The new Firefox design lands in today. This is what you can expect

[AshleyT]

Firefox has evolved significantly over the past year and now, its look has evolved too. 

The design begins rolling out today, with Firefox 157, bringing a cleaner, more cohesive , and more adaptable experience. It is still the Firefox you know and trust, with the same commitment to independence, privacy, customization, and user control. 

The Mozilla Connect community has helped shape this work from the beginning by sharing feedback on the early designs, tested the experience in Nightly starting in July, filed bugs, and shared with us what worked and what didn’t.

Here’s what landed today.

A cleaner, more cohesive design

• Softer tab shapes
• Redrawn icons that hold up better across light and dark themes
• Rebalanced spacing throughout the interface
• A refreshed color palette featuring the glow of the active tab, deeper purples, and warmer light tones

The updated design brought bolder color choices to Firefox — and your feedback made clear that opinions on browser color run the full spectrum. In response, we created additional themes, accessible through add-ons and a new theme picker off Firefox Home, so you have greater control over how Firefox looks. 

More ways to make Firefox yours

Firefox is becoming more customizable, giving you more ways to shape the browser around how you browse. These options include:

• A new theme picker in the customization panel on the Firefox Home page. Additional community themes remain available through about:addons.
• New Firefox themes and wallpapers
• A dedicated space to pin and organize shortcuts so sites you use all the time stay put.
• Compact Mode for a denser browsing experience

Compact mode now officially supported!

Compact Mode is now available as its own dedicated setting. It will also switch on automatically on smaller screens, reducing the space between interface elements so more fits on the screen.

This is one of the clearest examples of how community feedback shaped Nova. Many of you told us that maintaining a denser interface was important, and we listened.

Faster performance

The refreshed experience also includes improvements to Firefox’s startup, page-loading, and scrolling speeds.

Frequently asked questions

Will my existing themes and add-ons continue to work?

Themes and add-ons should continue to work. Nova is built on the same Firefox foundation, and the extension and theming architecture has not changed.

Will my userChrome.css customizations continue to work?

Some customizations may require minor adjustments, depending on how closely they rely on element names or layout structures from the previous interface. 

But keep in mind that Mozilla does not officially support customizations made through userChrome.css. They can cause unexpected behavior or even break Firefox, and future updates may affect them as Firefox continues to evolve. If you choose to use userChrome.css, please proceed carefully.

You can learn more in Firefox advanced customization and configuration options.

Can I opt out of the update?

The new Firefox design becomes the default experience starting with Firefox 157. However, you have several ways to adjust how Firefox looks and feels, including Compact Mode, themes, wallpapers, and New Tab customization. 

Keep shaping Firefox with us

Nova may be shipping today, but the work doesn’t stop here. Many of these updates grew directly from the bugs you filed and the conversations you started while the design was being developed.

Update to Firefox 157 to try the refreshed experience, then let us know what works well and what could still be improved. Your feedback will continue to help shape what comes next.

[Keiry]

Thank god. Go about:config -> "browser.nova.enabled" -> change to "false". Thanks @dftf!

[ff1138]

Ok this latest UI appearance change is absolute dog feces. I hate it so much! It's so ugly! How do I change it back? I did not consent for my eyeballs to be assaulted like this. Did I mention it sucks? How do I change it back?

[dftf]

In the web-address bar type about:config then press ENTER
Accept any warning
In the search-box, type nova
Double-click on the line with "browser.nova.enabled" in it to change "true" to "false"

That should undo most of it

[ff1138]

Thanks. I changed everything nova to false. Much better.

[ff1138]

Ok this latest UI appearance change is absolute dog feces. I hate it so much! It's so ugly! How do I change it back? I did not consent for my eyeballs to be assaulted like this. Did I mention it sucks? How do I change it back? 157.0.0.11

[JustStopOil]

Thanks for the compact mode, I wish it was more compact still: 

- space between website and address bar

- space between address bar and window border (while using vertical tabs)

- space between window border and vertical tabs, and vertical tabs and website

Also, I really don't like the round buttons at all.

I feel like they just waste an enormous amounts of space (except the adddress bar) and are quite ugly. 

