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.

[Justaminute]

I found a way to revert to a NORMAL, 'square', and unintrusive browser that lets you concentrate on whatever you are doing — instead of wanting to make its presence known.

Go to about:config and toggle browser.nova.enabled, pdfjs.enableNova, and sidebar.revamp to 'false' and you'll get your familiar Firefox browser back to what it should look like!!!

[AnonymousGoblin]

Thank you for pointing out the sidebar.revamp flag! I'd already disabled all flags containing "nova", but didn't think to filter for "revamp". My history window looks and feels so much better already now that it's back to normal.

[Cheek]

Aha, this fixed it - thanks!

[Justaminute]

My last post about this subject (for now) :

The reason I use Firefox is because it is customisable! If you insist in imposing your aestetics or whatever ideas you have about 'changing our lives' on us, Firefox becomes like any other browser and LOSES its interest! 

Think about that.

[xA_Ax]

I love this new redesign

[dftf]

Hmm... third "I love this" comment I've seen in the past hour.

I wonder if someone has linked this discussion post on Reddit and said "anyone who likes it, get over there and post that you like it" 🤔.  Not sure that action will change much though: 👍🏻 9 to 💬 527 currently on this post, which is what the kids like to call "getting totally ratioed" 😂

[Eleonorrai]

I truly love the new look!😍

[dftf]

Is this a Firefox staff-member posting from their personal account? 😜

[J35VKRYZPO]

Es curioso, porque es una cuenta nueva. Muchos de los aquí presentes creando sus cuentas porque les molestaba el nuevo diseño. A "ella", vino porque le gusta. Eso tiene menos explicación y más sospecha de que "alguien" intenta inflar el apoyo de forma artificial.

La gente quiere un navegador funcional neutro y con la capacidad de personalizarlo. No que impongan un diseño desalineado con los gustos personales de la mayoría de sus usuario.

---

It's curious, considering it's a new account. Most people here created their accounts because the new design annoyed them. "She", on the other hand, came here because she likes it. That has less of an explanation and more of a suspicion that "someone" is trying to artificially inflate support.

People want a functional, neutral browser with the ability to customize it. Not an imposed design that is completely out of touch with the personal tastes of the majority of its users.

[jonblazeson]

This is the worst UI update I've ever seen. You went from a thoughtfully crafted and near perfect UI, to a "hey, I think this is fun" piece of garbage. Seriously terrible! It's so bad that when you remove the configuration to disable it, I will leave 20+ years of Firefox configs, accounts, and usage.

[User-82849]

Dear Mozilla team, I can only suggest as a user, that:
1. Give people possibilities to customise the design - and each user to fit their own needs -
By that I example: A slider to chose the border-radius of nova design - from 0px to cap. at 100px; and  a switch button - between "px" and "%", to chose the INT number system for the roundness input.
- That way users will unable to dislike any change - if they can fit themselves.

2. Your new pilled/fully circled version of buttons - does not fit everywhere - some elements seems weird to look at, like so: popup elements f.e. "Extensions" - have too curved edges - it does not fit well with the hovered button at highest or lowest inside it.
Each element should have its own designated style to calc() the curve of element.
You cannot just slap the same static border-radius to every element - you have to at least make a system for it.

3. In French version of settings - the text changing to bold (active tab of settings list) - breaks text to next line - literally moving everything, that exists on screen - some type of styling should be definitely computed here, in order to prevent text breaking on action. You can use HTML tag <pre></pre> - then even by changing text to bold - its size should not change.

4. Additional (different topic than Nova) - could we get ability to move the main input/address bar?
And would that be possible for you to make the window buttons (close, minimise etc.) to be contained as element - movable in toolbar editor, as well?

Thank you for your most needed work.

[TnF]

COMPLETE TRASH. IF NOTHING IS BROKEN, THERE IS NOTHING TO FIX. RETARDED DEVS STOP COPYING APPLE MOTHER**bleep**ERS. WHOEVER APPROVED THIS NEEDS TO GET CANCER ASAP. 

[rw335i]

It looks like you are trying to optimize Firefox for the cell phone model. But it makes it a garbage mess for PC users. I suspect there are more PC users than cell users, and some may be using it for business purposes. Do you really want to alienate and potentially lose all those people?

