topic Re: Sharing more about Project Nova in Discussions

Sharing more about Project Nova

rjacob — Thu, 21 May 2026 13:22:34 GMT

Hello everyone!

Many of you have noticed some of the design updates appearing in certain Firefox configurations over the past few months. Internally, we’ve been calling this work Project Nova, and today we’re excited to share a deeper look at what we’ve been building and where we’re heading next.

The goal of this work is to create a more cohesive foundation for Firefox: making the browser feel cleaner, warmer, faster, and more adaptable.

Some of the areas we’re working on include:

Simpler navigation and a redesigned Settings experience
Easier access to features like tab groups, split view, and vertical tabs
The return of Compact Mode
Refreshed visual updates across tabs, icons, spacing, and browser surfaces
More customization options, including new themes and wallpapers

The redesign work also focuses heavily on cohesiveness, accessibility, and making Firefox feel more consistent across desktop and mobile experiences.

This work is still evolving, and we want to continue building this in the open with all of you.

As always, let us know what you think below. We’re listening.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

elcste — Thu, 21 May 2026 14:14:32 GMT

Please keep the find Find in Page bar at the bottom. Sadly bug 2023769 looks like it's getting moved.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

4827482 — Thu, 21 May 2026 14:19:32 GMT

Overall love it!

My one gripe is the gap between the window close/minimize/maximize buttons and the screen edge on the top bar.

Could they be invisibly extended to cover also the gap? Same for auto-expanding vertical tabs and the left edge. I think the hover trigger area should extend to the edge, even if the buttons themselves visually do not.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

cephirosx — Thu, 21 May 2026 14:28:29 GMT

On mobile it would be great if when the address bar is at the bottom this (see attachment) are also moved lower near the bottom or an option to do so

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

BelFox — Thu, 21 May 2026 16:17:02 GMT

You guys are doing a wonderful job. The Nova redesign feels modern, inviting and familiar 💜 at the same time!

On top of that, Compact Mode is making a return and you're considering more customization options (like tab and UI element roundness). Speed improvements are made as well.

What's not to like? 🫶🧡

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

syntastic — Thu, 21 May 2026 16:28:44 GMT

Please have an option to turn off all the rounding going on, specifically for tabs and url bar. MacOS did this type of change in Tahoe and I've been hating it. I don't mind flipping a flag though to turn it off and then people that enjoy that sort of thing can be happy.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

grundt — Sat, 23 May 2026 17:15:58 GMT

The UI changes are now accessible on Nightly and Developer releases - set "browser.nova.enabled" to true in about:config

I have to say, I'm not a fan ...

the roundier corners just put borders closer to text and make the text harder to read
the more highly contrasting color palette just seems glaring and hard on the eyes

I could only stand it for about 10 minutes before I had to switch it back ... maybe after my stomach settles I'll spend more time with it and see if I can find anything nice to say

proton
nova

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

cristianer — Thu, 21 May 2026 19:44:32 GMT

I like it, but please bring back the icons in the menu. Plain text is kinda ugly.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

gcozzi — Thu, 21 May 2026 20:23:14 GMT

Regarding the desktop version of Nova, the 'islands' that separate the UI sections introduce a pixel gap that many users might find unnecessary; it would be great to have an option to disable this effect. Additionally, I noticed that on both KDE Plasma and GNOME Shell, this gap is completely translucent, blending the browser's content with whatever is behind the window, which proves quite distracting.
On the other hand, I believe it is essential to conduct usability testing for the mobile version specifically tailored for one-handed use (prioritizing the right hand). Placing key buttons at the top or the bottom-left corner makes them difficult to reach comfortably.
Finally, color selection for tab groups or the browser theme shouldn't be restricted to a predefined (and very opinionated) subset; having a full RGB color picker available would be a major improvement. Also, the functional or conceptual purpose behind the teardrop shape on the tab group labels is not entirely clear to me.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

YouMadeItWorse — Thu, 21 May 2026 20:56:59 GMT

Oh huh, I think the system ate my first reply. This redesign is ugly and pointless just like your android redesign. It's obvious the UX team needs to keep reinventing the wheel to justify its existence at Mozilla and the sooner you uncreative hacks are sacked the better.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

bwinton — Thu, 21 May 2026 20:58:03 GMT

As the person who removed compact mode, I'm even more excited than you that they're bringing it back!!! 🎉😂

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

smallpatatas — Thu, 21 May 2026 22:29:18 GMT

Glad to hear the focus is on things like speed and accessibility.

