New Firefox 4 mock-ups for Linux

By , Published June 13, 2010

New Firefox 4 for Linux mock-ups have been produced that better show off the aimed UI changes that Firefox 4 will tout in it’s next major release.

Image:Firefox-4-Mockup-i04-(Linux)-(Ambiance)-(TopTabs).png

Firefox 4, likely to ship sometime early next year, will see the first radical overhaul of the theme both externally and on the ‘inside’ too; the extensions, about:config, etc will all seek to keep a unified appearance – even across the major OSes.

This will help dissuade users of Firefox on different platforms from thinking that Firefox works and behaves differently.

Image:Firefox-4-Mockup-i04-(Linux)-(Ambiance)-(TabsBottom).png

Some of the in-content UI, with the buzz word ‘visual unification’ slapped all over it, have also begun to take shape. Whilst the caveat that this is ‘far from final’ applies, the designs are pretty awesome and seem pretty coherent already so I wouldn’t predict a massive deviation from what we’re seeing now.
Article originally appeared on omgubuntu.co.uk

Related posts:

  1. Firefox 4 Theme For Linux – Tabs on Top, Tab Peek, Lots More!
  2. Firefox 4.0 Interface For Linux Mocked-up (& Peek at Firefox 3.7, too!)
Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.
  • Anonymous

    And is there any news on it being faster yet? :P

    • Seventh Reign

      It is already quite common knowledge that the pre-release of Firefox 3.7 (which will be Firefox 4) is much much much faster.

      The fastest browser I’ve tested so far. It makes Chromium and Opera 10.10 feel like IE5

  • http://twitter.com/djmmccorkell Mark McCorkell

    Nevermind cross-platform coherence, looks like they’re going for cross-browser coherence too by making it look as much like Google Chrome as possible :P

  • http://seifsallam.co.cc/ Seif Sallam

    I just wish that they would ditch Gecko and go for Webkit. It will be alot easier for Mozilla and Developers

    • zekopeko

      That’s just shortsighted thinking. Having multiple implementations of a spec (HTML) is a good thing. Or do you want back the days of IE6 where its bugs were the web standard?

      • http://seifsallam.co.cc/ Seif Sallam

        Like IE was or is open-source. anyway Webkit main advantage is speed. Apple and Google are contributing to it. HTML5 will be adopted faster. and Web Developers will be happy.

        Also i’m saying that because Mozilla is Lagging behind in speed. They should innovate in better fields like What the Browser can do. look at their labs, they create amazing stuff.

        The idea of Webkit as a standard, is the same idea as Linux as a standard.

        • zekopeko

          Whoa, way to miss the point.>Like IE was or is open-source. anyway Webkit main advantage is speed. Apple and Google are contributing to it. HTML5 will be adopted faster. and Web Developers will be happy. The point of the IE comment was that HTML is a spec. Gecko, Webkit, Presto etc. are implementations of that standard. Having multiple implementation make it easier to see where the standard is lacking and needs fixing. When IE had 95+% market share developers didn’t code HTML complaint code but would code for IE which wasn’t HTML complaint.Second point you try and make is the speed argument. There are two parts to that argument. One is how fast the page is rendered, the other one is how fast the JavaScript is executed. Apple and Google have different JavaScript engines if you didn’t notice. The rendering speed of the web content is being heavily improved in Firefox thanks to Direct2D and other hardware accelerated tricks. AFAIK Webkit doesn’t do that yet.>Also i’m saying that because Mozilla is Lagging behind in speed. They should innovate in better fields like What the Browser can do. look at their labs, they create amazing stuff.As you can see Mozilla is improving the JS speed: http://arewefastyet.com/Their amazing stuff is getting integrated in the browser. Just look at Firefox Sync.>The idea of Webkit as a standard, is the same idea as Linux as a standard.This analogy is flawed on a number of levels. The most obvious one is that HTML is a standard on which Webkit is being built (they do have some webkit specific tags btw). Linux doesn’t really have a single standard for most things. There is POSIX, freedesktop, LSB etc Different distros do things differently.In essence you want a monoculture of software. That is BAD. There should always be at least two implementations of anything. Having one implementation basically makes it the specification so bugs in the code become the “standard” way to do thing.

          • http://seifsallam.co.cc/ Seif Sallam

            I can give you 100 reasons for using webkit and to make it a standard platform. and i’m sure that you can give me another 100 that oppose my idea. But thats how i see it and you can’t change that. and don’t say “Apple and Google have different JavaScript engines if you didn’t notice.” because i already know the components of a browser.

          • zekopeko

            You can give me a hundred reasons but I need only one to shoot down those 100 reasons.
            BTW which JavaScript engine should we use? Nitro? V8? Jagermonkey? Carakan?

            Let me just point out an example of why having a spec and an implementation matters even in the FOSS world.