This is my first feedback to a design change and the round buttons are the worst design change I have ever experienced in Firefox.

Please consider changing it back to rectangles (feel free to use rounded corners)

[dftf]

To undo the rounded tabs:

In the web-address bar type about:config then press ENTER
Accept any warning
In the search-box, type nova
Double-click on the line with "browser.nova.enabled" in it to change "true" to "false"

[JustStopOil]

it appears the compact mode is less compact than the old design ... (browser.nova.enabled = false)

...

[dftf]

Yes, things like the spacing between bookmarks in the menus are more-padded than before, even when compact mode is enabled

I'd suggest checking on Reddit to see if anyone posts steps on how to change this, which will likely involve editing the "userChrome.css" file.  This lets you change some of the spacing and sizing of parts of the Firefox UI beyond the settings exposed normally, or in about:config

[Tykero]

This is a moderate visual and functional downgrade. The rounded edges and unnecessary padding everywhere reduce visual clarity for zero benefit and actually hurt my eyes. What were you thinking? 

Disabled browser.nova.enabled with zero remorse. This update is bad enough that it would provoke me to change browsers if I couldn't revert it. 

[RenoxDashin]

Even after reverting, i'm thinking about moving to a different browser tbh.  If they can see all this negative feedback and ignore it, screw em.

[dftf]

Another option would be to switch to the 153.4.0 ESR release of Firefox, which does not have the UI changes, and only gets security-fixes, but no new features (it's aimed at business users who want stability, not constant changes).

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

You'll need to backup your current bookmarks, passwords and history (Menu > Settings > Account and Synchronisation > Backup), then uninstall Firefox 157.0, restart your PC, install the 153.4.0 ESR, then use Menu > Settings > Account and Synchronisation > Restore your data... to get your data back.

You should be free of the UI change then for about a year, before you're moved to a newer ESR version

[jboydgolfer1]

i see the steps to disable the nova Ui were posted by a nice user. honestly  i hope firefox loses users over this so it teaches them to STOP.   

[pigking188]

Looks awful, Ashley. We all hate the rounded tabs and the ugly forced color gradient. There is absolutely zero reason these shouldn't be readily exposed, easily user toggleable user settings.

As dftf so helpfully pointed out, Web-address bar -> about:config -> ENTER -> search for nova -> double-click the line "browser.nova.enabled" -> "true" should change to "false"

[Meganerd]

---

The Mozilla Connect community has helped shape this work from the beginning by sharing feedback on the early designs,

---

@AshleyT Has Mozilla selected a group of beta testers that is representative of all Firefox users? Or is there only feedback from fanboys for whom the browser itself matters more than the content?

[Amielle]

I do see a whole lot of negativity on the new design.
As a little reminder:
People's tastes differ.
I very much like the rounded tabs, and I also like the 'vapor-wave' aesthetic.
Regarding the apparent 'site issues':
I have yet to run into those.
Apparently, opposed to what others experience, I have never had any technical trouble with Firefox, not even when I use it for coding.

I get that users experience problems, and I'm totally with you on that those issues should be addressed/worked out, that doesn't mean you have to trash everything else for everybody else.

Feedback can be given contsructively.
90% of what I've read here was definitely not constructive.
And I'm really sorry to say this: If you came at me like that, I'd tell you to go find solutions yourself, because my time clearly isn't important to you, (That means the time put into this update by the devs clearly isn't important to you.) and you do not appreciate what I do anyway, so why would I spend even more time filling your new demands?

Just be bloody kind.
It's not hard to be decent.

[dftf]

You're right, people's taste do differ, but for people who don't like the change there is only one of two options: (1) they give honest feedback to Mozilla they don't like the change, or; (2) they say nothing at-all, but just switch browser, and Firefox continue to lose market-share.  Your preference would be...?

And as for "apparent site issues".  I cannot comment on behalf of some other people, but for me personally embedded YouTube videos are broken on nearly every site I go on: they just all say "Video player configuration error, Error 153. Watch video on YouTube".

This is despite the fact in the "Customise tracking protection" screen in Settings, I have both "Fix major site issues" and "Fix minor site issues" both enabled, which is supposed to then unblock stuff on websites (third-party cookies, trackers or fingerprinters) to allow content to be shown.

