Blue Sky Ideas Thread: What Do You Wish Your Browser Could Do?

[Jon]

Let’s have fun with this one…

If your browser could do anything—no limits—what would you want it to do? 

Could be features that positively impact entertainment, social, work, personal, family, education, shopping OR any scenario where you wish Firefox could help make an experience better OR even create a new experience/develop a brand new product. 

When participating in the discussion, please remember to:

-Follow the Community Guidelines 

Anything that violates the guidelines will be flagged and removed. 

-Stay on topic

Let’s keep this thread focused on the 'blue sky ideas' theme. If you have additional product feedback or ideas unrelated to the discussion topic, create a new post.

Thanks so much and looking forward to hearing all of your amazing ideas 🙌

[ajp1228]

Thanks.  Can you add to that being able to stay logged into this site for a long period of time?  It logs me off every time I close the browser window.  Why can't I stay perpetually logged in, like I do with Facebook?  Or even Bugzilla?  LOL...Thanks!

[Jon]

Haha keep 'em coming! But yea we'll look into this.

[mp1982]

Have mousewheel events on the tabs (the tabs in the tab bar) that website devs and addon devs can use to map to actions. For instance if my website has a music player, I could listen to the wheel event and let the user adjust the volume, without needing them to click/focus the website first, if they just hover the tab and use the wheel.

[Jon]

This is great. And thanks for the specific example...always helps!

[ajp1228]

I just remembered a minor change I made a few months ago in about:config.  I added extra zoom values.  I added 95% and 75% and perhaps a couple of others in-between.  The 75% is very helpful, because there is currently a huge difference in the default 67% vs the next default level up.  Having 95% allows me to tweak the page if it's just a little big too large for my DPI settings and doesn't decrease the font size nearly as much as going down to the default of 90%. 

I find that the "zoom text only" option isn't usually helpful and causes the web pages to not display correctly.  If there's any way to "zoom text only" without moving the pictures around on the web pages, that would be very nice.  Many sites use large pictures and small fonts, which make it difficult for us who are not 20 years old to read the text.  Many pictures and videos, for example those on Facebook, are taller than the height of the browser window on my laptop unless I use "full screen" mode.

Another issue is that some websites have headers which remain at the top of the page while you are scrolling through the content.  These headers cover up too much of the screen and make it difficult to see the content.  (A shopping site I use is bad for this, and I have to use full-screen view to see the merchandise I'm browsing.)  If there was a setting we could click to turn this off for an individual site, that would be nice.  I'm sure it's part of the code the web developer added to the sites, but the sky is the limit in this thread, right?  😊

[Jon]

Hey, you're right—the sky is the limit and then some! Thanks for sharing. We'll pass this along to the right team and let you know if there are any updates or follow-up questions.

[Jon]

Hey all!

This has been fun AND very insightful, so we're gonna keep the thread open a bit longer to:

1) Continue reviewing all posts

2) Hear more of your 'blue sky ideas' — and again, this can be a new feature / feature enhancement / brand new product / anything that helps build a better internet

Thanks for your active participation in the community 💪💡

-The Community Team

[Anonymous]

Are you looking for broad guidelines or specific ideas? If the former I would continue the discussion here. If the latter, then you should move forward to develop an idea that already has a lot of support.

[Jon]

Yes to both 😀

We'll take a look at this thread as well as ideas from the ideas board when planning and prioritizing future projects.

[Anonymous]

I would like feedback from developers in reviewing ideas. If we can identify information that is missing or technical issues in the review process, the discussion will be more meaningful.

[Jon]

This is great feedback...and exactly what we're trying to work towards here with Mozilla Connect. Feedback going both ways, more meaningful conversations, and more opportunities for you (the community) to participate.

[ajp1228]

I'm not sure if it fits this thread, since the original post is about the "browser."  However, I would like to be able to connect my calendar in Thunderbird to a calendar on my mobile devices (iPhone/iPad) and still be able to continually "snooze" the reminders.  Sometimes I like to have a reminder showing days or weeks in advance, then snooze it for a few days until time gets closer.  Today I have a reminder popping up on my laptop about an appointment tomorrow.  I am snoozing it for two hours at a time, so I won't forget to set my alarm clock tonight.  Occasionally it would be nice to be reminded of things when I'm away from home, especially on a trip.  But I don't want to keep two calendars, and I also haven't figured out how to "snooze" reminders on the phone calendar so they will pop back up later. 

[longtimeffuser]

Do not change anonymous view colors, icons on every on every other version.

Keep it simple, fuctional, stable - you know browser.

It is not some banner that needs updating, it is a tool. Keep  it safe, simple, stable.

