topic Just allow people to disable Nova on Settings -> Appearance in Discussions

Just allow people to disable Nova on Settings -> Appearance

Ammonium — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 16:53:38 GMT

Like, come on now. You have seen the community's reaction to it already. A lot of your users who have been loyal to Firefox and have used it for several years now aren't big fans of the new Nova design. It has a lot of dead space, and most importantly, it was forcibly set as the "new default" for everyone who was already perfectly happy with the older design.

Now, I want to make something very clear: I'm not calling it an "objectively bad" design or whatever. I know some people are, and some have made it seem like a way bigger deal that it is, but I don't. I'm sure that some people like it. However, the fact that it was a "sudden, unnanounced" change from one theme to another was a poorly thought out idea. It led to the expected backlash that has already happened.

This is made even worse by the fact that when you were greeted by this... "controversial" design, and you find out you don't like it and preferred the earlier design more, your first thought is to go to the settings, open the "Appearance" menu, and disable the rounded corners and all the associated UI styling through there. But, surprise, it's not there. It's not even mentioned anythere. For you to be able to disable this "unexpected surprise" you just received, you need to delve into Google, search for people just as frustrated as you are or, in many occasions, even more angry about it, and only then you find someone commenting "you can go into the about:config page, search for browser.nova.enabled, and then set it to false".

Is this really the best User Experience that can be provided, for all of these people who clearly didn't like this new design? I really don't think so. So, please, just put it in the Settings menu already. You will not only save all of these people a hassle, but also to you, because the outrage wouldn't be as big as it has been.

Sincerely,

A decade-long Firefox user.

Don't Force UI Redesigns On People

idontwantto — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 21:30:47 GMT

While there definitely are a lot of people who enjoy having their user interface randomly change without warning for no apparent reason, to a lot of other people, "familiarity with the user interface" is the single most important element of a web browser. One easy way to make everybody happy would be to offer user interface changes as an option rather than forcing them on everybody. This way, the people who like having their user interface randomly change for no apparent reason can choose to switch over to the new interface, while the people who actually value consistency and accessibility can choose to keep their interface unchanged, resulting in happiness for everyone!

This is such an obvious idea, and it has been suggested to you guys thousands of times for several years, so I am left to conclude that you don't want to implement this change because you know that the vast majority of users would choose not to change their interface, and it's apparently more important to you that you force people to see the new interface than it is to have satisfied users who remain loyal to the browser.

Been graually making the switch over to Brave. It's hard to do because I prefer familiarity and consistency, but if you guys aren't offering that anyway, I might as well just leave.

Disable the new UI

asdf_ — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 22:36:43 GMT

Please don't refresh the UI for no reason. Please leave it disabled by default. I don't want this.

How about reverting back to old design.

sucker — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 11:40:28 GMT

New design sucks. Getting back to chrome...loved your browser for years - and now this. Thx for the ride.

Re: Disable the new UI

dftf — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 16:02:41 GMT

To reverse most of the recent change:
URL bar -> about:config -> ENTER -> accept warning -> search nova ->
double-click line "browser.nova.enabled" to change to "false"

You can also install the previous theme here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/firefox-proton/

⚠ The ability to reverse Nova may end in Firefox v161, expected Nov 24, 2026

Setting to revert back to old tab design

DoodleOverlord — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 16:06:35 GMT

This new UI is incredibly disconcerting. Many things are now suddenly different, such as the close-tab button being much smaller and harder to click.

It also makes container tabs look incredibly awkward, since the tab container indicator doesn't extend across the whole tab anymore. Additionally, the rounder tabs feel like they waste a lot of space between tabs, and Compact Mode doesn't really solve this issue.

I'm completely fine with Mozilla continuing to work on and improve the Nova design, but please give users the option to switch back to the older UI if they prefer it.

Wasn't this browser all about giving users choice in how they use it?

Re: Setting to revert back to old tab design

dftf — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 12:23:14 GMT

@Doodle : you change back via a hidden setting:

In the URL bar type about:config then press ENTER
Accept any warning shown
Search on the next screen for nova
Find the line "browser.nova.enabled", double-click it, and "true" should change to "false"

Re: Just allow people to disable Nova on Settings -> Appearance

gbjbaanb — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 18:24:38 GMT

It is an objectively bad UI change. The tabs are no longer tabs, they're buttons. The menus are now dialogs disconnected from the icon that popped them open. These are broken designs, tabs that are not tabs have forgotten why we had tabs in the first place. The designers know everything about rounded corners and gradient fills, nothing, it seems, about the design paradigms that created the UI elements in the first place. That means its broken. Objectively bad, as UI design.

I appreciate the code updates and changes, the performance tweaks even though I thought perf was fine as it was. JPEG XL support is awesome, and so on. But the UI change isn't good and the lack of response to how this is universally disliked is not good either.

So I suggest disabling automatic updates (settings, about firefox, check for updates but choose when to install), so you can choose not to update when they removes the "no nova" feature. Then you have to make a decision on whether to continue with firefox or not, but at least you won't have to make that decision with the awful not-tabbed pills in your face and you can take a little time to decide.

It should also mean people start to run older versions, which will show up in Mozilla's stats, possibly the biggest and possibly only means of informing them of your opinion of this UI change. They seem to only care about user numbers now, so they won't be able to ignore this.

The option to roll back to the old UI design

Swiths — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 22:13:21 GMT

I will be using a different browser until you add the option to choose between the wonderful, highly convenient old UI and the ridiculous, inconvenient, and tasteless new UI. And honestly, it would be good manners to ask before pushing an update, and then ask if I want to apply the new design after it's done. Don't become like the corporations that everyone hates.

Re: Just allow people to disable Nova on Settings -> Appearance

subdued1659 — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 16:01:52 GMT

I don't think Nova is bad, per-se, it's given the UI a bit a face lift that seems to be generally accepted by most users, and if it brings new users over to Firefox, then that's really good news, and I hope it does, because Firefox deserves a much bigger market share than it seems to currently has.

Now I feel like I'm somewhat the minority, but I just don't enjoy using Nova, I've tried it multiple times during testing prior to the release, and I forced myself to use it for a while following release. I'm a horizontal tab type of person, and I have tried vertical tabs too, but I just can't get a setup that I enjoy using. I ended up going back to my trusty horizontal tabs, and disabling the colour by changing the theme to something plain. I just can't warm to the pill shape tabs, even after many days of heavy usage, I'm just not enjoying using Firefox any more.

If we can keep the about:config option, then happy days as far as I'm concerned as options are good, but I really don't know what I'm going to do moving forwards if that option stops working. I've already installed a number of other browsers to evaluate them, should Nova become the only option in Firefox moving forwards, though I really hope it doesn't come to that, as that will be a really sad day for me, and will feel like the end of an era, as I've been here since the first release of Phoenix in the early 2000s.

Re: Just allow people to disable Nova on Settings -> Appearance

kelimuttu — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 08:25:09 GMT

Similar discussions have been merged into this thread.

Re: Disable the new UI

Ammonium — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 13:54:01 GMT

> ⚠ The ability to reverse Nova may end in Firefox v161, expected Nov 24, 2024

I guess that means I will have to stop using Firefox on Nov 24, 2024(?) then. No, the new design still isn't growing on me.