Two pieces of feedback:

1. I'd like to strongly urge you to make AI features 'opt-in' rather than 'opt-out'. I currently use a fork of Firefox to avoid having to constantly turn off these kinds of things. I suspect much of your userbase doesn't want them either, and I also reckon that as the AI backlash grows, a browser without AI in it at all will become a sought-after thing.

2. I find the redesigned menu on Android to be much slower and more confusing to use; I suspect it's all the rounded corners and other visual distractions, along with some features being in horizontal rows while others are in a vertical list. I find I have to scroll a lot more now, and need to visually scan for much longer. I thought this might get better as I got used to the new design, but it hasn't.

Thanks very much for being open to hearing feedback!

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

alwayssunny — Thu, 21 May 2026 22:40:38 GMT

Honestly the biggest feature you can add is the zen mode thing. so i like the vertical tabs, the fact that you can collapse them, but there is no feature to make them disappear entirely. so im talking like just a pure web page and the tabs only come back when you hover over where they should be. in the age of clutter and excessiveness, being minimal and performant is going to be the winner. i tried zen, it was minimal but not performant. if you add that feature i will never go back to zen. and maybe im a mac nerd, but i like the rounded design.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

Crusader_Nejaa — Thu, 21 May 2026 23:40:41 GMT

When can we have the option to use the old UI for the tab viewer and the 3 dot menu in the android app?

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

aggggha — Fri, 22 May 2026 02:16:12 GMT

Agree with this, the gap between window close/minimize/maximize and especially the scrollbar seems disrupting the flow.

Before, we just need to just drag the cursor to corner of the screen to click the scroll bar (or the close button), now i need to precisely locate the scrollbar because of the gap.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

Oso_Polar — Fri, 22 May 2026 03:58:12 GMT

Looks alien on Windows 11 - all controls and tabs are way too rounded, in the style of ancient Mac OS. Pinned tabs are circles! Purple controls don't match selected system theme colors (and in general IMHO is a very poor choice for default color for controls). Menu looks very odd - has strange background color and "frames", doesn't even look like a menu.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

Oso_Polar — Fri, 22 May 2026 03:59:22 GMT

+100 Color choice is very poor and rounding is excessive.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

s_hentzschel — Fri, 22 May 2026 07:22:37 GMT

This is not the final Nova design. What you screenshot shows is the result of some already applied changes, while other changes are still missing. A few months ago, mockups circulated in the media showing what the final result was supposed to look like. So no worries, the look of the menu will change.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

s_hentzschel — Fri, 22 May 2026 07:27:13 GMT

I really like the new design. Even the current version, which is available in the Nightly build, looks so much better than any previous Firefox design.

I have one question: During the last major redesign, many icons were replaced, but the developer tools icons were left as is. Today, they look out of place because they have much thicker lines. Now Nova is set to get many new icons again. Will the developer tools be included this time?

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

m7 — Fri, 22 May 2026 08:46:24 GMT

Edit: Looking at the blog post again, I see that the compact mode design there is different than what I see on Nightly if I hide the system title bar and the sidebar, so I guess the Nightly version doesn't yet have the extra space removed. Apologies for jumping the gun here.

