Can't customize my tab appearance anymore

[lamagier (lamagier@yahoo.com)]

This: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2021/04/19/changes-to-themeable-areas-of-firefox-in-version-89/

Says that I can’t have lines separating my unused tabs anymore. This is SO annoying. Can anyone help me get borders between my unused tabs?

Also, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS Mozilla? Now I have to stop EVERYTHING that I am doing and research how I can make your browser work the way I want it to. Why do you always assume that you know what is best for me?

The Firefox Universe is extremely vast, and trying to Google “lines between my unused tabs” is getting me nowhere. I don’t know how to develop themes. I don’t code. I just want the browser to look like it did last week. Is it really so much to ask?

Every. Single. Time. I update Firefox, I regret it!!!

[Jamdar (Alex)]

Most annoying change ever. I was to the point of reversing the version because of this. What can you do currently is to disable the Proton theming by entering in “about:config”, then disabling (setting to false) the property “browser.proton.enabled”.

To be honest, I would like the Proton theme, but with the separators back or an option to toggle them. Why in the world they removed them, I can’t understand.

[Pebcak]

The new theme is a nightmare!
My working order is: input/search field -> favorites -> tab-section
And now!? The Tab-Section is on top of the top. I want it back to “bottom of the top”. And I cannot change it back. Annoying, disappointing, confusing.
And thanks for this config - without separators, who can work? Without separators I got one line like: MozillaGoogleMicrosoftAppleSunThunderbirdFirefoxNewsWeatherStock

Edit: Good joke: When I searched for “Firefox change view” + “only last week” => I got installation links from other Browsers … maybe an idea/a hint?

[stevecomstock]

I agree. I’ve spent an hour trying to get the layout back to the way I like to use it. Not totally successful either. PLEASE THINK BEFORE YOU MAKE CHANGES TO THE PRODUCT LIKE THIS.

[raycornwall (ray@raycornwall.com)]

I’m adding my voice here. The lack of tab separators is just a visual nightmare for me. While it’s not as bad as Pebcak’s experience, it’s pretty bad. PLEASE make this optional.

I wish I knew WHY this change is upsetting me so much, but it really is. I created this account just to bring up my dissatisfaction. Please change this quickly.

[sgiraffe33 (sgiraffe33@gmail.com)]

I also agree.

It took me a while to figure out why I was having so much trouble finding and using specific tabs.

The lack of tab separators creates a major problem in usability.

[Withnail]

This is dreadful, Firefox please put the tab borders back. Who on Earth could think this was a good idea? Who wanted this?

[jbenal (Jolanta)]

Agree 1000% – the lack of tab separators is almost enough to drive me to Edge, and I don’t even have any visual problems.

Mozilla, please, we’re begging you. Was anyone complaining about the existence of tab separators? I’m going to take a guess the answer is a solid no.

[aaFn]

Same problem here, tabs with no favicon now just look as blank space between others, and are very difficult to locate (I am reducing tabs size to minimum to get as many as possible visible).

Not against changes, but here I need an option to bring the borders back as this is making my life as user more difficult.

For now, I have set up “browser.proton.enabled” to false in about:config as suggested above - not sure what I lose with that, but I surely gain useability and visibility for now

[jjr90 (Josh R)]

I downloaded Brave because of this. First time in 10 years I’ve considered dropping Firefox. I presume “browser.proton.enabled” will deprecate.

As Martin Brinkmann points out, Firefox has continued to bleed market share as Mozilla has shown a pattern of making decisions that alienate its userbase.

I don’t mean to sound unkind or attacking. Hope this issue gets looked at.

[PieterW]

Just chiming in to say that this tab bar usability regression is so awful that for the first time in 20 years I’m looking to switch to another browser. I always have plenty of tabs open, but without separators and proper contrast between the tab-bar and main browser area it’s become virtually impossible to use.

[billsiever (billsiever@gmail.com)]

Yep, same here. This update looks dreadful, and I’ve spent hours trying to get the old look back. It took me forever just to find this discussion, after realizing that the main thing that was driving me nuts was the lack of lines around the tabs. The proton thingy does look a little better, but I’d prefer to have the theme look like it did, pre-update.