            ODF version 1 is crappy. It didn’t define spreadsheets very good. That in effect meant that ODF spreedsheets were defined in OpenOffice code as the biggest implementation of ODF. Now tell me which is easier to do? Read a few lines in the spec or read a dozen or hundred lines of code in OO.org? Gnumeric developers weren’t happy about it.

            Another example is VP8 were the specification is largely in code instead on paper.

          • http://seifsallam.co.cc/ Seif Sallam

            When i finish my final exams i will reply to you.

          • http://fitch.myopenid.com/ mikeru

            both of you are forgetting one reason mozilla can’t and shouldn’t switch to WebKit: their interface is powered by Gecko in the form of XUL, which makes it cross-platform and it also powers many other programs (but mainly mozilla ones)
            If they switched to WebKit, they’d had to reimplement their interface for every OS GUI out there and that would be a waste of time when they could be spending it in making firefox faster and better

            so no.

          • http://seifsallam.co.cc/ Seif Sallam

            One of the things that i Wish they would’ve done, is rebooting the project to be built from scratch but we all know, thats not gonna happen. and the whole comment about Using Webkit in Firefox is just a dream thats not gonna happen.

          • http://thealphanerd.wordpress.com/ Calvin

            If you wanted a Gecko browser that now uses WebKit, I suggest you try Epiphany.

            You’re asking Mozilla to pull an impossible miracle.

          • Petar

            Please compare MathML rendering in Firefox and Google Chrome (Gecko vs. WebKit). I think that you are under impression that WebKit is a finished product and now all it gets is speed optimizations or something. WRONG! I moved to Google Chrome just a week ago. I like it, it’s faster than Firefox etc. But does this mean that WebKit won and we should kill Gecko? I couldn’t agree less. And it’s not a job duplication. They each try doing the same thing in (I presume) different ways. Each has its source code open. They can borrow from each other if they need to. After all in software engineering there is no one unique way to do things, and each way has some advantages and disadvantages. I think in some areas Gecko is better that WebKit and in others WebKit is ahead of Gecko. Again, enough with stupid propositions. And in the end it is us USERS that we’ll decide which one lives and which one dies, by choosing which browser will be used more often. But I strongly doubt any of them will die!

          • http://seifsallam.co.cc/ Seif Sallam

            No, i know that Webkit still needs some work, and Gecko got many advanced features. I’m just saying that if Chrome, Safari, KDE, and even Gnome are webkit. why not Firefox go there too.

            Don’t say “Stupid Propositions” thats my opinion, i know its not gonna happen but its not Stupid, because you don’t agree or see it from another point of view doesn’t make it stupid be mature enough to make an argument without insulting another persons opinion.

          • Anonymous

            Definetly, webkit is not finished but its well on its way. If mozilla started to use it, webkit could develop faster and end up being better then Gecko. If apple didn’t [start] the “HTML5 revoloution i really doubt companies would have started to abandon flash in favor of web standards. Like scribd.

          • Mirek2

            “When IE had 95+% market share developers didn’t code HTML complaint code but would code for IE which wasn’t HTML complaint.”
            Exactly. Let’s say Trident (the engine behind IE) was open-source. It wouldn’t take long for someone, somewhere to fix the (larger) bugs. And if it was the ONLY layout engine, then there is no way these bugs wouldn’t be tackled. Or the specification would be changed. Either way, websites would look uniform across all browsers, so the user would get the same experience anywhere and the developer wouldn’t have to worry about compatibility. That’s what it’s really about.

            “The rendering speed of the web content is being heavily improved in Firefox thanks to Direct2D and other hardware accelerated tricks. AFAIK Webkit doesn’t do that yet.”
            If the Firefox team worked on these tricks for WebKit instead of Gecko, the WebKit team wouldn’t have to duplicate this work. A lot of time would be saved if all people worked on just one layout engine instead of several. That engine would be much further along than now, much faster, much more advanced.

            “In essence you want a monoculture of software. That is BAD. There should always be at least two implementations of anything. Having one implementation basically makes it the specification so bugs in the code become the “standard” way to do thing.”
            This type of thinking makes sense for some things. There should be more than one operating system, more than one web browser, more than one office suite, for sure, to meet the needs of different audiences.
            But having several layout engines just creates extra duplication work. All layout engines have the same goal, all of them attempt the exact same thing, and not a single one has a specific audience.
            As for “bugs in the code,” if they cause something bad, then they’ll be fixed — especially if it’s a monoculture. And if, on the other hand, they are better and make more sense than the specification, then the specification should be changed.
            Also, if there was a single layout engine, then the specification team and the layout engine theme could work hand in hand and implement new specifications much faster.

        • tetralectic

          There’s nothing wrong with Gecko, it’s as fast as Webkit and more powerful, that’s why Mozilla is sticking with it. The problem was them using Gecko’s advanced, but slower features needlessly to do things that shouldn’t have been been done that way — read

          “Why Mozilla is committed to Gecko as WebKit popularity grows”
          http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2008/09/mozilla-committed-to-gecko.ars

          With their new Javascript engine they are as fast, or faster than Chrome/Chromium. Check out the builds of Firefox 3.7a (also known as the Minefield web browser, to be known as Firefox 4.0 when finally released) at the daily builds ppa. It’s blindingly fast.