While I'm glad to hear that compact mode will be supported again with the Nova design, when I tried Nightly today and enabled Nova plus compact mode, I am very disappointed in the fact that Nova's compact mode takes up more space than Proton's touch mode, so the trend of everything taking up more and more space continues. The reason I even started enabling compact mode to begin with is because Proton made everything bigger, so I used compact mode to take back the extra space, and now Nova's compact mode is somehow even worse, since it effectively gives me Proton touch levels of wasted space at best, while even Proton's normal mode made me unhappy already to begin with. And no, I do not have a touchscreen, so I see no value in all this extra spacing for me, especially in what's supposed to be the compact mode.

Attached is a picture of Proton touch mode (in Firefox 151.0) on the left, and Nova compact mode (in Firefox Nightly 2026-05-21) on the right. These days I use vertical tabs and compact mode to free up some vertical height, some of which I then use to enable the system titlebar so I can have buttons there to keep windows above all others, pin windows to all virtual desktops and hide windows from screencasts, plus have a dedicated area for easily moving the window with the mouse.

So, since you're asking for feedback, mine is that compact mode should be as compact as Proton's current compact mode is at least. At a quick glance it seems like all the extra borders/gaps around everything is the main cause of the wasted space, so removing all that in compact mode would be a good start.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

s_hentzschel — Fri, 22 May 2026 08:50:25 GMT

The final design is likely still a few months away. The Nightly version does not represent the finished Nova design, but merely shows the current status of the implementation. As far as I know, no adjustments have been made specifically for compact mode yet. That’s still to come.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

Maverick74 — Fri, 22 May 2026 09:49:30 GMT

Would be great if we could get a "one-toolbar" compact mode! We could take some inspiration from Min browser ( https://minbrowser.org/ ) or from comments at:

https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/allow-resizing-of-the-ui/idi-p/81/

Particularly, I would like something similar to this to be achievable:

https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/make-address-bar-placeable-to-the-tab-header/idc-p/21004/highlight/true#M11063

Or, at the very least, an auto hide setting for the URL toolbar would work!!!

For laptops with smaller screens it would be great!!! (Even if I had to set it at about:config)

(oh, I forgot to say something: I do love the new design!!! 😀)

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

anon-ff-user — Fri, 22 May 2026 10:59:34 GMT

Thanks for the update on Nova, looking forward to the performance improvements.

My two main issues with this are the excessive rounding and spacing. Firefox seems to be jumping on the current design trend of separating UI elements into "islands" with spacing in between them. I understand that Firefox is doing so to avoid appearing dated, but ultimately I feel this design trend is entirely form over function.

These UI islands take up more space that the current design and make the UI even more congested and "busy", with no benefit received. You can try taking any screen with this islands design, and remove the spacing in between them and see that the resulting UI is less cluttered and simpler.

I will probably be unable to convince you to change course entirely, but I would greatly appreciate the ability to toggle these two elements from the new design:

Reduce the corner radius for UI elements to current levels
Removing the spacing between the islands completely. Maybe this can be incorporated into the renewed compact mode.

Firefox has served me well for the past decade and a couple small changes can help me continue using it for another one.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

Tsetien — Fri, 22 May 2026 11:38:45 GMT

Yes! This! Rounded corners, floating components, giant paddings, and all those eerie colours, all needed to be able to turn off. They are now so crazy as they even forcibly made tooltips rounded, how disgusting and revolting!!! EVERYDAY IS A FIGHT AGAINST ROUNDED CORNERS!

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

K900 — Fri, 22 May 2026 11:52:43 GMT

Another thing I've noticed: specifically when using the system theme on Windows, the window background has the title bar still painted on:

This goes away if I switch to the "dark" theme though.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

Scotchester — Fri, 22 May 2026 13:32:41 GMT

Adding another vote for a toggle to switch from the fully rounded buttons/tabs back to the current state of things. I get that full rounding feels friendly/approachable or even "modern" in some sense, and that you're trying to attract new people into the Firefox family, but it's not my preferred aesthetic, and I would appreciate the ability to choose (even if it's just a hidden about:config flag).

