiles falling down. But I like as much of my screen as possible to be the content and want the browser out of the way. I'm hoping they don't entirely break my current setup. It's technically Floorp but that's Firefox based so we'll see.
Edit: Figured I should clarify. When I say minimal I mean like how MUCH of the UI I have. Like tabs and search bar in the same row. I don't mean like minimalism. I'm clearly more maximalist in my themeing than you lol.
There is clearly a lot going on in your UI! It’s always great to see how people customize their environment and funny how corporations like Mozilla think they know better.
I don’t mean like minimalism. I’m clearly more maximalist in my themeing than you lol.
Oh, my theming is maximalist. Especially labwc: It’s 100% custom from ground up for theme and configuration. Not one single bit was taken over from the default configuration. It’s just the result that is minimalist 😆
Same with Firefox: I override almost all of the tabs styling with custom configuration.
Yeah I meant like the end result since yours is the clean white look and mine is very busy lol
I was hoping for screenshot sharing, lol. Yours look ~~similar~~ familiar, I wouldn't be surprised if we shared in the past whenever we had this topic before.
Mine evolves from time to time. Sometimes I learn something new from new screenshots and incorporate that. One such recent "implementation" is the Bookmarks Toolbar. I created a top level directory named "Favorites" and put all quick access bookmarks in there and moved the toolbar to the same level of tabs, to save me an entire extra line of bar. My current Firefox looks like this:
I'm on KDE, the titlebar is disabled for all windows (I'm an auto tiler person). BTW I'm not sure how to get rid off the rounded corners of the window, but that is not Firefox specific.
Yours look similar familiar, I wouldn’t be surprised if we shared in the past whenever we had this topic before.
I did and I will continue doing so! 😇
well, the rest of my UI has rounded corners, transparency, and blur 🤷♂️
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Every time I see a blog post with a title like this from Mozilla, I have a conversation like this in my head:
Me: You're changing the tab shape again, aren't you?
Mozilla: Today, we're announcing a new— erm, yes, we're changing the tab shape...
Me: Anything else?
Mozilla: We're centering privacy settings in—
Me: So nothing new?
Mozilla: Not really...
Glad that compact mode will be officially supported again. Makes such as big difference on a laptop screen.
I just wish the mobile app had an ability to display more than two bookmarks at a time without the need to scroll and click through menus to get to them. Desktop app has a bookmarks toolbar, the mobile equivalent sucks.
New compact mode is great, I might be in the minority here but I like the new design.
As long as Kit is used everywhere, I'm up for it
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this post was submitted on 21 May 2026
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