If you want to add some new thing let user decide, do not push it on user so they have to fiddle with it to make it like before some randome update.

Frustraging all of this. Thinking of leaving Firefox, seriously. Every new nagging update just gets on user nerves and they are leaving. Exactly for this unstability. I have patience but that is limited and you are pushing at its limits.

[ajp1228]

I have another one.  When a new version of Firefox is released, please find a way to keep sites with 2FA from not trusting the browser.  It's frustrating to visit and log in a site with 2FA (two-factor authentication) and have to wait for an email code - or, worse, have to get up and get our phone to retrieve the code - when we have previously checked the box for the site to trust the browser.  The site will trust the current version, and maybe the sub-versions, but when there is a major update (such as from 105 to 106) evidently the sites no longer trust the browser even though it is still Firefox and still on the same PC.

[Anonymous]

The bloat of web standards and web browsers

My concern right now is the bloat of web standards and web browsers: every time the W3C adds a new feature to a web standard, the resources needed to develop a web browser increase, and I believe this is allowing Chrome to monopolize the market.

You can create a new browser by forking Chromium. However, if more Chromium-based browser developers are involved, this will encourage the development of Chromium, and the results will be used for Chrome.

While the multifunctionality of web browsers may improve user convenience, it would harm the user's interests if it prevents market competition. I hope Mozilla stop this vicious cycle.

[flyerxl]

How about just being a web browser. Stop trying to be "helpful" by changing all of our settings and home pages. Browsers are just that, a way to browse the web. Firefox isn't the destination, it's the car.

[ajp1228]

Yes, and keep the UI small and don't take up too much of the top of the screen, especially for those of us who have large DPI settings in Windows or whatever OS we are using.  You might allow some settings changes for people who want to change the size of the UI, but the default should use a minimal amount of the screen.  But keep the menu bar with text available for those of us who prefer words rather than icons (and don't change the default and hide it if we already have it showing).  The big update when FF started adjusting the UI according to the Windows DPI ("Make everything bigger") setting was a nightmare!  We actually had to add a setting under "about:config" to fix the problem!

[Jon]

Thanks for the feedback—very fair. And appreciate the analogy...but even a car comes in various shapes, sizes, colors, and with several different features. Speed/performance, comfort, and safety are all important. And some prefer to drive in style. We want to make sure we're hitting the mark for as many people as possible. I'd love to hear what features are essential for you in a web browser, including some that may be missing from the Firefox experience now. Excited to continue the conversation!

[Anonymous]

However, Firefox will not be able to become Jaguar.

[BrokenChef]

I wish Firefox would work with Yahoo mail!  Every time I download an attachment, the yahoo mail tab closes out.  I recently switched over to Outlook to avoid this issue.

[ajp1228]

I use Yahoo mail and don't have a problem with Firefox; however, I rarely receive attachments in my Yahoo account.  I use Mozilla's Thunderbird program on my laptop for my other email account (the account from my ISP).  I consider that account my "primary" email; however, I get a lot more email in Yahoo...LOL  Anyway, I'm sure Thunderbird can be configured for a Yahoo account using the same IMAP configuration that I'm using for my ISP email account.  There's also a calendar feature.  It's not the same as the old Outlook mail and calendar that I had at work before I retired, but it's similar and it's free!

[Anonymous]

I feel that Firefox development has stalled because Mozilla is not addressing important issues and developing features like Colorway that are just for looks. If there are not enough resources, then new features should not be added carelessly, and the current rapid releases are inefficient and the release interval should be extended.

[Uncle_D]

Hello Jon!  I started using Firefox when Netscape,(remember them?) , went south, no longer offered email, was not updated, etc.. I asked around and was told about a fairly new browser called Firefox. It was user friendly, easy to get along with and seemed to integrate with most any piece of software anyone had. So, I got my 16 bit Firefox and went to work. To this day I have NO idea what all my Firefox then or now can do. We all know it can open web sites with stunning clarity and accuracy! But all this talk and all these posts makes me think there is more to it than that. Which brings me to my personal request. I wish Firefox could tell me what it can do! When I open a web page that does not "fit' on my screen, it could say"You know, I could resize this so it will all fit on your screen and you won't be losing the information that is cut off on the edges. THAT would be helpful in many ways!