I'll throw out a pipe dream request, too. It would be awesome to have the option to make tabs look like, y'know, tabs again? 🙂 That is, attached to the main area below them (or to the right of them if you're using vertical tabs) instead of being free-floating buttons.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

myspace — Fri, 22 May 2026 14:39:43 GMT

thanks for update. excited to see more and glad to hear compact mode is coming back!

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

foxman — Fri, 22 May 2026 15:26:38 GMT

To the Mozilla developers—dear to me, though my heart has been drifting away from you lately.

To be honest, I believe this design severely neglects usability and will only further shorten Firefox’s lifespan.
The unnecessary white space created to fill the unusable areas resulting from the rounded corners significantly reduces the display density. While this might be an appropriate design for smartphones, which require large hitboxes for touch input, it’s fatal for PC use.
Even as it stands, the context menu with its excessive white space is terrible.

This design should absolutely not be adopted. People don’t choose a browser based on its design. What matters is functionality, speed, security, and above all, the customization options that only Firefox offers. At the very least, I think you should allow users to choose the previous design.

I welcome the return of Compact Mode.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

sparrowbeepig — Fri, 22 May 2026 15:57:45 GMT

This redesign comes off as immature and like something you'd see in an interface made for kindergarteners. The color scheme is clearly childish, and the rounded corners are both excessive and unnecessary.

Stop changing the design every year and copying bad ideas from other browsers! A proper redesign would look like Firefox 76. Clear, simple and familiar. No one asked for this Barney & Friends UI.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

Arvid — Fri, 22 May 2026 16:24:20 GMT

I like the general more colourfullness of the design! I think the gaps (especially of the top section with the URL bar) to the side of the window are a bit busy visually (and also waste a teeny tiny amount of space since you now need spacing inside of the sections as well as spacing for the sections in the window itself). I personally think it would already look less busy if the shadow for the sections was reduced or removed completely but those are just my two cents.

In the end visual refreshes are always gonna be controversial as everyone has their own opinion and preferences hahaha
I wish your team much resilience in this feedback phase 😅

Most likely we all will just get used to it and I think the positive changes definitely outweigh the negatives for me! Keep up the good work!

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

dtx01 — Fri, 22 May 2026 19:22:41 GMT

After 5 years with Opera i tried Firefox again and was super impressed with what Firefox has become. It has way fewer bugs than Opera, feels less sluggish, and the controls are super intuitive and useful. Switched Immediately, looking forward to the Nova Update.

Some Suggestions from what i am missing:

- please add this flag to settings: browser.bookmarks.openInTabClosesMenu ("false" should be the standard option IMO)

- Option "send to Mobile" directly inside adressbar instead of having to right click the tab

- Custom websites in Sidebar (like web.whatsapp)

- Add customizable edge rounding for UI in Nova ! Rounding is too excessive (right now is perfect IMO) do not make the same mistakes like google

- customizable links on new-tab-page (desktop and mobile) that are not based on browser-history

- Caroussel Tab view option on Mobile (like Opera) would be awesome

- True Black Theme on Mobile

other than that you are doing a fantastic job and i'd highly appreciate more performance improvements in the future.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

breakingspell — Fri, 22 May 2026 17:07:14 GMT

Wow, this sucks! How do we as users get any say in what goes on with these redesigns?

Everything is internal (Slack, Figma), so we can't even see the mockups.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

Shibotto — Fri, 22 May 2026 18:42:05 GMT

It's horrible. Stop detaching pieces of the UI and start with reattaching the tabs.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

seive — Fri, 22 May 2026 18:56:43 GMT

You should just go back to the Photon design

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

kit_absurd_res — Fri, 22 May 2026 20:56:33 GMT

This screams "Material You" or whatever the latest Google's homogenous, ugly design is called. The only thing I like is the addition of Kit (beautiful mascot, by the way 💛❤️). Everything else looks like change for the sake of change, but doesn't even look good.