I think many people would be less-hostile to UI changes, and stuff like new themes and new icons and pictures of Kit if actual, important functionality and new feature requests were also happening.

[Meganerd]

I would agree with you if this was some entertainment app. But we're talking about a browser. Everything is done online these days. It is THE tool millions of people need to get their daily job done. It is more important than the computer it runs on. People with different tastes have themes to choose from. But don't change my main tool while I'm working. Because that is bloody rude.

I have always been very, very constructive in miniscule reports of possible bugs I run into, crash reports  and issues with specific sites. But that attitude will need quite some time to recover.

[Helion]

It’s not just about tastes

I have been recommending Firefox since 2003 for its efficiency and security, but I can’t recommend to my colleagues or my boss with these arguments a browser that looks like a teenager girl’s room.

[dftf]

---

" ... but I can’t recommend to my colleagues or my boss with these arguments a browser that looks like a teenager girl’s room."

---

To be fair, in a corporate environment you should be running the ESR releases of Firefox, anyway.  The latest one, 153.4.0, predates the changes made in this latest 157.0, so the UI changes won't be seen for around a year (by which time I'd imagine based on all the feedback, they'll have improved or revised them by then anyway).

[Agentvirtuel]

To complement,

Into the enterprise, applications developed run under a particular version of the browser.
Understand that.
The final go for mass deployment can only be done with the agreement of the Director of Information Systems (DSI).
Use Esr is better.

This similar discussion thread
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1607190

https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/the-new-firefox-design-lands-in-today-this-is-what-you-ca..., a similar discussion, Firefox(s) est à jour.

[K0LO]

The purple colors in the latest Firefox are hideous. Please make a simple user switch to turn this off. I disabled it by disabling "browser.nova.enabled" in about:config, as the post prior to mine. It should always be possible to select a rather plain black and white Firefox if that's what a user wants.

[J35VKRYZPO]

Amigo, acabas de salvarme del "toxico color deconstruido" y homosexual morado. Pedí ayuda a una IA, pero todo lo que dijo no sirvió para nada... incluso llegue a perder 10 años de datos como marcadores, orden en la interfaz, todo, completamente toda la configuración del navegador. Que bueno que vine a quejarme del color, me sirvió para encontrar tu sugerencia... "about:config" y browser.nova.enabled = FALSE.

Dude, you just saved me from that toxic, purple 'deconstructed' and homosexual color scheme. I asked an AI for help, but everything it suggested was completely useless... I even ended up losing 10 years of browser data like bookmarks, UI layout, everything—my entire browser configuration. I'm so glad I came here to complain about the color; it led me right to your suggestion... 'about:config' and browser.nova.enabled = FALSE.

[J35VKRYZPO]

ES UN MALDITO ASCO DE ACTUALIZACIÓN. EL COLOR DE LA INTERFAZ CLARAMENTE GAY NO ES POSIBLE CAMBIAR DE ALGUNA MANERA. ES IMPOSIBLE, ACABO DE PERDER 10 AÑOS DE DATOS DEL NAVEGADOR POR EL MOLESTO SISTEMA DE PERFILES INTENTANDO CORREGIRLO AL REGRESAR A UNA VERSIÓN DEL NAVEGADOR ANTERIOR... LA "152.0.2". UN VERDADERO ASCO ESE TONO MORADO PARA TODO.

THIS UPDATE IS A **bleep** DISGUSTING TRASH. THE CLEARLY GAY INTERFACE COLOR IS IMPOSSIBLE TO CHANGE IN ANY WAY. IT'S IMPOSSIBLE, I JUST LOST 10 YEARS OF BROWSER DATA BECAUSE OF THE ANNOYING PROFILE SYSTEM TRYING TO FIX IT BY GOING BACK TO A PREVIOUS VERSION OF THE BROWSER... '152.0.2'. THAT PURPLE TONE FOR EVERYTHING IS TRULY DISGUSTING.