          • http://seifsallam.co.cc/ Seif Sallam

            They say its gonna be blazingly fast, not Gecko only but the Browser as a whole, and I really hope they get better. But i still believe if every one collaborate on one product it will be a lot better, than distributing work to fix bugs again and again.

          • http://jamesgecko.com/ James

            “If every one collaborate on one product it will be a lot better, than distributing work to fix bugs again and again.”Yeah…. no. Software development doesn’t actually work like that. Different platforms have different strengths and weaknesses. Also, completely different bugs. Having a lot of people working on the same project won’t necessarily actually make it better. As people clash over the direction development should be taken in, the project will inevitably be forked, resulting in several derivatives maintained by people with different goals. The changes made in these forks won’t necessarily even be useful or desired by the main project. Eventually you’ll end up with several completely different versions of Emacs, I mean, Webkit.Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

    • http://thealphanerd.wordpress.com/ Calvin

      Firefox uses Gecko to render the UI, it’d be impossible, plus virtually every extension would break. Firefox marketshare would implode.

      Personally WebKit is laggy compared to Gecko here, so….

  • Anonymous

    I don’t understand why they still need the address bar *and* the search bar. Hasn’t everyone switched to searching using the address bar already?

    • Jean

      This is a privacy issue : if you have only one bar, everything you type is sent to big brother for auto-completion. The way Fx does it, you don’t have to send your local history searches/pr0n URLs to Google. What you type is only sent to Google when you do a Google search.

      • vervelover

        Also, separating the two is just better for usability. You can search google with one, and have the “I feel lucky” type of search on the other, and it just makes web browsing faster..

        • testman

          It’s not better for usability if 99% of the users don’t use that feature.

          • vervelover

            I’m not sure 99% of users are “not using” firefox default behaviour..

        • Anonymous

          It’s also pretty useful to quickly search on other sites than google, like wikipedia and it’s varients, as well as on any site that supports that feature (including youtube)

          • Mirek2

            Actually, it’s not quicker at all. If you use keywords (I use only keys as keywords: “y ” gives me a “YouTube” search, for example), you avoid two extra clicks. Even if you don’t define keywords yourself, Chromium defines them for you (logically, based on URL), and typing even a part of the keyword gives the option to search.

            Say you’re looking for a YouTube video you’ve watched recently. You start typing the URL with youtube.com, then a space, then part of the title. If no matches are found in your history or bookmarks, you’re offered a YouTube search. Or, if you didn’t type youtube.com at the beginning, you’re still offered your default search engine (and if you have a good one, then you should find your video no problem). You don’t have to retype or copy and paste what you’ve typed in the address bar to the search box, you just hit enter. Much quicker, much simpler.

            Remember that Firefox will likely add its own twist on this feature (as shown in some conceptual mockups), likely adding a clickable engine chooser to the address bar, like there is in the search box now.

        • mpt

          “Just better for usability”, hmm? Be careful with that word “usability”, it can be unhelpfully vague sometimes.

          This is a case where aspects of usability conflict. Separate fields are better for learnability, because there’s an obvious field to search in (look, see, it even has a magnifying glass), and an obvious field to enter addresses in. On the other hand, a combined field is better for efficiency, because you don’t need to stop and think about which of those two you want before you start typing the text; and for forgiveness, because you don’t have to cut and paste what you were typing after a realizing you were typing it into the wrong field.

          So which is better? It depends on how highly your user base (both current and potential) values learnability vs. efficiency and forgiveness.

    • http://drgalvan.blogspot.com/ Leolas

      I think one bar is stupid, because with two separated bars I can simply change btw. wikipedia, yahoo, google, bing, facebook, youtube and so on..
      and I can’t think of any “pro” arguments to remove it.. It doesn’t waste space, that’s sure

      • http://seifsallam.co.cc/ Seif Sallam

        There is extensions that you can use to easily switch search engine.

        • http://blog.anantshri.info anantshri

          +1 ubiquity http://mozillalabs.com/ubiquity/ was the right effort in this direction but has been stopped recently.

          btw i prefer 2 bars or just one bar for address or better no bar and use ubiquity.

          • http://seifsallam.co.cc/ Seif Sallam

            you hit the spot there :)

      • testman

        Isn’t that what keywords are for?

      • http://jamesgecko.com/ James

        Yes, it does waste space. Either keywords or a small search provider menu button do exactly the same thing with less visual clutter.

        • http://drgalvan.blogspot.com/ Leolas

          you have to think from a “mum” perspective ;)
          It’s much easier the way it’s now, few know ubiquity, for example.. And I know a lot of people searching youtube videos from the search bar.. so..