At least the previous design wasn't too bad, even if it was yet another "do what Chrome does" redesign. I really don't like the spacing that wasn't there before and increased spacing elsewhere, nor do I like the excessive roundness or the borders. I don't like any of the "form over function" changes.

Provided nothing changes, browser.nova.enabled set to false will go straight into my configs. No thanks. The layout changes are a complete downgrade and a literal waste of screen real estate, not even figurative.

The only way to redeem this would be to prioritise customisation for roundness, spacing, borders, etc. I realise this was confirmed to be done "over time", but whenever that would be, it would be way too late if not at launch. Please, delay it if necessary, just let the average user dial it back before they consider ditching for alternatives.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

kit_absurd_res — Fri, 22 May 2026 21:00:26 GMT

I like how you brought up "opinionated" as that's a part of the company's motto. I'd go further and call the entire update opinionated, provided customisation features don't land in time or at all.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

kit_absurd_res — Fri, 22 May 2026 21:04:48 GMT

This! The icons made it quicker to find the expected menu item. Countless others asked for the same thing ever since they removed them.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

fed-up — Sat, 23 May 2026 03:07:56 GMT

I second the attached tabs! It's bugged me for a long time that the "tabs" now are just buttons that look detached from the main content.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

Arvid — Sat, 23 May 2026 06:45:17 GMT

Almost every UI is going to be opinionated in some way. Letting the user customise everything takes quite some time to develop and worst case makes future updates a nightmare for the dev team. At some point you’re just gonna have to live with software looking a certain way and if you don’t like it Firefox already provides more options than many other browsers in terms of fully customisable CSS.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

Arvid — Sat, 23 May 2026 06:54:40 GMT

You don’t. Not everything will always be up for user to comment on before implementation. That would slow development down to a bog because I can already tell you that there are at least 5 opinions on this amongst the community without having even seen the implementation and mostly based on habit. Just give constructive feedback when it comes around. I’m sure Mozilla does a lot of testing anyways with how long some of the updates take to be rolled out to everyone.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

Arvid — Sat, 23 May 2026 06:57:29 GMT

This comment provided 0 useful feedback.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

Arvid — Sat, 23 May 2026 07:06:10 GMT

I totally agree. In order to make these islands look good you need padding inside them as well as on the outside. If elements don’t have room to breathe they normally appear cluttered (as much as some like to disagree). Either the islands you now need double the room than without to give the UI white space.
I think they were born because of split tabs so webpages are clearly separated, but I think either a strong border or only using the islands when tabs are split and for the webpages only would be sufficient.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

at2 — Sat, 23 May 2026 07:12:09 GMT

Firefox "Nova" is terrible. Why are redesigns so tailored to home uers with very, very low tech skills? It idotizes interfaces and bomards you with visual fluff rather than focues on the key objective: to be a secure, stable, reliable content delivery tool with good bookmarking and enough customization to allow slightly edge case folks to get their wish for, say, vertical tabs.

If you must, how about a toggle for 'Thanks, I hate it, take me back'?

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

Arvid — Sat, 23 May 2026 07:14:42 GMT

I very much disagree. “People don’t choose their browser based on their design” is totally a power user thing to say but I can guarantee you that most people are rather visual folks.
it would be nice if they include some options to reduce padding but just for accessibility alone you need a certain padding to be WCAG compliant.
I think that the “islands” are certainly something where space is wasted and they go back on it. Also because it adds visual clutter imo.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

TotallyUniqLily — Sat, 23 May 2026 10:44:08 GMT

A lot about this update feels like a downgrade. The rounded corners give text a lot less space to breathe, while not being any more compact. Tabs feel even less attached to the browser content than before.
The islands very much look cool, but they introduce visual clutter.

It's very form-over-function and personally I don't like the new form either. Tabs already had a soft, rounded shape! The smaller corner radius helped make their borders/edges distinct.

