Firefox 151 Introduces a Fresh New Look for Home & New Tab (Desktop)

[AmberMeryman]

With Firefox 151, we’re updating the design across Firefox Home and New Tab experiences. This refresh introduces a cleaner, more modern look and feel to surfaces that millions of Firefox users see every day. The updated experience is designed to feel more polished, cohesive, and visually engaging while keeping Firefox fast and easy to use. It is also the foundation for future customization features, coming soon!

Some of the updates you may notice include

• Refined layouts and spacing
• Updated visual styling and treatments
• and New wallpapers - new styles of Kit themed wallpapers, and dark mode versions of previously-light only, as noted here

If you’ve updated to Firefox 151, you’ll begin seeing these changes as they roll out. Users of all versions in all channels will be able to use the new wallpapers immediately.

Let us know what you think below!

- Amber, Firefox Desktop Product

[pauli]

Love the new wallpapers so much! I think it would be very cool to add them to Firefox mobile.

[Jimmyjime]

HATE the blank space above the icons on "new tab".  Not going to use Firefox anymore.

Too many issues using Firefox:

Many different .pdf files do not open in Firefox.

Many websites do not open properly in Firefox.  Vendors tell me to use Chrome, Safari or Edge.

The blank space on a new tab serves NO PURPOSE.

I am going back to Chrome.  Thank you for pushing me out.

[EthernetMaster]

Aren't you overreacting here? Safari is the new Internet Explorer in terms of shortcomings, and if you prefer Chrome over Firefox, well... what can I say - it really is your loss and no one else's.

[Jimmyjime]

The loss is for Firefox because you are creating a product that doesn't work for me, the user.  One third of a new tab is just wasted space.  Dozens of websites will not open.  Pdfs that do not open.  I cannot run my business on a product with such failures.

[dftf]

@Jimmyjime : in Firefox, try going to the hamburger-menu (three-lines, top-right), then Settings, scroll down to the Applications section and for "Portable Document Format (PDF)", make-sure the dropdown is set to "Open in Firefox".

I have no issues here.

If you still have issues, perhaps the PDFs in your business use features the built-in browser cannot support, such as they require a password to open, or whatever app creates them uses non-standard code?  Do the same PDFs open without-issue in Edge?

[dftf]

As for "dozens of websites will not open", then:
1. If these are public websites (that anyone around the world could access), then on ones with an issue, use the Report Broken Site option in the "hamburger menu" to report them.  Or some websites simply don't-bother to test with Firefox, and instead just have a blanket ban or message advising the site may not work.  Try an extension that makes Firefox lie to that site and pretend to be Chrome, such as:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-mask

2. If the sites you have an issue with are internal websites (that can only be accessed inside your company, or staff remotely using your companies VPN), then yes, many of these won't work with Firefox, as they probably use stuff like ActiveX, Flash Player, Silverlight or Java.  For such really-old sites, you will have to use either Internet Explorer, or "Internet Explorer Mode" inside Microsoft Edge*.

But such sites won't work in Brave, Safari, Vivaldi or Opera either.  (*Internet Explorer Mode is only available for Microsoft Edge when used on Windows 11 or 10; the Android, iOS, macOS and Linux versions don't offer it.)

[KitchMactual]

@Jimmyjime Totally understand your viewpoint, but please allow me to shed some light on the reality set before us.  Chrome is just Google's own desire to control you and use all your data.  If you are going to trust a third party, never trust Android or Chrome, or anything Microsoft.  We often have to choose between the lesser of two or more evils.  Mozilla has been there for us for far too long to ignore.  You could try Opera or one of the other decent browser products of the dozens available, but our problem gets worse if we overreact.  It is hard to get these non-profits to do what we want since there is no charge to users, so all we can do is put a light on the knuckle-heads who screw up and throw them a few shekels.  Just hang in there.  Hope this helps.

[Jimmyjime]

I just want a browser that doesn't crash daily.  Decades ago IE would crash quite often.  The privacy issues I can live with.  One cannot know their data isn't being used by any internet browser.

[KitchMactual]

Not actually true, I'm afraid.  Yes we can know.  Study up on it a little more and it will help.  You seem to be implying that you use Windows.  In that case, it matters little because the OS is already suspect.  But still, a good browser will help.  The others you mentioned will not.

Further, I have no idea why you can't open PDF files.  Do you expect them to open in your browser; is that what you mean?

[dftf]

I'm never having issues with Firefox crashing here, on either Windows 11 or 10.

Might be best for you to export your data, and then create a new profile.

Go to Menu (three-lines icon, top-right) > Settings > Sync
Then tap "Turn on backup" and follow the instructions

Once you have a backup saved, go to Menu > Settings > General
Then in the "Profiles" area, tap Settings then Manage Profiles
In the new window that opens, tap Create a Profile

Once you're using the new profile, go to Menu > Settings > Sync and use the Restore your data option to get your bookmarks, history and saved-passwords back

[WhyWhyWhy]

Why is "VPN" so big?

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

Why is the VPN button so big?
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/please-let-us-adjust-the-size-of-the-vpn-logo-why-is-it-s...

[whyweneedthis]

Hi,
My home screen consists in 4 rows of shortcuts. As said by others, this change is not good for this scenario.
So i hit Customize because i thought it had options to change.

What I liked: Animated gifs as wallpaper works. Nice.

What I see to be improved:
Options to keep original size, maintain aspect ratio, set background position and related stuff for user selected wallpaper. Right now it fills the entire screen, stretching/cropping to fit. Its bad for low res images, or vertical photos. Preview/confirm before changing custom wallpaper would be nice. At this point the custom wallpaper feature is not polished.
Picking a color: Firefox has two awesome tools in developer options, the EyeDropper and Color Spectrum. But here "Choose a Color" displays a Windows like color palette? Cant event switch tabs until its done. This is not cohesive, not in line with refined visuals. It breaks flow.

Other issues:
"+ Add Shortcut" is not showing here. (I’m missing something?);
Dismissing a shortcut from last row requires scroll down after clicking "...". Once you dismiss the shortcut, screen is moved top, requiring scroll down once more to see what is showing in the last row position;
If the wallpaper has mixed dark and light spots, the text in some shortcuts text becomes unreadable. Maybe this is related to themes, i use the default dark;

This update seems off. The Customize doesn’t have options to adjust what really was changed.
So what was kind of customizations are coming next? How does it fits in Nova context?

[KitchMactual]

Thank you for that well written and concisely detailed description.  The things you've noted show the shallow thinking of the programmers who have failed to think things through all the way before implementation.  Sloppy thinking always causes sloppy outcomes.  But worse, it causes lost productivity.

Thanks again.

[brixter]

In Firefox Android, can I disable the swipe down gesture that displays my opened tabs if I swipe from the toolbar? I frequently trigger this gesture even when I'm just swiping down due to regular web browsing. I'm annoyed that I see my open tabs when I don't want to. Is there a setting to disable this?

[dftf]

@AmberMeryman can you also consider putting [PAID] before a headline title, or an icon like 💰💲🛡🔒 next to articles to indicate which are paywalled?

I'm not-bothering to click any from The Verge now, with how many end-up being locked-out: