Firefox 29 - I don't like the new look

[JManInPhoenix]

Updated firefox on my home pc (ubuntu 14.04) & work pc (win7) to firefox 29. The look is horrible - looks like some type of IE knockoff. Luckily, the classic theme restorer allowed me to get it looking close to what it looked like before.

Classic them restorer: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/


I no likey the new ff29 default look.

Moved from OSes to Software for Windows
-ViRGE

 

[SimMike2]

I like it and it seems to run more smoothly.

 

[Elixer]

You can get rid of the new skin...they tell you how.

As for how FF29 runs ? Still has huge memory leaks. 1 tab, it showed 890MB in use, and things got really, really slow.
Took it 3 mins to exit completely, and this is on a 4GHz machine...

 

[GrumpyMan]

I've seen pictures of it. I use Palemoon usually. Now all UI designers are making everything 2D. Dull, uninspiring and flat. We now live in a 2D world and if you don't like it you are resistant to change. Not sure what under the hood improvements there may be however but for me, boring.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I have not seen it yet so can't judge it, but what is up with devs constantly wanting to change the look of programs? Leave it alone!

 

[jds1991]

It looks just like Chrome

 

[denis280]

It looks just like Chrome

Yes. and i find it runs better

 

[John Connor]

Uhhh, what does FF have to do with OS's?

 

[Morbus]

You can get rid of the new skin...they tell you how.

As for how FF29 runs ? Still has huge memory leaks. 1 tab, it showed 890MB in use, and things got really, really slow.
Took it 3 mins to exit completely, and this is on a 4GHz machine...

Yeah, it's your computer that's broken. Lol.

 

[mikeymikec]

Regarding the new theme, I switched to Pale Moon partly because I was sick of trying to work around the latest pointless UI changes in FF with about:config tweaks and add-ons. The last straw for me was when the changed the download manager to the hybrid library view one they're using these days - click on download button, no, I can't see my recent download list yet, click again on 'show all downloads' or whatever, ah, finally. Improvement not found.

You can get rid of the new skin...they tell you how.

As for how FF29 runs ? Still has huge memory leaks. 1 tab, it showed 890MB

"Uses lots of RAM" or "uses more RAM than I think it should" is not the definition of a memory leak.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_leak

in use, and things got really, really slow.
Took it 3 mins to exit completely, and this is on a 4GHz machine...

I'm not sure I've ever seen this happen in Firefox (and I've encountered many problems with it), except where a customer has a tonne of add-ons (usually inadvertently) installed (even then, not that complete combination of symptoms).

One thing I'd try is emptying the disk cache, sometimes older versions of FF would lose track of the contents of it, it balloons to a couple of GB and FF's performance goes right down the toilet. I've seen the disk cache problem happen in other browsers too, and every time I'm attempting to diagnose a browser performance issue, I check this.

Another test option would be to get FF to create a new profile (you don't have to delete the old one), and see whether your problem exists there as well. If you still have problems, I suggest starting a new thread with the symptoms and if I see it I'll try to help.

 

[JManInPhoenix]

Uhhh, what does FF have to do with OS's?

Where else was I supposed to post it? They don't have a browser sub and FF is cross platform.

For future reference, Software for Windows is generally the best place for such threads.🙂
-ViRGE

 

[JManInPhoenix]

Where else was I supposed to post it? They don't have a browser sub and FF is cross platform.

For future reference, Software for Windows is generally the best place for such threads.🙂
-ViRGE

Roger that! 🙂

 

[Jaskalas]

I have not seen it yet so can't judge it, but what is up with devs constantly wanting to change the look of programs? Leave it alone!

Same reason if you buy a good pair of shoes, they wear out, and you go to replace them but cannot. You look it up online and the model was discontinued, replaced by new, inferior models. The human mindset is that more is always better. That change, for the sake of change, is always good.

Short answer, we are not so smart as we think we are.

I too, am angered by Firefox UI changes. Have been ever since they started to copy Chrome. If my browser looks like Chrome and IE, then the niche Firefox provided no longer exists and I'll be free to stop using it. They do not seem to appreciate that they have fans who want the difference they have historically provided.

 

[nemesismk2]

I like it and it seems to run more smoothly.

I like Firefox 29 and i agree that it runs smoothly

 

[Mem]

Updated firefox on my home pc (ubuntu 14.04) & work pc (win7) to firefox 29. The look is horrible - looks like some type of IE knockoff. Luckily, the classic theme restorer allowed me to get it looking close to what it looked like before.

Classic them restorer: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/


I no likey the new ff29 default look.

Moved from OSes to Software for Windows
-ViRGE

I don't see the problem,as you know FF is very customisable with themes,extensions etc far more so then Chrome or IE so not an issue,btw FF29 is stable and fast on my PCs.

 

[IGemini]

I'm not a fan of UI changes in general but Australis turned out better than I thought it would. I got an add-on to restore the add-on bar (how ironic 😛) to keep using Forecastfox and the "about" window for update checks is a little buried, but overall I think it's cleaner than the old layout.

I don't get how some people have huge RAM numbers using Firefox. Even when TRYING to run up the RAM usage with multiple tabs (50+) and a mix of plugins I rarely break 1GB even with how much surplus is on my machine. PEBKAC, I guess.

I've seen pictures of it. I use Palemoon usually. Now all UI designers are making everything 2D. Dull, uninspiring and flat. We now live in a 2D world and if you don't like it you are resistant to change. Not sure what under the hood improvements there may be however but for me, boring.

I must've missed when web browsing used a 3D interface. But to be fair the new UI "pops" just a little more than the old one. You don't see it in pictures.

 

[Dahak]

I don't like it either just something really odd about it, even still with classic theme restorer installed it still seems off.

