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New Firefox for Android: Seriously, what were they thinking?

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  • 2 have this problem
  • 9 views
  • Last reply by scottg1

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I "accidentally" updated Firefox for Android and I am really upset now about what happened to my beloved browser.

The new "improved" version mixes up the UX a lot and so many of my daily used features were removed.

Things that bother me the most:

- Sorting of tabs is not possible anymore. I already had to wait for this feature in the old version of Firefox for Android and at some point in time it finally got implemented. Now we've taken a step back and it's gone again. Seriously? - Opening tabs from other apps in the background is gone. This feature made Firefox stand above other mobile browsers, because I could read through my news app and open tabs in Firefox without leaving the news app. - Pocket suggestions when opening a new tab were a nice gimmick, which is also gone - Search engines cannot be accessed by a single tap anymore, instead you have to open the "search engines" menu while typing something in the address bar, then select the desired search engine and then finally tap the search term in the suggestions. Seriously, how is this three-tap action with a lot of thumb movement an improvement in user experience over the single-tap action of the old Firefox?? - The new tab button is on the bottom right, whereas the address bar is on the top (for me, because on the bottom it feels totally awkward). So to open a new tab, I have to tap the address bar/the tab menu, move the thumb all the way down to the new tab button, then all the way up to tap the address bar again. UX at its finest (sarcasm!). The old layout of address bar and new tab button were much better to use, because they were so much closer to each other. - The search engine abbreviations that you can configure on the desktop version (like typing "a" in the address bar for Amazon) used to be transfered to Firefox for Android, this is also gone. The only way to access the search engines now is to use the aforementioned and cumbersome search engine menu.

This is as much a rant as it is a serious question to the developers and the community: How did an update that removes so many quality-of-life and UX related features get through to the final version? I mean, just check the recent reviews on Google Play, all of them are in the one and two star category, so it's not just me who is upset with the "improved" version.

I "accidentally" updated Firefox for Android and I am really upset now about what happened to my beloved browser. The new "improved" version mixes up the UX a lot and so many of my daily used features were removed. Things that bother me the most: - Sorting of tabs is not possible anymore. I already had to wait for this feature in the old version of Firefox for Android and at some point in time it finally got implemented. Now we've taken a step back and it's gone again. Seriously? - Opening tabs from other apps in the background is gone. This feature made Firefox stand above other mobile browsers, because I could read through my news app and open tabs in Firefox without leaving the news app. - Pocket suggestions when opening a new tab were a nice gimmick, which is also gone - Search engines cannot be accessed by a single tap anymore, instead you have to open the "search engines" menu while typing something in the address bar, then select the desired search engine and then finally tap the search term in the suggestions. Seriously, how is this three-tap action with a lot of thumb movement an improvement in user experience over the single-tap action of the old Firefox?? - The new tab button is on the bottom right, whereas the address bar is on the top (for me, because on the bottom it feels totally awkward). So to open a new tab, I have to tap the address bar/the tab menu, move the thumb all the way down to the new tab button, then all the way up to tap the address bar again. UX at its finest (sarcasm!). The old layout of address bar and new tab button were much better to use, because they were so much closer to each other. - The search engine abbreviations that you can configure on the desktop version (like typing "a" in the address bar for Amazon) used to be transfered to Firefox for Android, this is also gone. The only way to access the search engines now is to use the aforementioned and cumbersome search engine menu. This is as much a rant as it is a serious question to the developers and the community: How did an update that removes so many quality-of-life and UX related features get through to the final version? I mean, just check the recent reviews on Google Play, all of them are in the one and two star category, so it's not just me who is upset with the "improved" version.

All Replies (1)

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might be said already but - can't sort bookmarks, can't open to bookmarks page first, user/pass for httpauth are not saved.

way to ruin firefox.

Modified by scottg1