Updates to Android Navigation

[andyf]

Exciting changes are coming to Android: a new navigation bar designed to make your browsing experience faster and more intuitive. We have streamlined the navigation with back and forward arrows right on the toolbar so that you can move between pages effortlessly. Plus, the new toolbar and address bar will disappear when you scroll, giving you more screen space to enjoy your favorite content.

Here are some of the new features and improvements:

• One-Tap New Tab: Start a different task in a new tab without disrupting your current tab.
  
  
• Back and Forward Arrows on Toolbar: Navigate between pages without opening the menu. You also have quicker access to the tab’s history by long-pressing the arrows. 
  
  
• Auto-Hide Toolbar and Address Bar: Gain more screen space when you scroll. You can disable the auto-hide in Settings under Customize.
  
  
• Faster sharing: The share button is now at your fingertips instead of buried in the menu.
  
  
• Enhanced Accessibility: Buttons are easier to tap, meeting WCAG AA standards for mobile devices.

This redesign is not just about aesthetics — it’s about making sure everyone can use Firefox with ease. We've gone through rigorous accessibility reviews to ensure our features are easy to use for everyone, including those with special accessibility needs. 

Our aim is to make your browsing experience smoother, faster, more accessible, and more enjoyable. This enhanced toolbar and navigation paves the way for upcoming improvements to the Firefox menu. Get ready for a Firefox that’s built for the future! More enhancements to come. 

Please note that this feature is already available in Firefox Android Nightly 130 and it is still in development. We encourage you to try the feature and if you encounter any bugs or issues, we would love to hear from you. You can report bugs here.

[SilentObserver]

I do not; haven't had since the Firefox update that changed to the current UI (don't recall how long ago that was).

[stopruiningit]

Let me turn this waste of screen real estate off,at least. It is completely useless, unnecessary, and annoying.

[Jaoh]

"For those who, like me, came here looking for instructions on how to disable the new navigation bar, you need to enable secret settings (Settings -> About Firefox -> Tap the firefox logo a bunch of times) and then there will be a toggle under Settings -> Secret Settings -> Enable Navigation Toolbar"

[suikaz]

it's not there in beta though, and about:config isn't available in stable

enabling nimbus navbar-off doesn't help either

[Jayde]

                            Please bring back the option to revert to previous Android version. I'm autistic and the new version is much too busy for me. I want option back for tabs at bottom. Also my AdGuard extension has now stopped working.  I've been using Firefox since shortly after launch and always been happywith it.                       

[KaBoS]

When will it be added to the beta versions ?It's been working fine for several months on the Nightly version.

[Skywind]

Just make all the buttons in the navigation bar customizable and the bar itself optional, then all the disputes in this discussion would be gone.

Look how Samsung did with their browser. It also has a bottom navigation bar, but all the buttons on it are customizable. You can pin/unpin all of them as you wish.

Take myself as an example, I access bookmarks very frequently, so I pinned the bookmark folder button so that I can open it with a single click (It takes up to 6 clicks to do that on FF. Geez!!!). I love Firefox for its customizability, but now it seems it's loosing its advantage with more and more on-size-fits-all design. Just leave the choice to users. They will know what they really want.

[dounowhoiam]

I've had to revert back to the original setup as the additional clicks and drag required doesn't make it as effecient to browse on mobile.

Having the address search bar at the top with tabs and hamburger menu maximises screen space - even better if there was a way to hide when scrolling down - with the menu having quick buttons for share, back, forward and refresh.

Access to extensions isn't impaired - I use view page source regularly - along with the list of easy access downloads, desktop view, find, bookmarks etc

I hope that if this new UK gets introduced into stable android from nightly android it's made easy to switch between the two views otherwise it'll risk some users going to browsers that haven't changed

[singhh9596]

Inspired by brave. looks good though, but why not focus on dark webpages as well to eliminate the need for 3rd party add-on.

[statuscheck]

SASSA Status Check is important for all applicants to stay informed about the grant updates every 30 days.SASSA Status Check 

[suikaz]

and today Fenix (beta) lost one of main advantages, great...

edit: okay, this is just dumb, in PWA the whole dual toolbar area is just blank, but persists there... what are you doing, guys?

[hazing3991]

Swiping sideways to switch tabs should also work with the toolbar, similar to what other browsers do. Otherwise, it would be very difficult to use if we had to swipe to the top of the screen.

[suikaz]

so for anyone wondering, I'm not sure which setting controls it but it only works with telemetry enabled, without that it can't be rolled back

[teohhanhui]

 This worked for me on the current beta (134.0b10):

1. Enable the debug menu.

2. Settings > Nimbus Experiments > "Combined Android Toolbar and Menu Experiment" > choose "control"

3. Restart the browser.

[zsapi]

This just dropped for me on Firefox beta. My first reaction was looking through the settings to find a way to turn it off, and was very disappointed to find none. For me this gives 0 value, and takes away valuable screen space. I have the url bar on the bottom and the double height bar is just unwieldy, and just looks laughably chonky. For the buttons I can only echo the ones above me. I use the default android back button, which now no longer works in its press and hold mode. I rarely use forward, refresh and the share option so they are just wasted space. I can also just pull down to refresh.

I tried looking for a setting in about:config and in the debug menu, but even there I couldn't find anything.

Please give us an option to hide this new navbar.

Edit: teohhahui's steps helped me disable the new navbar!

[hypatix]

on some web-based map tools (osm.org being a popular one), there's no scroll event to hide the now bigger toolbar. This is an issue on small screens (5").