Take Project Nova for a spin in Nightly!

[AshleyT]

Hi there! I'm Ashley, Senior Staff Product Manager for Firefox. After months of updates on Project Nova, it's finally in Nightly, ready for you to see for yourself. We're modernizing Firefox from the ground up to ensure it remains a fast, secure, and highly customizable companion for today’s internet.

This is still early days, so you'll notice some rough edges — a few things may look unfinished or inconsistent for now. Keep your Nightly up to date to see the latest. 

As a reminder, the Project Nova updates include:

• Simpler navigation and a redesigned Settings experience, now live in release
• Refreshed tabs, icons, spacing, and browser surfaces
• More ways to make it yours, with rich new themes, wallpapers, and personalization options that let Firefox match your style.

We're grateful for all the thoughtful feedback we got on our earlier Connect post, on social media, and through user research. Based on what we heard, we've made some changes:

• We'll be experimenting with corner roundness settings for tabs to give you more options — coming soon in Firefox Labs.
• We brought back Compact Mode so there’s more space for web content and tabs
• We added more neutral standard theme options.

You can learn more in our blog post.

See it first in Nightly

Nightly is where this work takes shape in the open, and we wanted you to be among the first to see where it's headed. Since much of what’s changed so far focuses on the look of the interface, keep an eye out for how these layouts feel during your day-to-day browsing. We're aiming for a clean, intuitive experience —so please look out for anything that feels off, like icons, spacing, alignment, or how things hold up across themes, window sizes, different languages, screen readers, and keyboard navigation. If something catches your eye, we'd love to hear about it.

Download the latest version of Nightly to see what's new.

Something's not right? File a bug.

If you find visual or functional issues with the Nova style changes in Nightly, please follow these steps:

1. Click this link to file a Bugzilla issue. We're asking everyone to file bugs this way, so we can easily keep track of all issues reported.
2. In the bug, please add steps to reproduce the issue, and if possible screenshots or screencasts. Please don't add severity and priority to the bugs — our triaging teams will handle that.
3. You can see all Nova testing bugs filed here.

Have overall feedback? Let us know here in Connect.

Drop a comment here to let us know your thoughts and suggestions. Thanks for being part of this.

[timidbit]

Da-a-am. I hate this Nova "design" so much, but I guess it's here to stay, so I'm going to try to revert it through the official settings.

I can make my peace with pill-tabs (I still hate it, because it's a "design" just for a "design" sake), but give me options to change this eye-soaring accent color and remove this ugly tabs gradient! Or make an official theme without this gradient and with grey accent color (modified Ash theme)!

For now, I guess, I'll have to use userChrome.css 🤬

P.S. OK, Proton theme removes this ugly gradient, but doesn't change this awful purple accent color, and of cause it doesn't remove all the f**king rounding everywhere (those pill-tabs... 🤦‍)

[chocokittynyaa]

I don’t dislike every aspect of the Nova redesign, and I understand wanting to give Firefox a more modern appearance. But the overwhelming use of purple—from the window background and borders to even the text—is something I cannot stand using.

My main concern is the decision to force this redesign on users by removing the about option to disable it. I recognize that customization will still exist and that more advanced workarounds may be possible. The issue is that users who prefer the current design will have to navigate technical modifications simply to keep an interface that already works for them.

One of the main reasons I chose Firefox was to get away from the constant interface changes and forced adoption imposed by other browser companies. I valued Firefox as an alternative that respected users’ preferences. Seeing it adopt that same approach is deeply frustrating.

A new design may attract new users, but making it difficult to opt out risks alienating longtime users who are comfortable with the current interface. Please keep a straightforward, accessible way to retain the existing design. Users should not need programming knowledge just to avoid an unwanted redesign.

[Saidear]

How do I permanently prevent Nova from ever going live on Firefox, without losing any potential security updates? 

I do not like this UX change.
I do not want this UX change.

If there is no alternative, then I will move on from Firefox.  

[dftf]

You cannot permanently prevent it going live -- the moment you have the 157.0 or 157.0.1 update, you will see Nova.  But for now, you can turn it off with these steps:

URL bar -> about:config -> ENTER -> accept warning -> search nova ->
double-click line "browser.nova.enabled" to change to "false"

If you want to be free of Nova for longer, you can install the 153.4.0 "ESR"
version of Firefox, that predates Nova, but gets regular security-updates:

https://www.firefox.com/download/all/desktop-esr/

Or consider moving to a "fork" of Firefox committed to not using Nova,
or which allow easy reversing of it.  Ones you could look into include:

 Basilisk • Floorp • Librewolf • Pale Moon • Waterfox

[Saidear]

Got it.

I'm done with Firefox. I tolerated the AI inclusion in February, but this is the straw that breaks the camel's back.  

[Agentvirtuel]

Bonjour

This other discussion thread
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1610048

[Agentvirtuel]

This other discussion thread
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/the-new-firefox-design-lands-in-today-this-is-what-you-ca...