I’m not one to usually diss new UI changes, but this one grinds my gears.

Firefox for Android has released a new menu design. It organizes everything a little differently, which is alright it looks fresh. But 2 things are really annoying and a continuous design trend in Firefox.

  • The option to open page in external app has been tucked away in a sub menu. I used this often and it was in the top level menu before. Companies just love hiding things in menus for no reason.
  • the option to open a private tab as a normal tab is GONE. This is how I use Firefox: someone sends me a link, I click on it and it opens in a private tab by default. If I need to sign in to see it (e.g. private Instagram links) then I open it in a normal tab. This option is now simply gone.

So yeah that’s my rant. I’ll see if I open a bug requesting the 2nd issue back.

  • sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al
    16·
    1 month ago

    I like the new menu, I don’t mind the organisation of things, but the lack of priority to opening things as a normal tab is frustrating. As far as the developers are concerned, it was only a Nightly feature and not very many people used it, so no need to ensure it’s available presently. That said, I’m not sure that’s a criticism of the new menu, which I reiterate, overall is massively positive and makes Firefox feel a lot more modern and a better fit for modern Android.

    You can follow along with the progress of open in regular tab here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1923716

    • jol@discuss.tchncs.deOP
      41·
      1 month ago

      I’m so glad to know I’m not alone in my frustration. I totally forgot I was using nightly. Thanks for the link!

      From the hug link: Seems like it was only assigned to a dev a week ago. And with all the conditions for it to acrually land in the final menu, the chances look tepid at best…

      • sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al
        3·
        1 month ago

        I’ve switched back to the old menu until they fix the bug. I use open in normal tab tens of times a day.

        Honestly, I’m kinda at fault here. Both my NextDNS and Pi-Hole block Telemetry, so they’re not getting usage numbers to support prioritising the feature.