          And I don’t want to change my browsers search engine every 2 minute: sometime I search a video on youtube, and 2 minutes later I search something on google or yahoo!
          Why would I ever need an extension to do that? o.O
          That’s not clutter, that’s having the right thing in the right moment in the right place.

          Making a GUI intelligent doesn’t mean just removing everything! I don’t think that the search bar creates confusion or so.. :/

          • http://jamesgecko.com/ James

            a) My mum and siblings picked up the Chrome address/search bar no problem. The fact that it looks like an address bar and has “Type to search” text in it helps with that.

            b) Your second complaint does not make sense to me. Change your browser’s search engine every two minutes? You have to switch providers on the separate search bar, too. An extension? I was talking about a possible default implementation.

            I don’t think a good implementation of a unified address/search bar would create as much confusion as you think. Usability is about more than user familiarity with older designs.

          • http://twitter.com/tdr2009 Travis Rector

            I don’t want firefox to look like Chrome, it’s what makes firefox different. They’re already making it more like chrome, with tabs on top.

          • http://jamesgecko.com/ James

            There are many other things aside from the UI which make Firefox different. Besides,

            (a) the interface can look like whatever you want. Seriously, go nuts. However, I remain firmly in favor of the Mozilla team’s experimentation and desire to make a more usable design by default.

            (b) The philosophy of not trying a potentially good idea because someone else came up with it first is backwards. There are already very few features in Firefox which are absolutely 100% original. Besides all that, I used a combo URL/search bar in Firefox long before Chrome appeared.

      • http://dylanmccall.blogspot.com/ Dylan McCall

        Epiphany does this really well. As you type, in the location bar, various search engines are listed below as options. You don’t need keywords or anything; they’re always there.

        • Anonymous

          it doesn’t it had trouble limiting the results in the Karmic version. It didn’t pick up the keywords smartly like Firefox does.

          • http://dylanmccall.blogspot.com/ Dylan McCall

            I think we’re looking at different features. My point is the web search feature (via Smart Bookmarks) doesn’t _use_ keywords; it just lists different smart bookmarks (there’s a single Google one by default) and you choose one to search.

      • http://www.expatsinksa.com/ Bilal Akhtar

        Even I feel the same about different bars.

      • Anonymous

        netbooks?

    • http://seifsallam.co.cc/ Seif Sallam

      Safari 5 still separating the address bar from the search.

      • http://jamesgecko.com/ James

        So? Internet Explorer 9 still doesn’t support OGG. Lack of a feature in other browsers isn’t a reason not to add it in Firefox.

        • http://seifsallam.co.cc/ Seif Sallam

          I never said that, and i would like to have combined solution. Its just @humphreybc said “Hasn’t everyone switched to searching using the address bar already?” and i’m just saying Safari 5 is still using the old style.

          • http://jamesgecko.com/ James

            Ah, ok. I missed the “in reply to” part. :-)

      • Anonymous

        Everythings apple doesn’t isn’t right. They are the farthest away from Ubuntu’s philosophy. In turn, thats not a valid argument.

    • Apple

      Agreed

    • http://twitter.com/explodingwalrus Carl Draper

      I still prefer separate boxes as it’s easier to switch between search engines.

      • Anonymous

        The same menu with the search provider’s logo that Firefox currently has could easily be placed in a combined bar.

    • Anonymous

      i actually dont like how they do it in chrome

      i like my searches and address stuff separate

      it seems we always want to sacrifice functionality for esthetics

      soon we’ll have one breasted women, because it looks more seamless (…ok bad joke lol)

      is there an extension for chrome to separate the thingies like firefox

    • Anonymous

      Agreed. I never used the search bar in Firefox, I now find at home with Chrome. But it seems a lot of people like them separate (according to the comments here).

      “Mum” still doesn’t get what’s the address bar for. She used the Google homepage for everything, so when I moved her to Chrome (for the speed, mainly), and told her that single bar behaved exactly the same as the Google website search, she’s stopped searching for “www.abc.es” and then clicking on the first result… I’ve seen similar experiences with other computer illiterate people.

    • muffinman

      Mate I’d be lost without the search bar. Because you can customize / add you search engines using mycroft, it makes your search far easier for what you are looking for. Plus I do like Google Chrome for it’s speed but I don’t like Google being the be all & end all of search engines. People should have a choice true? P.S. Fantastic manual :)

    • appi2012

      One thing that I feel is bad about such behavior is that it treats all non-urls as searches. As vervelover pointed out, the address bar in firefox does an i’m feeling lucky search by default, which is actually very useful.
      For example, if I wanted to go to the omgubuntu website, I could simply type “omgubuntu” and firefox would take me here. Chrome would do a google search, which adds an extra click, and more user thought. Safari would assume that I meant omgubuntu.com (which I didn’t), and take me to the wrong website.
      Since combining the search and address bars removes this great, useful feature, it would not be beneficial. However, firefox should think of combining the search and find text-entries, like Safari — but that’s another topic.