Now, first let me say I mean NO OFFENSE here! NONE! I have stayed with Firefox since 199X because there is nothing better! It is not like I am still making payments on my browser and cannot afford to switch. It is because it is doing 95% of everything I need it to do. And it probably does 100% except I am too ignorant to know it. So, my one complaint, if you must call it that, is so many of the explanations, etc. under settings, tools and the like are in "techno babble". PLEASE understand that is what I call it. You would likely call what I write "dumb donkey" or a synonym thereof. Neither of us want to invite the other out to the parking lot to duke it out, it's just what we usually call it. No offense intended. Then I get:"Well, OK, what don't you understand?" and I reply, If I understood it well enough to tell you, I might know what it means."  A couple of times my big fingers went past the backspace key and hit SOMETHING that brought up some wild stuff. Like: BroadcastService: received BroadcastMessage: handler for remote-settings/monitor_changes threw error: Error: Polling for changes failed: NetworkError: Network request failed.
pollChanges resource://services-settings/remote-settings.js:334

Man oh man, I was so lost, neither Voyager nor Cassini could find me! Polling is a place I go every four years to vote. It has nothing to do with my PC. At that point all I wanted was a way to close that and I'll pretend I never saw it,. if it will let me continue on.  Knowing how well Firefox does what it does, I am certain that whatever part of it that refers to is a top notch whatever that does great things I am totally unaware of. And, sometimes I think about that message and kind of wish I knew what it meant and what it did.  So, one time I got brave & typed  "polling for changes" into the HELP screen, under HELP at the top. Now, maybe I should be embarrassed about this, but I do not know enough to know if I should be, but there is not one single line on that screen I could decipher enough to have any kind of idea what it was talking about! I suppose I am one of those dummies the guy in the second comment is referring to, that has caused Firefox to be "dumb ed down" to the point he finds it difficult to use. All I can say is: Mister, even in dumb mode this guy has no clue! Does it come in moron or maybe even idiot?

Wow, did I digress! All I really wanted to say was: It would be nice if Firefox let me know what it could do in  a very plain vanilla way. Such as:" Do you change your font to Franklin Gothic only to have the machine switch it back on you? Well you can KEEP Franklin Gothic the font you always see by doing this:________." Heck, that alone would make my day!

Best Regards,

Doug

[Jon]

Thanks for sharing this, @Uncle_D! Your line "I wish Firefox could tell me what it can do!" really grabbed my attention...and I'm sure you're not the only one. What do you think would be the best way of sharing that info with you/others? Pop-ups or? Trying to think of what will be most beneficial without being too obtrusive.

[Anonymous]

Just my 2 cents,  since i find this suggestion interesting too.

Instead of a popup i think a dedicated passiv area/space on the about:homepage or about:newtab would be better ... that displays  "Tips of the days"  like messages. I think more people would be happy this. And having an option to remove it for those who absolutely dont want it should be part of the experience. That way nobody has any serious reason to complain, but new and old users can still get some infos when they want.

[Jon]

Yes please, all the cents. Always like seeing other people hop in and join threads within threads. A dedicated space (that is easily enabled/disabled) makes a lot of sense.

[RioBravo]

EVERYDAY !!! I would Love It if my Firefox browser had a simple menu button that would STOP the web page that I am trying to view/read from doing that ever annoying webpage automatic "re-fresh".😠

I have tried all work around including the true/false autorefresh etc and nothing works and/or stops working after a few updates and WISH there was a simple "permanent" easy clickable menu button that stopped the webpage auto refresh 👍😉

*Just a thought:🤔

What if there were a "Restore Firefox Browser (not OS) to Previous Saved State" as to try and repair UI and users nerves 😲 after a buggy update - then ability to avoid certain buggy updates.🤗  

[nobodybutme]

it would be great if you would stop updating every three seconds (I exaggerate for effect) and taking away / changing the things that work well and replacing them with things that are, in fact, a step backward.

[Jon]

Hey 👋

Thanks for sharing your ideas as we explore ways to improve already existing products and potentially develop new ones. Your feedback helps us make more informed decisions, and we will continue using this community to connect (sorry, had to) and collaborate more with you all throughout the product development process.

We learned a lot from this thread and will dig deeper into all the comments, but here are some key takeaways/themes that emerged:

• More user control and customization options - new features should be easily enabled or disabled, if needed
• Profiles need to be a first-class feature
• Focusing more on developing popular ideas from the community/users - (Note: we are aiming to do this with Mozilla Connect, but yes there is still plenty of work to be done there)
• Before pursuing any "blue sky ideas," improve overall performance 
• Much, much more!

It's great seeing these valuable insights. Thanks again for your participation. We are closing out this thread now but will provide updates on any of these themes in the future. In the meantime, we encourage you to continue sharing your feedback and ideas in new posts. Just remember to use the necessary labels and tags, so your posts are easily searched for and discovered by our teams (and other community members). 

Looking forward to continuing to work together 💪

-The Community Team