I agree with gcozzi's comment about transparent island gaps. They look cool, but also very distracting. They do look okay in a maximized window, where they make Firefox feel like it's a window manager, but they're very ugly otherwise (though Plasma rendering shadows around the window doesn't do them any favours).

What I do like however, is the new settings. Adding more categories was a much needed improvement given how search currently works, and I appreciate that time is being taken to improve their readability. Making everything an island there sounds useful to make individual settings pop. In the current design, many times my eyes glossed over a setting while I was actively looking for it.
Edit 3: Checking the settings on Nightly with nova disabled, they're pretty much just as good. (and prettier imo)

The current tab getting a clear border is good (though I already had that with a theme :P).

Personally, I think moving the Android pill to the side looks a lot better even if it is a bit less practical, but I can see why others may disagree.

Edit: Having looked through the settings on Nightly, I hate that I can't delete search engines. It feels very uncomfortable seeing Perplexity there and only being able to disable it.
Edit2: Additionally, the search engine list elements are too big, making it impossible to see all engines at a glance since the list overflows into the scroll region. Flattening them a bit would do wonders.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

at2 — Sat, 23 May 2026 09:56:20 GMT

Just read that you can't delete search engines. Whhat? So FF i going to the "you will like what we give you and if not, tough" mode seemingly everything has become. I shudder at losing FF but this redesign and desperate search for income presumably from adding Perpleity AI as unremovable, just hide, is not gonna help with your existing loyal base and won't move the needle one micromillimeter for new users. NONE of this redesign will get new users. Perplexity as a search options will not do it. This is shockingly bad.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

TotallyUniqLily — Sat, 23 May 2026 10:35:43 GMT

I think it's worth considering that they might have done this change to obsolete the "Restore Default Search Engines" button. Still, it's a bad look and very uncomfortable.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

at2 — Sat, 23 May 2026 11:30:58 GMT

I don't want it t all. It's geared to some mythical user that's never used a browser and want a wall of marketing crap on their homepage and are impressed by colors that (not making this up) are favrored by lower end of the normal IQ range - pink and purple. Also, rounded corners are intruduced almost a decade after they became the new thing, and has reached peak overuse. Did you notice saavy user detest Windows 11 make-everthing-rounded nonsense? And I use Macs most of the time, where there's lots of rounded stuff, but it's waay more subtle.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

Shvabra — Sat, 23 May 2026 12:04:49 GMT

Got a new settings design. Personally, I don't like it; everything feels like a mess. Also, a special shout out to the genius who hid the proxy settings.

152.0b2

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

TheJaredWilcurt — Sat, 23 May 2026 12:25:55 GMT

On Win 11 I run some random hack someone wrote to turn off the ugly rounded corners because MicroSlop refuses to give an option to turn them off:

https://github.com/valinet/Win11DisableRoundedCorners

That hack has to edit a Windows system file (uDWM.dll), and after Windows Updates, it replaces it, requiring me to re-run it at least once a month on reboot to fix that horrible OS.

On Linux I use Zorin, and once again, it has aggressively rounded corners and no option to turn that terrible design pattern off. So once again I am forced to hack my own OS by modifying system files (~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.cssand ~/.config/gtk-4.0/gtk.css). Adding in:

* { border-radius: 4px } decoration, window { border-radius: 0px }

This works but has some visual glitchiness occasionally, because it's just a hack I wrote.

PLEASE GIVE AN EASY OPTION TO TURN THIS OFF! PLEASE!

Stop forcing ugly aggressively rounded corners on everyone. If there is no easy option to turn it off, then you are forcing YOUR preference without giving a way for me to TELL YOU mine. There are literally only 2 browser engines. I shouldn't have to switch engines, or stay on older, insecure versions, just because the UI is terrible. BUT I WILL. I WILL GO TO WHATEVER LENGTHS TO GET AWAY FROM UGLY ROUNDED CORNERS!

JUST... PUT IN... A FREAKING CHECKBOX. Is that so hard??????

