Do you want a Firefox theme that makes the browser better integrate with the vanilla GNOME desktop?
If you do, check out the Firefox GNOME Theme on GitHub. It’s an all-in-one transformation pack that works with modern versions of the browser. When applied it makes Firefox look and feel like a regular GTK app adhering to GNOME’s Adwaita theme.
We’re talking the same gradients, colours, and button shapes as Adwaita, and it supports Adwaita’s standard light look as well as it’s dark mode.
Compared to the way Firefox under this Adwaita looks normally, this theme offers:
- Adwaita light & dark theme
- Support for left-aligned window controls
- Themed context menus
- Inactive window state
- Themed pop-overs
It also includes a set of additional changes that wrestles Firefox’s UX into one more akin to that of Epiphany (aka GNOME Web):
- Hide tab bar for a single tab
- Moves tab bar to below address bar
- URL width autocomplete bar
- Symbolic-style tab icons
- GNOME stack icons for toolbar buttons
As Adwaita moves from being a GTK theme some people use to a stylesheet integral to the ‘GNOME experience’ (with libadwaita) this sort of effort becomes more important. Don’t think you need to be running Fedora to be an avid advocate of Adwaita. No sirree: you can use the Adwaita theme on Ubuntu too.
I sometimes describe GNOME Web (aka Epiphany) as the browser we’d all like to use, but don’t. The theme effectively makes Mozilla Firefox look more similar to Web. In a roundabout way, I think that’s a compliment!
Interested? Let’s take a closer look.
GNOME Adwaita Firefox Theme
Now for the not-so-good bit.
If you want to use this Firefox GNOME theme on your desktop you’ll need to roll your sleeves up. As of writing there is no “one-click” easy-install package, and no entry on the Firefox themes website.
Thankfully there is an installation script that takes care of the heavy lifting. You just clone the branch, run the script, and et voila — done. Restart Firefox and the GNOME theme will be enabled, ready for you to gawp at.
Alternatively, run:
curl -s -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rafaelmardojai/firefox-gnome-theme/master/scripts/install-by-curl.sh | bash
Naturally both methods assumes you’re okay with running scripts you find on the internet. If you’re not you can still get the same effect but you will need to manually edit files and copy things into place.
You can find complete up-to-date instructions and all the files you need to turn Firefox into an Adwaita adorned jewel over on the project Github page.
h/t Alex (as always)