[Litvan]

Have you muppets ever heard of an "OPT-IN" instead of just showing things down our throat?
I didn't ask for the ui/theme change, don't want it, yet you just go "BOOM.. Here you are, you should thank us for making the browser worse"

I mean.. I opened firefox, and the very first thing I did (after I stopped screaming and trying to claw my eyes out) was open a new tab and type "firefox disable theme/ui" and then sighing in relief after 5 seconds of work turning that nova sh!t off.....

[Fulgerion]

Too many rounded corners. Whoever at the UI/UX team that is addicted to circles needs removed from the department, immediately. This is terrible to look at. The tabs are no longer connected to the tabs, like a file folder. The visual flow is completely disrupted. Too many round edges makes things very uncomfortable to look at. One top of thing beings too round. Whoever designed this update did not learn graphic design at all. Absolutely zero awareness of how the visual design "feels". In visual design, circles are like lubricant. When thing's are too soft, or round, your eyes just slide all over the place. There is no visual stopping point.

It was fine before. Stop fixing things that aren't broke. You don't need to change your identity every 2 years.

[HMCdwqLv]

I opened Firefox this morning and hated the new UI so much I immediately looked up how to disable it, which at least for now is possible thankfully.
I use the tab containers feature every single day and it's a big reason why I use Firefox over other browsers, but this update makes them look absolutely terrible and is so distracting visually. I also use dark mode and the new colour gradient is awful from both an aesthetic standpoint but also for accessibility.
I'm not personally hugely bothered by the switch from squares to circles on its own although I much prefer the squares, but all the other changes are so bad that I honestly would have been looking to switch browsers if there hadn't been an option to disable them.
I don't usually bother with feedback for stuff like this as I doubt it will make a difference, but I hated this update so much that I made an account just to post this and I hope they at least continue to allow this to be optional for as long as possible.

[J35VKRYZPO]

Me ocurrió exactamente lo mismo, aunque en mi caso entré en pánico, llegue incluso a intentar regresar a una actualización anterior. Lo de la extensión "containers", fue horrible. Un día tienes colores planos y muy fáciles de distinguir y al otro tienes una graduación donde una fino borde de color hace la diferencia. Puse en falso "browser.nova.enabled" y es seguro que muchos usuarios ni si quiera lograrán llegar a esta sección de comentarios para terminar cambiándose de navegador.

The exact same thing happened to me, although in my case I panicked and even tried downgrading to a previous version. The situation with the 'containers' extension was terrible. One day you have flat, easy-to-distinguish colors, and the next you're left with a gradient where a thin colored border is supposed to make all the difference. I set 'browser.nova.enabled' to false, but it's a fact that many users won't even manage to find this comment section and will just end up switching browsers altogether.

[wayyllon]

The outline around the selected tab is too thin, I can see pixels when it's turning. Increase the thickness by 1-2px.

[Shorrer]

New design is silly. Tabs are rounded too much which makes it appear as if a lot of space is wasted, they're also too round to properly display square favicons. The color design is too tacky for those who just wanted a dark theme. Like, you use the "dark" color scheme because you want it to be pretty neutral, right? And there isn't no new "dark" theme at all (well, there is, but it's only in the name). I mean, colors are cool and all, but what's better is the choice as some people prefer their UI to look how they want. It's Firefox we're talking about -- isn't "choice" is all why people are even here? What would be left of Firefox if not "choice"?
Please don't just blindly follow trends. If this continues then the "why won't we just use Chromium under the hood?" would be too close for comfort. At the very least make this new design "toggleable".
And in my honest opinion -- remove it altogether.

[SCnTRD]

Maybe I’m in the minority, but I actually like the new design overall. It might be a little too rounded, but I think some variety is a good thing. If I had to choose between the old design, the new one, and something in between, I’d pick the new one just for the sake of having some variety, and I doubt I’d switch back later.

The only thing that has been bothering me for a LONG time is the sidebar. When selecting a function that expands the sidebar on hover, it gets this oddly angled corner that doesn’t really fit the color scheme of about 80% of the themes. Even among the new themes, the only one where it looks properly integrated to me is the dark gold one.

Basically, the sidebar is nicely rounded in its normal state, but when it expands, suddenly the corner becomes angular. In modes where the sidebar doesn’t expand, it looks much more appropriate. Honestly, it’s a bit strange.