[user38438575]

This is the worst update ever I finished making this account to tell you this. I HATE IT. I HATE IT. I can repeat that over and over and over again is how much i hate it. i fixed it with about:config for now but its like holy **bleep** what is going on is there too much free time over there dont know what else to do? need to justify hiring everyone? like whats going on why make **bleep** worse? absolutely pointless update pushed by absolutely pointless employees I really might switch browsers over this and thats insane ive preferred firefox my whole life

[bwolf384]

Nope, nope, nope, nope, NOPE. Smaller rounded tabs look terrible and are an insulting waste of space. Changes like this cannot possibly have been supported by good-faith human UX testing. I appreciate the time and effort that developers must have put into the project, but PLEASE put your pride aside on this one and read the room!

[Moe2]

I hope you add an option to get rid of the rounded tabs. The spacing is of, and it doesn't fit to the overall style of my OS. PLEASE MAKE IT AN OPTION!!!

[Rajan_404]

This has got to be on of, if not THE WORST UI changes ever, NO ONE asked for more rounded corners or moving the search box up for Widgets. I made this account just to say how awful this looks.

[discopunkt]

What are you waiting, make UI Design back !!!

[HoratioFellatio]

This is my first time interacting with this community, I created an account just to post: This UI redesign is atrocious, it's so ugly.

• So much wasted space
• Why is everything rounded?
• Why are there gradients? what is this, 2004?

I have disabled nova immediately, I will continue to never use nova again.

[MotoMoto]

A mí me encanta el diseño Nova. De hecho, me costó menos acostumbrarme a él que al diseño Proton. Lo único que no me gustaron fueron los gradientes de color, ya que me parecieron demasiado vistosos y terminaron distrayéndome. Por suerte, pude solucionar esto gracias a que Mozilla mantiene el tema Proton como extensión. Sin embargo, me gustaría que el tema Proton estuviese disponible como opción en Firefox, ya que entiendo que a otras personas sí pueden gustarles los colores gradientes de Nova.

[newredesigsucks]

new design sucks so bad that i created new account on just to **bleep** post.

[kutukvpavel]

I just got my tabs rounded with a ridiculous corner radius! You may call excessive rounding "a clearer interface", but I call it nonsense.

Please, STOP CHANGING MY UI EVERY YEAR! It's unnecessary, it's annoying and it breaks my muscle memory. And I get really, really pissed off when someone breaks my muscle memory.

Oh, and also... STOP ROUNDING EVERY CORNER! My screen is not your designer's free real estate.

For now I'll use about:config to revert this nonsensical nova theme. BUT. If you decide to continue to push rounded corners on me, then bye-bye, I'm switching browsers.

[Menaan]

How did such a terrible change make it all the way to production?

This has got to be one of the worse UI changes I've seen since Windows 8 start menu.

This seriously needs to be an optional thing to enable, at least on updates. Turning it off definitely should not be buried in an about:config, it should be a prominent option in settings.

I'm sorry to whoever spent time on this and actually thought this was a good looking change. But you really need to better understand your user base and design the UI to fit it's usage and not simply trying to make a big change for the sake of change.

Firefox is officially no longer my primary browser now. Even though I can disable this, this just makes too many times in recent updates that very poor decisions have been made like this. I can no longer rely on firefox be a simple, straightforward, and good browser.

[BruceLeeroy]

What the heck is going on?? Why was I forced into this repulsively ugly gui? I just searched settings, and I cannot find any option to revert to the original. I know Firefox has been slowly going downhill; but now it seems they've officially taken the plunge into "F*** all of you, we're treating you like children" territory. I don't get it. And why can't I turn off updates? I don't want to "download but not install." I don't want to auto-update. I just want a stable system that works well without jumping through a ton of hoops or becoming a tech support specialist to modify the system. We haven't had that with Firefox for a good 5-7 years now.

Yesterday I spent FIVE HOURS with MS tech support because their forced Windows update broke my system, and they could fix nothing. They are totally useless. I've grown to expect that kind of thing from MS; we know that they have a seeming disdain for their actual users. But Firefox too? This is depressing.

And yes, I know that this is partially subjective, but it's an objective fact that a gray-orange-red gradient background is more distracting than a solid color background. And a brightly colored gradient circle outlining the title is more distracting that just a regular tab. AND there's no longer anything geometrically connecting the circle to the tab I'm on, so it's actually harder to tell what tab I'm using at a glance. I rarely have fewer than 20 tabs open, so now there's often no way at all for me to know what tab I'm on unless I scroll and search. AND the stupid circle hides text in the title, which makes it harder to read.

The only good news I can think of is that this forced me to get a Mozilla account so I can complain. It's my first time on a forum yay!

If someone can point me to a setting that I can uncheck to restore a GUI that actually makes sense, I'll eat my words, offer a formal apology, and commit Seppuku.

[BruceLeeroy]

Thanks for this info to disable the barbie-land update: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/the-new-firefox-design-lands-in-today-this-is-what-you-ca... 

Now I can die happy. Goodbye cruel world 🙂

[dftf]

To uninstall a recent Windows update:
In the Start Menu search for Control Panel, and open it
Click "Programs and Features" or "Uninstall a program"
Click "View installed updates"
Scroll down to the "Microsoft Windows" blue header line section
From there, click the most-recent update and look for "Uninstall" on the toolbar

You can also try to repair Windows.  Search for Command Prompt in the Start Menu,
right-click it and choose "Run as administrator" and then type
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
then press ENTER.  When that finishes, type
SFC /SCANNOW
then press ENTER.

If either report they found issues, but couldn't fix them, restart your PC, then run
both commands again.  Repeat until both say there are no issues found.

[BruceLeeroy]

Thanks for trying, but these no longer work. When I click "View installed updates," Windows now opens settings to the homepage. If I click "Windows Update" from settings, nothing happens. (Literally nothing; it's just a dead button.)

Scannow also returns nothing, even after 20-30 minutes of scanning. Repairing the system using "Media Creation Tool" repairs nothing, even after literally 90 minutes of waiting for it to reinstall Windows.

Do you know if it's possible to reinstall a pre-26H2 version of Windows? MS told me it's impossible, but I find that hard to believe. I'd probably have to wipe my entire system though.

But I do appreciate the tips!

[JNavas]

Use Built-in Windows Update Repair

1. Open Settings (Win + I) and go to System > Recovery.
2. Click Reinstall Now under the Fix problems using Windows Update section.
3. Allow the system to reinstall and repair Windows update binaries (this will not remove your apps or files).
4. Restart your PC and attempt to update again.

[JNavas]

Microsoft Adds Alternate Way to Download and Install Windows 11 26H2 Easily - Neowin
https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-adds-alternate-way-to-download-and-install-windows-11-26h2-eas...

[ZwolfFarben]

I do not like the new visual update. In particular, I want the tabs' old look back.

I don't like floaty bubbles wit rounded corners: I do not like the fact that inactive tabs aren't visually differenciated from each other aren't. It is worse at communicating information and offends my personal taste.

I prefer tabs be big chonky boxes grounded to the 'tab-box floor' like cascaded labels on a stack of manilla folders. Please, give me back my big chonky boxes grounded to the tab-box floor like cascaded labels on a stack of manilla folders.

[dftf]

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

[dftf]

Only just noticed this... have the Firefox team really tagged their own post here (the main "The new Firefox design lands in today. This is what you can expect") with a tag called "terrible ideas"? Seriously? 🙃

[Apollo_01]

I really do respect your efforts to give Firefox a modern design.

And at first glance, I liked Nova too.

But ultimately, it’s unfortunately a bit of a miss. Packing everything into these rounded boxes and opting for softer shapes simply makes everything much harder to read and recognise.

Overall, it looks lower in contrast and is therefore harder to parse. And those colour gradients in the default themes initially made me think there was something wrong with my monitor, because one corner suddenly looked so dark.

I think it would make more sense to make the look clearer and cleaner rather than more playful.

[wasdQE]

I like a boring but functional design, for a browser is a tool in my eyes. I agree, that the new design misses that target

[wasdQE]

1. Why the new design, who asked?? 
2. I don't care about a new design if its optional and I can keep the old one. I WANT my browser to look boring, it's a tool. I don't want fancy distracting colors.

[wasdQE]

1. Why, seriously, who asked for this??
3. I don't care if you make a new design, as long as you keep it optional. If you take away my option to revert to a more simpler design, I will change browsers. I WANT my browser to look boring for its a tool and it doesn't need distracting colors or anything. I find the new design just overwhelming tbh.

[dftf]

To revert the change for now:
URL bar -> about:config -> accept warning, if shown -> search for nova ->
change "browser.nova.enabled" to "false"

[eyilmazz]

We just want something simple and fast, yet we keep getting useless features; we don't want to switch to buttons with rounded corners that are much harder to click when there are many tabs open.

[cadwellm]

I just went to the ESR version and now I'm happy. Won't have to worry about FireFox crap for awhile.

[EmmaShev]

is there a portable vesion of ESR somewhere?