    • http://twitter.com/ushabtay Uri Shabtay

      i think the two separate bars are better. way better

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/C6S22ANL35LHAH27EX43XFQKTQ Klau3

    Title bar wasts just to much space for almost nothing.

    • Anonymous

      That’s Ubuntu’s fault for the window buttons on the right, look at Chrome with non-native, then look at it again with native.

      • Anonymous

        I mean on the left. And people don’t seem to read anything these days so let’s all have fluffy logos for each tab.

  • http://twitter.com/Lineplus Lineplus

    Is the integration of the Firefox button and the tabs with the title bar technically possible, without losing the integration of the window theme ?

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      With CSD – coming in Meerkat – it is.

      • http://openid-provider.appspot.com/mark_c@markecurtis.com Merk

        So what about users that only run LTS once the 3.X Firefox version is EOL?

        • zekopeko

          You have no idea how they plan to implement it. Chrome uses GTK+ but has CSD.

  • http://twitter.com/shishimaru1000 Salvatore Cresce

    The second one. Stop doing everything like Chromium!

    • http://openid-provider.appspot.com/mark_c@markecurtis.com Merk

      Are you referring to the tabs on top?
      It makes more sense if you think about it, and was actually pioneered by Opera, not Chrom(ium) anyway.

      • Anonymous

        I thnik the taps on top are nonsense… why the hell should I go over the adress bar, which I NEVER click, to click on another tab? I do that hunders of times….

        • http://el-bhm.myopenid.com/ el-bhm

          So you burn more calories.

          • Anonymous

            Oh, I never thought of that… They really care about the users.
            No, but seriously, putting the tabs on top doesn’t make any sense to me…

        • http://jamesgecko.com/ James

          Usability!First, the tab provides a sort of container for all the controls within. Now you’re not limited to having the browser back/forth/address bar stuff (aka, browser chrome. No, not Google’s browser. Those controls are called “chrome”.) where they don’t make sense. (Current locations include about:config and a few extension configuration pages). The current preferences window is going to be implemented as an in-browser page, I suspect without all that browser-specific chrome visible.Second, they provide huge benefits when the window is maximized. Note how in Google chrome, the tabs go right up to the top of the screen. Fitt’s law states that the easiest places to target with a mouse pointer are it’s current location and the edges of the screen. Because you can’t move your mouse pointer past the edge of the screen, edges are said to have infinite width (left/right sides) or infinite height (top/bottom sides). If you have your tabs flush with the top edge of the screen, they are in one of the easiest places for the user to target; they’ve now got infinite height. The user can just throw their mouse pointer up to the top of the screen and not have to worry about the y-axis when making their selection.So. Some people may not be a huge fan of it, but there are actually sound, heavily researched usability principles behind this change. On the plus side, I’m sure there will be like five extensions to change it back to the old way within the first week of release. ;-)

          • Anonymous

            Ok, when firefox is maximized they really are in the right place, you’re right. But now I have my bookmarks, the address, menu and title bars (that’s something more I don’t like about Chrome. I want to be able to see the whole page title at a glance if I need it) and a panel between the tabs and the top of the screen. It’s hard to imagine the tabs there, and the mock-ups don’t help either…

            Oh, and the panels, yes…Ubuntu comes per default with a panel at the top of the screen. With the panel there, you can forget about those “huge benefits”…

      • Anonymous

        How does that make sense? You are having to move your mouse further away from the web page to switch tabs (and I’m not interested in using key combos to do such things).

        That is one of the reasons I won’t use chrom(ium), the location of the tab bar.
        At least in opera you CAN move it.

        • Mirek2

          1) In maximized mode, it follows Fitts’s Law (unless you have a top panel).
          2) The address bar pertains to the open tab, so, hierarchically, it makes more sense for the address bar to be below the tab bar rather than the other way around.
          3) The tab bar replaces/duplicates the function of the title bar, which is, by standard, on top.

          • Anonymous

            It may follow Fitts’ Law but on a desktop (gnome) where all other apps using tabs have them between the navigation bar and the main app workspace it goes completely against everything else.

          • Anonymous

            But anyway, they can put the tab bar where they want as long as there is an easy way to move it.

      • zekopeko

        It makes sense if you don’t have a top panel. Maximize Chrome in an OS that doesn’t have a top panel and then flick your mouse to the top. Far easier to hit tabs that way.

      • http://twitter.com/explodingwalrus Carl Draper

        Keep them as they are, I like my tabs just above the webpage!

    • Anonymous

      Except that Mozilla (the Firefox devs proposed the idea first), I’m sick of hearing Chrome this, Chrome that. If you do your research you’ll realize Google is just capitalizing on ignorance. They are NOT as open as they make out to be.

  • Anonymous

    “will all seek to keep a unified appearance – even across the major OSes”
    So does this mean it will no longer fit snugly into a gnome or kde desktop and instead will stick out like a sore thumb like chrome and opera?

