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What do you think of that new web browser Australis? — Parallax Forums

What do you think of that new web browser Australis?

RDL2004RDL2004 Posts: 2,554
edited 2014-10-18 07:48 in General Discussion
Okay, technically it's just a new version of Firefox, but it's been changed so much I think they should have just given it a new name.

I've been able to avoid much of Mozilla's "improvements" by sticking with the ESR version of Firefox, but yesterday I was notified there is a new version of FirefoxESR which now uses this "Australis" interface. I've put up with all the changes they've made over the last several years, most could be fixed pretty easily, but this newest version takes away the old download window completely and tabs on top is now the only choice. Sorry, bye bye Firefox.

Comments

  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-10-16 10:16
    RDL2004,
    Sorry, bye bye Firefox.
    You apparently don't realize that Australis is Firefox.
    https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2013/11/australis-is-landing-in-firefox-nightly/

    I like to think of them all as "Mozilla" anyway :)


    Edit: Sorry, I think I read your post wrongly. So what you are saying is that this new UI on top of Mozilla is not to your liking. I have yet to check it out.
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2014-10-16 11:49
    Forboding...
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-29630610
  • Dave HeinDave Hein Posts: 6,347
    edited 2014-10-16 12:33
    I've been running FireFox 4.0.1 for a while so I decided to let it upgrade this time. It upgraded me to 12.0, and then did a second upgrade to 33.0, which I assume is Australis. I find the new tab shapes to be organic, friendly and fluid -- at least that's what FireFox webpage says about them. :)

    Functionally, it seems to be the same as 4.0.1 with just a different appearance. I'm sure there's lots of new features that I don't care about. I tend to use FireFox when IE and/or Chrome do weird things. FireFox always works for me, but maybe the latest version will suffer from the same problems as IE and Chrome.
  • mindrobotsmindrobots Posts: 6,506
    edited 2014-10-16 12:45
    I've been on the Beta update channel for longer than I can remember. It's just been a nice, steady evolution of features - I don't recall anything show stopping along the way. Sometimes you may need to take a little time to find something.

    I like the tabs and I like pin-able tabs for my favorite pages, The plugins I use continue to work through the upgrades.

    It's been my primary browser for a long time. Chrome is number two and IE is just a download tool to get either Firefox or Chrome. Linux is nice because you don't need the IE download tool! :lol:

    You click on the download arrow and you can get your last few downloads, check progress, start/stop, etc. One more click and you get a detailed download window.
  • JordanCClarkJordanCClark Posts: 198
    edited 2014-10-16 13:04
    RDL2004 wrote: »
    ...but this newest version takes away the old download window completely and tabs on top is now the only choice. Sorry, bye bye Firefox.

    Menu bar available by right clicking in the tab area. downloads are visible via the downloads button. Are you sure you looked at this? :smile:

    2014-10-16_16-01-35.png
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    2014-10-16_15-51-38.png
    599 x 322 - 60K
    2014-10-16_15-53-49.png
    768 x 576 - 210K
    2014-10-16_16-01-35.png
    629 x 319 - 94K
  • RDL2004RDL2004 Posts: 2,554
    edited 2014-10-16 13:22
    That's the download arrow, not the same as the old downloads window. The original downloads window has actually been gone for quite a while but you could enable it in about:config. Now it's gone for good. Same for no tabs on top.

    Too much stuff has been moved around for no reason, can't be changed, requires excessive clicking, etc. Usability has suffered at the expense of copying Chrome.

    If all you ever did with the old Firefox was use it as it came "out of the box", then I can see where you would just accept these changes. If you have a highly customized set up, then it's like someone came into your house and rearranged the furniture, then nailed it in place, just to rub it in.

    The best thing about Firefox was it's ability to be customized. A lot of that seems to have gone away.
  • ElectrodudeElectrodude Posts: 1,658
    edited 2014-10-16 18:50
    Has anyone here tried Pentadactyl? It's basically a vim interface for Firefox. You never need to use the mouse, which is great, especially for laptops. I've barely ever used vim before this and I still love Pentadactyl (and will now have to learn vim). I have no idea if it works on Australis, because it hasn't been updated since March and I'm still on ESR (because of the interface, among other reasons), but if it does, then you won't have to deal with FF's new interface (if your hands don't get tired from pushing escape all the time).
  • RDL2004RDL2004 Posts: 2,554
    edited 2014-10-17 11:22
    I've identified two alternative browsers that are based on the Mozilla source code but do not implement the Australis interface.

    Cyberfox
    Pale Moon

    There are probably others. I have Pale Moon installed for now.

    It seems to me that with this new interface Mozilla has done something not unlike what Microsoft did with Windows 8.
  • GordonMcCombGordonMcComb Posts: 3,366
    edited 2014-10-17 12:05
    Or you could just do something like this (one of several add-ins):

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

    The "new" interface has been around for a long time --four or five months as the official new skin, and year+ in beta. Mozilla is quite open as to why they made the changes. You can either agree or disagree, but I doubt the effort was just for the fun of the exercise. They obviously throught they were going in the right direction, especially as their market share had been shrinking even before the new interface was pushed out into production.
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2014-10-18 07:48
    Heater,

    Since our side discussion deviated from this thread's theme, I've moved it to a new thread:

    -Phil
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