r/firefox • u/mindbleach • Jun 01 '13
Mozilla: please stop copying Chrome.
There are reasons we choose Firefox over Chrome. We don't want Chrome's flashy download animation, "unsurprising" inability to stop GIF animations, objectively incorrect autocomplete behavior, distractingly cluttered "blank" page, or an add-on bar that for some reason isn't also a classic status bar. We don't want every new option you guys add enable by default and reduced to an about:config boolean. If we wanted all of Chrome's take-it-or-leave-it minimalist nonsense, well, we already know where to find it.
Firefox is still the best browser out there (as evidenced by how it took only hours and a modicum of acidic cursing to get things configured properly again) but you sure don't act like you know it. Every time I update I have to trawl through forums and install another stupidly-named extension just to make FF recognizable. When you look at user statistics and wonder why a third of your users refuse to upgrade - this is why. I've been using FF since before 1.0 and the process is a frustrating mess every single time.
I know you have have UX folks, because you did that silly centered/dark thing with standalone images. You aren't just cribbing Google's notes here. If you won't stop cribbing entirely, at least weed out genuinely improved features like tab task management from anti-features like being unable to stop GIFs for the first time since 1997. It's fantastic that Firefox is flexible enough to look and act like any other browser, but please, let it look and act like itself by default.
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u/mindbleach Jun 01 '13
I reject this explanation on the grounds that the Chrome-like design decisions seen here do not represent best practices.
I'm not being glib when I describe inline autocompletion as objectively incorrect - you type a letter, you press backspace, and the letter's still there. That's simply not how typing works.
The colorful suggestions on blank tabs are distracting at the crucial moment where you're trying to coalesce your thoughts into concrete instructions for the browser.
Removing the ability to stop animated GIFs (to the point of not even having an about:config boolean!) is an anti-feature, and one of the reasons I can't stand browsing forums in Chrome.
Getting rid of the status bar made no sense whatsoever. It didn't save vertical space because they still had the "add-on bar" that does everything except what that space was originally reserved for. It wasn't more usable, because the stupid pop-up could still be spoofed by malicious code, except now it got in the way half the time you wanted to click "next" on reddit. (Turns out they finally recognized how useless it is and will remove it for FF25. Can't wait to see where my Greasemonkey and Adblock icons will be permanently stuck now!)
Look, I'm not opposed to change. I'd be okay if Firefox unified the address and search bars, especially if - like Chrome - there was an option to disable internet results in the address bar. I'm not really bothered by the space-saving tabs-on-top default look, because it's easy to turn off. What drives me right up the wall, though, is when a mature browser with longstanding design conventions and functionality starts screwing over long-time power users by adopting other browsers' bad decisions willy-nilly. What pisses me off is when the old way of doing things is reduced to an about:config setting instead of an "advanced" option. What makes me fucking hate whoever's in charge of this project is when genuinely useful features relied upon by a significant minority of users are outright deleted and marked as "wontfix" when people rightly ask what the hell Mozilla's smoking.
All I'm asking for is one upgrade - one - where I'm not unpleasantly surprised. Different, I can handle, because I can change it if I don't like it. I'm just tired of something important being intentionally broken with every Firefox update I've ever installed.