    My guess is that’s exactly where it’s going.
    And if they are going to stick the tabs above the address bar like chrome and opera also they sure as hell give me an easy way to move them unlike chrome (impossible) and opera (possible but very fiddly).

    I remember a time when firefox led and everyone followed. Is the new firefox more a case of see what is stealing it’s thunder and copy them?

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      The unified appearance aims to keep dialogues, icons, menus etc looking the same on every OS. They will, ofc, use various theme colours etc, but keep their own styling at the same time.

      • Anonymous

        Ahh, so definitely exactly like opera in that respect then.
        Still, I’ll reserve full judgement (and punishment) til it’s ready.

    • Mirek2

      Chrome doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb. Both on Windows and on Mac OS X, it looks much more natural than Firefox. And even on our humbler, less-used Linux platforms, you get the option of using the GTK theme, the OS’s title bar, and, for the two main Ubuntu 10.04 themes, you get downloadable themes as extensions.
      Look at the mockups of the new Firefox — they fit much more “snugly” within the OS than they used to (especially Mac OS X and Windows), yet they also keep the cool Firefox UX advantages (the back/forward keyhole, the new loading indicator, the home tab) uniform across all operating systems.

      • http://dylanmccall.blogspot.com/ Dylan McCall

        And it isn’t just about looks. Sure, the widgets in the main window chrome all have special drawing methods, but the menus, tooltips and text fields like the address bar are still real GTK widgets. They don’t mess with your window manager, they fit your theme and font settings, and they magically support different input methods. All the other widgets, like the Options dialog, are using straight GTK without any silly bits.

        Chrome’s Linux version is being _beautifully_ maintained, with a specific focus on integration. For example, when you open a downloaded file, it opens with the right program every time because the browser doesn’t bizarrely maintain its own list of preferred applications.

        Firefox? All it does is _look_ integrated, and it does that through an assortment of painful hacks that kill kittens.

    • Anonymous

      In the nightlies you can easily put the tabs on the bottom or top. It’s still being worked on though.

      They are not going to diverge that much from the OS, less so than Chrome that’s for sure.

  • http://twitter.com/IsolatedSheep Andi Rady Kurniawan

    awesome mockups. If metacity applies the idea on the title bar with menu, that would be awesome

  • http://chteuchteu.wordpress.com chteuchteu

    Woooow ! =D

  • Giovani C

    If this mockups turn real i say… WOW!!! =D

  • Chris234

    What about KDE?? I hope there will finally be a nice KDE integration

    • Anonymous

      Well for Kubuntu they have pretty much already done that, with KDE dialogs and icons etc.

  • Xorlathor

    Sweet mockups. It’s about time the Mozilla team stepped up to the competition, with Chrome, Safari, and even IE & Opera ending up as pretty good browsers (IE9 is supposed to be decent, believe it or not…)

    Can’t wait for FF 4 to come out, hopefully I’ll be able to hold off long enough without using Minefield so I’ll actually be surprised when the “official” release comes out… :P

    • http://orkutcidio.deliriocoletivo.org Peterson Espaçoporto

      IE? You’re kind of pushing it =P EHEAHAEHAEH

      • Xorlathor

        Haha I certainly wasn’t talking about IE8 or any of the older ones, I was talking about the new (unreleased) IE9. It has a fast engine and the UI mockups (http://teabreak.pk/internet-explorer-9-user-interface-mockup-34/34148/) look much, much better than any of the older IE series.

        • http://orkutcidio.deliriocoletivo.org Peterson Espaçoporto

          Weird UI.. But anyhow, it’s probably going to be faster and standart-compliant =]

        • daas88

          what the fuck? I can’t browse the internet with that. IE designers still suck

        • Mirek2

          Am I the only one wondering where the tabs went? It can’t be the title bar, because that’s where the address bar went? And am I supposed to move the window with the meager space that’s left on the title bar? How will this work with smaller windows?
          I mean, it looks cool, only because there’s nothing like this anywhere else, but, if I was using Windows, I’d probably stick to something that makes sense to me.

        • Anonymous

          Except that they are STILL not really implementing much of HTML5 to be “responsible”. When Firefox 4 comes out it will actually be the most standards compliant (there is actually an infographic that demonstrates this). Mozilla should NOT drop Gecko, it is an ASSET. Look at how much Mozilla have implemented on these page compared to other engines. It would be a massive waste to give up Gecko. And WebKit has about 6 incorrect implementations, that’s not as bad as IE, but still, it’s better to get it right.
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_layout_engines_(Document_Object_Model)
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_layout_engines_(ECMAScript)
          Overall WebKit and Gecko have implemented about the same, but WebKit doesn’t have the ability currently for NoScript. Not only that, but as you can see, Gecko has more power and is more up to date with the Javascript extensions, so writing Jetpack extensions will still be more powerful than Chrome’s or Safari’s offerings. Not to mention Safari’s security in particular is piss poor. And after all this process-isolation in Firefox 4, there will be no restart add-ons (the normal really powerful ones with C++ and XUL etc.) They also are rewriting the core HTML parser which will make it faster as well.

