It’s quite hard to keep up with Mozilla these days. Within the last 30 days, they have upgraded Firefox several times. This time however, the design has been significantly improved. Let’s take a look at the early screenshots provided by Mozilla.Wiki:
1) Combo Stop/Refresh/Go Button
Attached at the end of the location bar (you can click on the image to enlarge them), you will see the following:
-Turns green when you start typing
-Blends with the location bar when at rest
-Turns blue on hover
The proposed iconography is mostly colorless. Adding color to these temporary action driven buttons will make it more obvious that something is going on.
-Turns red when a page is loading.
The only thing I could not see was the search bar since they are merging the address/search bar. That means everything we type will go to search engines for the purpose of search suggestions. Where is my privacy? at least let me imagine that I still have some. Looking deeper into the developer document, Mozilla will give you the option to separate the two bars. But most people will go with the default version like always.
We can see in the search bar that a lot of the changes seem to be lifted straight from Google Chrome. They’re even considering turning off the menu bar. Moving those options to two buttons named “page” and “tool”
We see the option with tabs on the bottom and the option with tabs on top. Now users will need to vote for their favorite. My question is: Why not both? and even a meaner question: Why couldn’t they give a vertical tab option? I really think is the tidiest way to deal with tabs.
They have listed a number of positives (save vertical space, efficiency and so forth) as well as negatives (title is MIA, lost space).
What I like about this upgrade is the transparency in their drafts. Mozilla is engaging the end user from the early stage.
“This is only for brainstorming and exploration. Feedback is entirely welcome and encouraged” so feel free to give them your opinion.
So what do you think? Do you like it? is the upgrade worthy? Should they have given priority to other features? Let’s start the discussion!
I hate the search/address combination. But I love the combo stop/refresh/go button. Please promise us that when the upgrade is released you’ll show us how to separate the two bars. It’s the only way I’ll upgrade from 3.7
It looks pretty interesting. I vote for tabs on top. It makes it easier for the eyes to keep them up. I also like the stop/refresh/go button. Just hoping it does not affect the speed.
This is crazy. Google Chrome leads the way on this one. I stay with Goggle Chrome for now.
“We see the option with tabs on the bottom and the option with tabs on top. Now users will need to vote for their favorite. My question is: Why not both?”
Why not add in every option anyone could want. I promise it won’t make Firefox a bloated mess.