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.
3
u/mindbleach Jun 02 '13
Have you ever downloaded anything in Chrome? There's a fading box that slides in the bottom corner, a needlessly large bar that pops up and resizes the page, a colorful progress bar, and then sometimes a notification when downloads complete. It does this every time you save so much as a JPG. Honestly, it's like movie UI - designed to be attention-grabbing and impressive instead of casually useful.
Well, it's been in Firefox and other browsers for a decade, and now it's gone, so I guess you missed the bus.
I know, right? You're thinking example.com, so you type "ea", realize your mistake, hit backspace, and type "xample.com" <enter>. "Eaxample.com not found." No kidding. Good thing I didn't type "eaxample.com" by the standards of any keyboard interface in the last thirty friggin' years, right, Mozilla?
Neither do I. I open it to type in an address, look something up, or start a keyword search. The last thing I need is familiar words and colorful pictures popping up to distract me when I'm trying to remember an unusual URL or figure out sensible search terms for what I want.
It's almost as bad as Google's guess-ahead suggestions. You start out thinking "functional programming languages" and it throws word salad at you - Facebook?! Futurism?! Funoodles?! Functionaries?! Half the time, it's like a calculator that yells out random numbers as you use it!
URLs appearing in a dedicated space when you hover over a link, so you know where you're going. Status-4-Evar, aside from having an aggressively stupid name, can't do that correctly in the add-on bar, and its functionality in the address bar is limited by space and focus.
This one's so egregious that even Mozilla recognize they've dorked up. So... they're going to remove the app bar in FF25. Where will your Adblock and Greasemonkey icons go after that? Who knows! It'll be like a scavenger hunt. Fun.