          That IE9 was confirmed a fake. You can tell anyway.

  • lol

    I bet anyone a hundred bucks these mockups will never happen.

  • Chris

    I want a menu-bar, not a menu-button. A menu button is slower and feels messier and less organised. Opera 10.60 alpha is annoying in this respect.

    Also, I want RGBA to work in XULrunner. Not necessarily built-in support, but just the ability for Firefox to work with the patched GTK without crashing. And also, this way when Microsoft finally catches up to Linux and has automatic RGBA for all programs, Firefox won’t need any work either.

    • zekopeko

      It’s pretty obvious you didn’t even look at the REST of the mockups on the Mozilla Wiki.

  • ActionParsnip

    It’s only a mockup of how it might look. It’s only LOOKS too. Aren’t people interested in it working more efficiently or faster? This is fairly pointless IMHO. If it’s faster than 3.whatever then yes thats something to be excited about (Firefox needs all the speed it can get, it’s so stupidly slow). You can probably use plugins and a little coding to make the current releases look like this but the rendering and such is still the same. In conclusion “Big woop”

    • Anonymous

      It will be faster, a new HTML parser and Javascript engine are 2 features that will be better. Plus implementing IndexedDB will make them ahead of the competition in that regard.

  • Mohan

    Looking forward to it as FF is still my favorite browser.

  • daas88

    Does it have the option to remember passwords?

    • Anonymous

      It does now, what do you mean?

      • daas88

        It was a joke about the third screenshot xD

        • Anonymous

          Ah, sarcasm on the internet. I should have picked that up but I’ve been stressed quite a lot lately.

  • http://twitter.com/abhishekfx abhishek

    there is no point in Mozilla ditching gecko. competition is good and having separate engines is one of them. and you never know when gecko engine may surge ahead

  • http://twitter.com/abhishekfx abhishek

    these mock ups are great. i am still rooting for firefox, they better make it faster, at least faster to startup. although the windows version look better due to aero interface. i have a gripe though, i think firefox had the best RSS system. very intuitive and easy to use. if they are removing them from their standard position…. oh well

    • Anonymous

      The bookmarks bar will just be turned off by default. Plus the Home Tab is way better from a UX view than the New Tab page in Chrome.

  • Apple

    I think they should integrate the bookmark bar beside where it says Firefox/, and get rid the bar at the bottom of the window telling you when a page is loading, and just integrate that into the address bar like Midori. That would save a lot of necessary space.

    • Mirek2

      They are getting rid of the status bar. They now indicate progress right on the tab’s border (which is better than the address bar, because it also tells you which other tabs are loading, not just the one you’re on; plus, it looks cool).

  • http://twitter.com/iheartubuntu i [heart] ubuntu

    The FF mockups look like Opera to me.

  • http://el-bhm.myopenid.com/ el-bhm

    Mozilla. Innovative since… Oh wait.

    • Anonymous

      Yeah because Raindrop, Ubiquity and TabCandy aren’t innovative at all… Oh Wait.

      • http://el-bhm.myopenid.com/ el-bhm

        To be considered innovative you’d need to come up with something new. All of these are just evolved ideas, known to people for years – that either should or have to evolve anyway. It’s New or Improved – not both.
        I won’t mention that none of these actually took off, with big bang. Like Unite from Opera or “Extension Shop” for Chrome.

        Mozilla’s browser is like dog eating leftovers. Even mockups for UI and latest and best add-ons are copies from competition. Sure it’s community that does all the apeing. Problem is they both seem to enjoy their meal.

        • Anonymous

          Raindrop is still being worked on, you can’t say it hasn’t taken off. Plenty of people have done something similar since – Motorola’s Motoblur universal inbox and Apple announced they’ll be using this idea for the iPhone (perfect tie in since Python isn’t allowed on the iPhone anymore – for reasons that canbe considered a fallacy). Plus it has extensibility. You know, Mozilla does do hard work researching, while Google just does whatever it can as quick as possible, that’s why Prism is more powerful than Application Shortcuts. Chrome doesn’t have tags for bookmarks and this page is easier to spoof than the proposed UI for Firefox’s bookmarks. Plus Mozilla wanted to move the bookmarks into a tab before Chrome even existed. Google have done the behaviour of tab handling correctly, except that you can’t even read the tabs when they are more than the current screen can handle, but Mozilla are actually trying to solve these problems, of course, once they do (well TabCandy may not solve everything) everyone will copy them.

          How about the fact that Mozilla implemented tracing first of all the browsers (considered an innovative approach), now everybody has done it. HomeTab is a better solution than the New Tab page in Chrome, a ripoff of SpeedDial with ideas from Safari. Mozilla also came up with IndexedDB, a better solution than what others are using, and maybe that can be considered innovative, but I certainly don’t know enough about that.