/Rant
and one thing that always has bugged me is why the HELL are the TABS ON TOP of the address bar... this goes for IE, Chrome too..

The way I see is I want all the common stuff above my tabs as in my mind it make more logical sense that way. who the hell though of putting it all above everything.
/End Rant

 

[Mushkins]

I don't get how some people have huge RAM numbers using Firefox. Even when TRYING to run up the RAM usage with multiple tabs (50+) and a mix of plugins I rarely break 1GB even with how much surplus is on my machine. PEBKAC, I guess.

As much as i've loved firefox over the years, the memory issues have been well known and continue to this day. There is a slow memory leak somewhere in Firefox. I typically am not someone who opens 200 tabs and leaves them all open forever, I might have ten open max, and I close the whole browser when i'm done with it. With a handful of tabs open, if I end up leaving it up for a few days i'll see firefox.exe eating up well over 1GB of ram. Close it and reopen the same three tabs, and it's barely using any. I've left this session open for maybe four days now, I have five simple tabs open with *NO* video/flash/anything. Firefox is using 370MB of ram. Why on earth would five simple websites need that much ram? If it's not leaking, it's wasteful and bloated.

There's more noticeable leaks with a lot of firefox plugins as well, but that's the plugin authors fault. Leave a window open with flash in it? There goes all your ram.

 

[Zorba]

/Rant
and one thing that always has bugged me is why the HELL are the TABS ON TOP of the address bar... this goes for IE, Chrome too..

The way I see is I want all the common stuff above my tabs as in my mind it make more logical sense that way. who the hell though of putting it all above everything.
/End Rant

This drives me nuts too.

The problem with consistent UI changes is most people aren't going to take the time to make it work for them and instead just loose productivity. A good example of this is windows explorer in Win 7/8 not automatically following folder selection in the tree. It is easy to turn on (now) but almost nobody I work with (all engineers) know to or look for the option, and it makes it painful to watch them navigate the server.

 

[Dahak]

Oh one other thing I just found but cant seem to find the settings for is, I used to be able to see what a link would go to in the status bar (now called add-on bar i think).

so for example if there is a link for www.google.com i could hover over and in the status bar at the bottom it would say www.google.com or www.fakelinktotakemymoney.com

Oh, it was part of an addon called status-4-evar, but it still does not show it in the status/addon bar. Maybe have to wait for a developer update to it

 

[WT]

I've seen pictures of it. I use Pale Moon usually.

:thumbsup: Switched a couple months ago and never looking back. I feel sorry for users who continue using Firefox without at least knowing about or giving Pale Moon a try.

 

[Virgorising]

Same reason if you buy a good pair of shoes, they wear out, and you go to replace them but cannot. You look it up online and the model was discontinued, replaced by new, inferior models. The human mindset is that more is always better. That change, for the sake of change, is always good.

Short answer, we are not so smart as we think we are.

I too, am angered by Firefox UI changes. Have been ever since they started to copy Chrome. If my browser looks like Chrome and IE, then the niche Firefox provided no longer exists and I'll be free to stop using it. They do not seem to appreciate that they have fans who want the difference they have historically provided.

I really like all of the above, and it all speaks my subjective experience. If people can't evolve real improvements in a given product, they are relegated to making faux ones to tempt, creates new markets within the malleable.

But only if they are Fausts.

I find a little racerback top I luv and is beyond perfect in fit, fabrication, design....I buy it in every color. Well, almost. Cause in commerce, you can almost never go back.

I also run Pale moon.....still has integrity, lean and mean and pragmatic.

And "Modern".....my butt, re windows 8. I run W7....and so, I guess Old School Skype. It udpates regularly. I like it.

 

[Elixer]

"Uses lots of RAM" or "uses more RAM than I think it should" is not the definition of a memory leak.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_leak

Yes, I know exactly what a memory leak is, but thanks for the link anyway.

This is nothing new, there are plenty of posts & bug tickets about these issues.
I can go to about:memory and check the stats there, and wait a bit, and check again, and it is using more memory. Hence, it is a leak.

I'm not sure I've ever seen this happen in Firefox (and I've encountered many problems with it), except where a customer has a tonne of add-ons (usually inadvertently) installed (even then, not that complete combination of symptoms).

One thing I'd try is emptying the disk cache, sometimes older versions of FF would lose track of the contents of it, it balloons to a couple of GB and FF's performance goes right down the toilet. I've seen the disk cache problem happen in other browsers too, and every time I'm attempting to diagnose a browser performance issue, I check this.

Nope, disk cache has nothing to do with this. You can clear the cache all you want, but the massive memory usage will pop up again sooner or later.

Another test option would be to get FF to create a new profile (you don't have to delete the old one), and see whether your problem exists there as well. If you still have problems, I suggest starting a new thread with the symptoms and if I see it I'll try to help.

Been there, done that.
This don't happen always, but, it happens often enough where it gets annoying.
It does it on multiple machines as well.
I got plenty of saved memory stats files to show the issue, but, they are on bugzilla, not here...

 

[mikeymikec]

@Elixer

So you're saying that you start Firefox, have one website/tab open, and you're instantly using 890MB RAM and Firefox takes 4 minutes to close? Seriously?

Please note I said "one thing I'd try", implication being I don't know for a fact that it would fix your problem, it was a suggestion.

 

[GrumpyMan]

I must've missed when web browsing used a 3D interface. But to be fair the new UI "pops" just a little more than the old one. You don't see it in pictures.

Didn't mean an actual 3D UI, I meant looking like it's 3D with color shading/shadowing on the buttons, scroll bars, etc to give an appearance of being 3D. For example look at the buttons on this web page. Now it's just one flat ugly color, like W8 or Office 2013. Boring.