[AyeBraine (tushan@mail.ru)]

I do not like the new tab visuals either. Tab separator or not, there is a large amount of space wasted for empty regions between tabs + the fadeout effect.

I would very much like an option to enable hard tab separators, square tabs, and as much utilization of space as possible. Firefox has traditionally been very good wtih lots of tabs (its scrolling tab block is excellent, Chrome was unusable with hundreds of tabs). Now it’s much worse for that — the title previews are extremely short.

If not going back to separators OR removing large margins and fadeout effect, the tabs could be at least made to have wider minimum length. As it is, the tab title is less than 6 characters long!

[grahamperrin]

@lamagier

WHY

A guess: maybe the new design will, eventually, lend itself to tab groups – a long-lost feature.

Discontinuation of Tab Groups (Panorama)

We wanted to give you a heads-up that tab groups in Firefox is going away. You can read about it here. They plan to have the feature removed for Firefox 45, which is coming out in March 2016. If you are a user of this feature, the TooManyTabs add-on should be a good substitute. You can also browse all Tab management add-ons here. Hopefully this gives you enough time to try out some of these add-ons before the feature goes away.

FYI: Discontinuation of Tab Groups (Panorama)

Continuing the discussion from Discontinuation of Tab Groups (Panorama): Cross-posting it here since this has been a hot topic on mozillians channels lately.

Feedback - what's missing (Tabs group)

Hi all, I just quickly want to give a feedback about containers feature. I understand the isolation concept and I think it’s great but honestly I wanted to test this feature because I thought it may have similar features than the add-on tab groups. I think containers are now missing two important points: the ability to open all the tab “contained” in a container; the ability to save container’s content between two sessions without having to restore tabs. In example, at work I want to be able…

(1357214) interop: tab groups: Firefox parity with the tabs.group method of the chrome.tabs API in Google Chrome

Not to be confused with Mozilla bug 1410548 - Tab hiding Comment https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/8ipefx/-/dytyf1g/?context=1 draws attention to four extensions. The three that do not use containers: Panorama View by photodiode Totally not Panorama (fork of Panorama View 0.6.15) by Nikolay Yordanov Tiled Tab Groups by chzesa. I ran some quick tests with Firefox 60. As far as I can tell: a group that is created by one extension is not usable by an another extension. Will ther…

Please, no knee-jerk comments about Google or Chrome.

[Beastieleper]

Thank you! It looked a complete mess! Found this post by searching how to reverse it. So sick of having visual changes forced on me for everything.

[firefoxsync (firefoxsync@schabi.de)]

The new update…

1. Cuts a few pixels of usable screen estate for the web page
2. Removes visible separators between tabs
3. Does not follow the “Windows” colors in the “Windows colors” theme (the window title bar keeps the whiteish backround instead of getting the dark blue it should.

Disabled it via “browser.proton.enabled”. This is not the first time firefox has alienated me. Trading so-called design ideas over real usability is what has killed Windows 8 on the desktop, and others. Firefox is already on a declining userbase since long, had to lay off staff and projects. So why chase away even more of your users? I just don’t understand.

[cathimcgill (cathimcgill@hotmail.com)]

I’m not IT-savvy and don’t have great eyesight. I cannot see where 1 open tab ends and another begins with the new colours. I find the thin line boxes all over pages intrusive; they also make reading more difficult for me. Please make it possible to have something simpler.

[Yanret]

@lamagier

Also, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS Mozilla? Now I have to stop EVERYTHING that I am doing and research how I can make your browser work the way I want it to. Why do you always assume that you know what is best for me?

Exactly. I agree with most opinions here. This change is just terrible and completely needless. They almost destroyed firefox for android, and now this.
I’ll try to use the solution proposed in this thread.

[semilla_electrica]

same here! I can’t develop new themes, I can’t write code to toggle things on and off. So please think about not IT Savvy users… I really would like the common-sense possibility to distinguish my tabs from each other back. And also would like to second the already many times expressed thought that it is super sad that these type of changes are simply imposed, removing features that were actually ultra useful… Have been loyal to Firefox for years and wish to remain! Please don`t fix things that are not broken!!

[semilla_electrica]

Thanks for the tip @Jamdar ! I did disable “browser.proton” and it really makes a difference: at least I can see where a tab ends and another starts !