          It’s just annoying to read that Chrome supposedly did this or that first. They didn’t even do the process-isolation first, that was, yes Microsoft with IE8. But Google did it right, MS didn’t separate add-ons. Firefox does desperately needs this, it will be a lot faster.

          It’s not like other browsers don’t take good ideas (or shouldn’t), Safari 5 just implemented an awesomebar-like solution, Chrome took Paste and Go from Opera and Opera took Find-as-you-type non-modal find bar, which was influenced from Vim apparently. The thing is, at each level of significant improvement, there is one leading the charge and others following, as we can see by tracing, process-isolation, and Safari implementing Chrome-like add-ons with Opera to follow suit. In a year’s time Opera will probably be the one falling behind with web standards and process-isolation (all WebKit browsers will have this – maybe not within a year) though they do have some unique things and before Safari added JIT compilation for javascript it was them who were behind (in front of the ever present IE though because of IE’s horrid web standards support).

        • Anonymous

          NoScript is a copy of…. which was first made by….

  • http://twitter.com/explodingwalrus Carl Draper

    Looks too much like Chrome to me. i use Chrome when Firefox isn’t fast enough, not because of it’s looks!

  • edlt

    This is how my FF looks right now!

  • http://www.facebook.com/ultysagar SAM

    Common Firefox innovate something. Just don’t lag behind and copy others.

    • Mirek2

      There’s a home tab, there’s the back/forward keyhole, there’s the progress bar on the tab’s border, there’s the Firefox menu, there’s a new “bubble” instead of the old infobar, and there’s a bookmarks button. All these are unique to Firefox, by the way.
      The only “copy-cat” things here are getting rid of menus and putting tabs on top. And those are only being considered — if you looked at the linked mockups, you’d see mockups with a menubar and with tabs on bottom…

    • Anonymous

      How about using a better database for storing web application data – IndexedDB? What about that fact that Chrome’s Bookmarks and Downloads tabs are bad for usability? They’re great for a user getting phished. You really should research you know

    • Anonymous

      Google also don’t have a UX/UI/HCI genius like Aza Raskin. Chrome will steal TabCandy and if they do, well they came up with first didn’t they? Please.

  • Yi Sun-sin

    Less integration. Less native widget. Less native icon. Uncool.

  • Anonymous

    Reminds me a lot of Google Chrome/Opera. It’ll be interesting to see the prior features of Firefox and extensions make their way into this refined version. I’m glad they’re making things look similar across OSes, even though some people like having their icon theme take precedence over the back and forward buttons. Whatever.

    I think this will make a push and help Windows users realize, yet again, how much further FOSS can go than their proprietary, unevolved counterparts.

  • http://twitter.com/Chris_Darko Chris Darko

    I like it very much, but it is still lagging behind the beauty of Opera.
    I hope the Qt version looks good, though :/

    I actually prefer my current firefox with an ambiance theme and meerkat extension.

  • http://thealphanerd.wordpress.com/ Calvin

    Call me a curmudgeon, but I dislike these mockups. The current Firefox UI worked fine for years, why are they ditching this for some screwed-up mutilated Chrome?

    I’ll still be sticking with SeaMonkey. When crap hit the ceiling for TB3, SM pretty much did Thunderbird right,

  • Anonymous

    Yes yes, but will it have a process per tab?

  • Sir Rodness

    I like Chrome, it’s pretty cool, but in the end I missed my firefox. So I went back and then I stumbled across Chromifox for Firefox which I must say is simular to these mockups. As it turns out it the Chrome interface that I really liked. Now I got a nice Chrome look and I get to keep all my favourite firefox plugins like Cool-iris.

  • Anonymous

    If you like one bar and have two, change it. If you have two bars and want one change it. If you cant or dont know how to, learn. If you want it done right do it yourself. Im perfectly content with chromium. If you dont like yours change it or find a new one. Good learning experience ;)

  • Sahilshinesalways

    radical change in ui wont b that eye appealing untill and unless gtk supports transpernt glassy themes

  • Sahilshinesalways

    radical change in ui wont b that eye appealing untill and unless gtk supports transpernt glassy themes

  • Anonymous

    Is it just me or is UI in linux getting more and more unified?

  • http://twitter.com/fts9 Ed Coles

    Wow, looks the same only uglier

  • Webtech Query

    An easy way to download and install Beta Firefox 4 in your Ubuntu could be found in the following link:

    http://www.webtechquery.com/index.php/2010/07/beta-firefox-4-ubuntu-beta-firefox-4-linux/

  • Anonymous

    Gosh, they’re on Beta 4 and the new UI still hasn’t landed on Linux!!!! D:

  • Anonymous

    Gosh, they’re on Beta 4 and the new UI still hasn’t landed on Linux!!!! D: