How to revert Firefox 89 to the old design

Question

How can I restore the Firefox 89 design to the old one?

Specifically the tab design. I can't tell (easily) what tab is open.

I can't find anything in the menus.

I'm running Firefox 89 on Ubuntu 21.04 (Hirsute Hippo).

Since this question is applicable to all operating systems, would Superuser be a more appropriate SE site? — End Anti-Semitic Hate, Jun 05 '21 at 00:24
The most terrible thing IMO are the "styled" alert boxes: "This page is asking you to confirm that you want to leave" — holy heck, a shock each time! They don't look like they are coming from the browser, at all. — Levente, Jun 06 '21 at 19:27

score 60 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 04 '21 at 09:07

60

copy and paste this to the URL bar:
```
about:config
```
search this:
```
proton
```
set the following values to false:
- browser.proton.enabled
- browser.proton.modals.enabled
- browser.proton.doorhangers.enabled
- browser.proton.contextmenus.enabled

edited Jun 04 '21 at 09:07

Peter Mortensen

884

answered Jun 03 '21 at 20:17

1

It fixes the tab design, but they still changed the icons, default button style on webpages (they are no more inherited from system theme, but have a new predefined style) and several other details that you can't change easily. – raj Jun 04 '21 at 13:30
23

I've seen claims that the browser.proton.*.enabled flags are planned to be removed in v90; so this probably won't be a long term fix. V78 ESR will remain an option until later in the year, but will be retired in favor of v91 ESR at the end of October. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1709425 https://wiki.mozilla.org/Release_Management/Calendar – Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight Jun 04 '21 at 13:56
7

Look at forks of.Firefox. there are many. Some will keep.older UI or features. – Stilez Jun 04 '21 at 14:17
3

This will do until the next destructive nonsense Mozilla come up with – Sinan Ünür Jun 06 '21 at 12:57
1

Should browser.proton.enabled not suffice? As the other things seem to be underneath this one in the hierarchy? – Levente Jun 06 '21 at 19:31
6

@Dan let's hope that by when they retract these flags they iterate the design somewhat, taking feedback into account... – Levente Jun 07 '21 at 02:36
@Levente - browser.proton.enabled set to false is indeed enough. (The account of the answer's author has been removed.) – cipricus Jun 08 '21 at 15:51
1

This sort of thing is why I stopped using Firefox except when nothing else works. Their de facto motto appears to be, "If it ain't broke, fix it until it is." I use Vivaldi and occasionally, Brave. – Joe Jun 14 '21 at 03:04
2

Looks like this no longer works in Firefox 91. All of these are ignored. Gawd, the horrible UI is back. – ADTC Aug 12 '21 at 21:11

score 13 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 06 '21 at 23:11

13

Alternative solution: use a theme like Qiyu Light that highlight the current tab:

Original idea: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/npz18m/firefox_89_new_tab_design_is_awful/h08fdnp/

edited Jun 06 '21 at 23:11

Community

1

answered Jun 04 '21 at 17:02

A.L

478
7
20

1

Yeah, I was going to recommend finding a different theme, given the specific problem with visibility. I always use custom themes in Firefox on Linux. – trlkly Jun 04 '21 at 17:36
1

Good idea. I'll keep this in mind in case Mozilla remove the ability to edit the flags. – Wonko the Sane Jun 05 '21 at 20:10

HolyBlackCat · Answer 3 · 2021-06-06T19:21:32.710

The option to disable the new UI will inevitably be removed from about:config. A more long-term solution is to use userChrome.css.

It can change the tab colors, but I didn't have to use it for this purpose: I have FF theme set to 'System' and the system theme I'm using paints the inactive tabs (and the rest of the top bar) black even after the update to FF 89.

My primary complaints were:

Tab bar height too large
Spacing in bookmarks menu too large

Both can be fixed. Check this for detailed instructions, but in short:

In about:config, set toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets to true.
Open the profile folder: in about:support, find the row called Profile Folder and click Open Folder next to it.
In that directory, create a directory called chrome, and in it create file userChrome.css.

userchrome.org has some suggestions for what to put in there, aimed at achieving pre-FF-98 look (among other things).

I ended up with following file, which decreases bookmark menu spacing, and tweaks the tab bar design (which decreases its height and makes it look almost like before the update).

Note that any changes to the file are applied only after restarting FF.

/*** Tighten up drop-down/context/popup menu spacing ***/
menupopup > menuitem, menupopup > menu {
  padding-block: 4px !important;
}
:root {
  --arrowpanel-menuitem-padding: 4px 8px !important;
}
/*** Proton Tabs Tweaks ***/
/* Adjust tab corner shape, optionally remove space below tabs */
#tabbrowser-tabs {
    --user-tab-rounding: 0px;
}
@media (-moz-proton) {
    .tab-background {
    border-radius: var(--user-tab-rounding) var(--user-tab-rounding) 0px 0px !important;
    margin-block: 1px 0 !important;
    }
}
/* Inactive tabs: Separator line style */
@media (-moz-proton) {
    .tab-background:not([selected=true]):not([multiselected=true]):not([beforeselected-visible="true"]) {
    border-right: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, .20) !important;
    }
    /* For dark backgrounds /
    [brighttext="true"] .tab-background:not([selected=true]):not([multiselected=true]):not([beforeselected-visible="true"]) {
    border-right: 1px solid var(--lwt-selected-tab-background-color, rgba(255, 255, 255, .20)) !important;
    }
    .tab-background:not([selected=true]):not([multiselected=true]) {
    border-radius: 0 !important;
    }
    / Remove padding between tabs */
    .tabbrowser-tab {
    padding-left: 0 !important;
    padding-right: 0 !important;
    }
}

Thanks so much. I have been desperately looking for a way to get rid of the double spaced bookmarks. I've seen variants of this approach several places, but this is the only one that actually worked. I don't care about the tabs, so just the first section here ending before Proton Tab Tweaks was what I needed. — Organic Marble, Jun 06 '21 at 14:43

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 08 '21 at 14:52

3

There is also a ready-made userChrome.css fix at: https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix

answered Jun 08 '21 at 14:52

user1312878

31
2

How to revert Firefox 89 to the old design

4 Answers4