A new-look Firefox is on the way, with Mozilla designers working on a ‘Nova’ redesign that introduces more curves and colour.
First reported by tech blogger Söeren Hentzschel, who published several internal design mockups, Nova gives Firefox a more rounded appearance: tabs and the address bar sport uniform radii, and sit in a segmented, floating island UI element. Everything nestles neatly.
Elements like hover effects in the menu and parts of the New Tab Page are similarly rounded. If you look closely at the image above you’ll also spot a set of refreshed icons that (surprise!) are also less angular than the ones current stable builds use.
Colour is the other area where Nova stands out from the current design. Mockups show the use of a pastel gradient in the tab bar and pops of colour in the menu and on the new tab page. Hentzschel expects these colour choices will be customisable.
You’ll notice in the image above that web page content isn’t flush to the sides of the browser window, nor does it extend up to the tab bar. Instead, web content sits ‘framed’ within a rounded container – a style choice that Firefox fork Zen does.
Firefox redesigns are fairly frequent
Nova is the latest in a long line of UI revamps the veteran FOSS browser. ‘Australis’ arrived in 2014, ‘Photon’ followed in 2017, and the ‘Proton’ revamp landed in 2021 with floating tabs.
Nova makes bold choices with framed web content, floating island UI elements and the radii that hug. Combined with the introduction of more colour, it does lend the browser a softer, more approachable appearance – something Chrome does well.
Is the proposed look a bit too Chrome-y?
To casual users, the sort likely to lap up Apple’s colourful new MacBook Neo or find Google’s Material You colour flourishes appealing, it’s the kind of change that could win over hearts and minds; a way to signal “I am like the others, don’t think me strange”.
Whether that broadens Firefox’s appeal or quietly alienates its more ardent fanbase remains to be seen.
When is Firefox Nova redesign expected?
Firefox’s Nova redesign is under active development. Nothing seen in the designs shared by Hentzschel is final or fixed. Mozilla has yet to publicly announce Nova or confirm when it’ll arrive in stable builds. As of writing, there’s no hidden flag or nightly build in which to try it.
Still, it’s something to keep an eye on. I’m curious how well the rounded aesthetic will translate to the Linux version of Firefox given we still don’t have those rounded bottom window corners yet…
For more images of Nova unearthed by Sören Hentzschel, go visit his blog – the text is in German, but the images aren’t.