What an obnoxious looking redesign. Maybe Waterfox will save us from this, because I have zero faith in Mozilla's ability to listen to feedback or add in a single checkbox. I'm not even asking for a range slider to adjust the border radius to something decent, just a plain "opt out of all rounded corners" option.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

selim — Sat, 23 May 2026 13:52:02 GMT

This is called Fitts' law and yes, the Nova redesign is in dire need of respecting it.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

foxman — Sat, 23 May 2026 13:53:07 GMT

Your point is very well taken.

However, I also believe this browser has a high proportion of power users and long-time users. Furthermore, I do not necessarily consider adding whitespace and rounded corners to be inherently modern design.

Rather, in order to keep both groups of users with differing opinions like ours from leaving, I think it is highly important to maintain two design languages.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

Zoutpeper — Sat, 23 May 2026 15:47:32 GMT

Focus on the tremendous drain firefox has on my battery instead.

This redesign looks like it was fone by people who hate practicality; lots of wasted space, rounded corners (which reduce clickable surface) and unneeded redesigns of buttons.

I no longer use firefox because it is good, but because it is not chrome. Yet with each passing day Firefox seems to try and emulate chrome more... Do you want to be irrelevant?

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

grundt — Sat, 23 May 2026 17:55:17 GMT

Just allowing Theme developers access to all the UI customizations affected by the browser.nova.enabled toggle, would make me happy.

I'm quite impressed at how responsive that toggle is (immediate change, no browser restart required).

If Themes had access to all the same UI elements as the toggle, it would allow anyone (with enough motivation to create a theme) to mix and match from the Nova/Proton pallettes to their heart's content without any need to build UI customization into Settings, and presumably without hampering future UI updates (as the changes would already be constrained to fit within what's toggleable).

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

jacobc — Sun, 24 May 2026 01:27:58 GMT

Keeping the option to enable the Title Bar is good to let us grab and drag many windows from where the mouse lands at the top of each window, instead of hunting for the small safe draggable space to the left and right of the tabs.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

Tsetien — Sun, 24 May 2026 02:07:33 GMT

If Waterfox fails you you might consider give Floorp a try also. (Though it is annoyingly based on the current branch instead of ESR.) And actually, even ‘Nova’ isn’t that hard to beat, with Aris-t2’s CustomCSSforFx and some personal fixes it can still be reverted back to a look that similar to Firefox 4 to 28. Also, I reckon you must have already heard of ‘Unround Everything’, but just in case you have not, search for it.

Currently I only cannot get tooltips for add-on icons squared (weird, eh? Even tooltips for tabs and bookmarks were fine, just those for add-on icons!), everything else was perfectly right-angled!

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

peekkay — Sun, 24 May 2026 06:48:17 GMT

I wanted to share a specific rendering issue I'm noticing with the new Project Nova active tab design on Windows 11.

When running at a standard 1920x1080 resolution with exactly 100% scaling, there are distinct anti-aliasing problems specific to the curve of the active tab capsule. Instead of a smooth, clean arc, the curved edges exhibit noticeable jaggedness and uneven rendering along the loop.

This issue occurs on a completely fresh profile with default settings, suggesting it is a scaling/rendering problem specific to how the new curve geometry resolves at a 1:1 pixel ratio.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

suikaz — Mon, 25 May 2026 11:26:30 GMT

it's awful, but it may actually be less broken than proton

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

Antares — Mon, 25 May 2026 11:28:06 GMT

I don't find excessively rounding everything and using tons of screenspace for unneccessary faff design elements to be "modern" or "friendly", I find it infantilising, like I'm using a browser made for children, uninspired, as many other browsers use the same sort of design language, and wasteful, as it does not respect my screen real estate.

First that absolutely godawful redesign of Firefox Android, now this. It feels like your UX/UI designers completely lost the plot.

Re: Sharing more about Project Nova

cephirosx — Mon, 25 May 2026 11:48:08 GMT

I find the new menu on the firefox android confusing, instead of making it easier to find things it made it harder