The redesign of Settings is now enabled by default in Nightly!

[gharp]

Over time, Settings had become harder to navigate, with some controls difficult to find and related options spread across crowded pages. This redesign reorganizes Settings into clearer groups and pages, updates labels and descriptions, and introduces a more modern and consistent experience throughout.

Importantly, your existing preferences remain unchanged. Some settings may appear in new locations, and search remains the fastest way to jump directly to what you need.

Your feedback in an earlier discussion about redesigning Firefox Settings helped shape the direction of this work. We’ll continue refining the experience as it moves toward Firefox 152, and we’d love more feedback as you try it out in Nightly.

[victoriagarcia]

I tried the redesigned Settings page in Nightly earlier today and honestly it already feels less overwhelming than before. The old layout had reached a point where some options felt buried unless you knew exactly what to search for.

I especially like the clearer grouping so far, although I think long-time Firefox users might need a little adjustment period while muscle memory catches up. Curious to see how it evolves before the stable release.

[denyshon]

The "Tabs and browsing" and "Downloads" sections being at the bottom make no sense. The first one contains probably the most useful and most used settings Firefox has, yet the sections are under, e.g., "Appearance" with a single setting.

Also, the section list is now too long and requires scrolling... which is not good. Even though the sections at the very bottom are not frequently accessed, just seeing a scrollbar there doesn't feel like good UX.

[Propheticus]

I like that all the language-related options are grouped together. Most of the new grouping makes sense to me and causes less settings pages have to be scrolled to find the setting you need.

• Regression: Advanced Settings like "proxy settings" and "https-only" cannot be searched for via "Find in Settings" any more.
• Bug: When using a custom DoH provider, the entered provider URL is successfully used but upon restart of Firefox the provider drop-down shows the default (cloudflare) is selected, which is false. Actually, the custom provider URL is still being used as can be confirmed by looking at about:networking#dns
• Arbitrary/debatable: Some grouping is still a bit odd. Fonts feels like they belong in Appearance ...but there's at least a link there. 
  Browser layout I'd expect in Appearance as well. (which leaves Tabs and Browsing for the behavioural settings)
  Permissions and data feels like it should be close by (or in) privacy and security.
  Firefox support is a separate menu item but also shows up in About Firefox.
• Small nag: The 'customise sidebar' icon looks like the settings favicon. Too often I've wanted to open settings only to have to close the sidebar options again and move to the other corner of the screen to open settings from the waffle-menu. Would be nice to have an actual settings shortcut on the sidebar.

[grundt]

I experienced a different DoH bug.
I have DNS over HTTPS disabled. 

The new settings UI showed this:Dns over Https (DoH)

Dns over Https (advanced settings)

The text says "Default Protection", but if you navigate to "Advanced Settings", it does display the setting (off ) correctly in the purple banner, but has the wrong radio button selected

[Propheticus]

Could the off state not be because you're in a region where the Mozilla-flavoured Cloudflare DoH is not available? So it's not explicitly off, but auto off due to your specific variables. 

[grundt]

No that's not it, I explicitly had (and always have had) it turned off.
(because for me it's redundant ... I have the cloudflare app installed, which does this machine-wide, not just in my browser)

FWIW, I subsequently selected the "Off " radio button, and this is the result (which persists after restarting the browser as well):

DNS over Https (off)

DNS over Https (adanced - off)

[gharp]

@grundt thanks for raising this -- are you able to reproduce the behavior, whereby you have set DOH to Off, but then the Default radio is selected instead? That would help us pinpoint what is happening.

[grundt]

To clarify, DOH was (already) set to OFF prior to the Settings UI changes.

When the UI changes showed up, my settings looked like the first state (prior to me doing anything).

The second state is what it looked like after I selected the OFF radio button.

I'm able to reproduce either state, at will, simply by toggling between the "default " and "off " radio buttons, and just to be clear, whichever radio button I select remains selected, even after I restart the browser.

Here are what my settings look like in about:config
(to be clear, I am not changing and have not changed any of these settings in about:config, I'm just sharing what the values look like, in response to changing the radio-button selection in the Settings UI, in case it's helpful to you)

radio-button: DEFAULT

• network.trr.mode = 0
• doh-rollout.disable-heuristics  config does not exist

radio-button: OFF

• network.trr.mode = 5
• doh-rollout.disable-heuristics = true

radio-button: DEFAULT -or- OFF

• network.trr.uri = config exists but is empty
• network.trr.default_provider_uri = https ://mozilla.cloudflare-dns.com/dns-query
• network.trr.custom_uri = config exists but is empty
• network.trr_ui.fallback_was_checked = true

[gharp]

@Propheticus good catches. We have patches in the works for the first two:

Regression: Advanced Settings like "proxy settings" and "https-only" cannot be searched for via "Find in Settings" any more.

---

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2038749

Bug: When using a custom DoH provider, the entered provider URL is successfully used but upon restart of Firefox the provider drop-down shows the default (cloudflare) is selected, which is false. Actually, the custom provider URL is still being used as can be confirmed by looking at about:networking#dns

---

This was new to us -- thanks for catching it! https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2043714

We certainly wrestled with the groupings, as it is difficult to get the perfect organization when some items could belong in different groups. This is why we added both the font settings and the browser layout as links under "Related settings" within the Appearance page, as a way of helping people discover these options even though they don't live in Appearance. 

[grundt]

Suggestion: maintain scroll position after sub-page navigation

Some settings have sub-pages
(ex. Privacy and security -> Connection and software security -> Advanced settings  > )

When you navigate back from the sub-page (ex. Advanced Settings) to the main-page (ex. Privacy and security), scroll position is not maintained ... you wind up back at the top of the main-page.

It would be less disorienting if scroll position was maintained.

[denyshon]

Hi, that's being worked on: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2004488

[grundt]

Suggestion: eliminate dual vertical scrollbars

It's a minor nuisance, but I wonder how many others find dual scrollbars diabolical, forcing you to switch between them to scroll content into view.

I'm seeing this on the "Downloads" setting, in the "Files and applications" list - and it seems unnecessary given that the list isn't likely to grow very large and the max height seems somewhat arbitrary.

diabolical dual scrollbars

user friendly single scrollbar

[grundt]

Enhancement: provide indicator whether permission has been granted (at all)

I know this isn't something that was modified, but while you're working on settings ...

It would help if the Permissions list ("Permissions and data" setting) gave some indication that a permission has or has not been granted (at all), to avoid having to open each individual permission to find out.
(bonus points for adding an indicator for blocked permissions)

permissions list