Now that Firefox 3.0 beta 3 has come out (and been blasted by me), I wanted to take time to see which direction the UI refresh was going for the next generation of the browser we’ve all come to love. I’m going to start by saying I don’t like it, to save you the suspense. Also, I’m going to compare only the look (that means no slamming me for extensiveness or features) of the browser out of the box, to its predecessor, as well as other browsers out there.
Disclaimer: I’ve not compared Flock and Safari here. I think Flock’s interface is too cluttered, with there being and insane amount of things built into the browser. Safari has a beautiful and clean look, but it doesn’t sit nicely with Windows. Plus, I was a little too lazy to download them for just one screenshot. And, the screenshots were taken before the template change.
Firefox 3.0
The biggest problem with the UI is the missing feel of a modern day browser. The way we’ve gotten so used to gradients, rounded corners, little icons, glows and shadows … the UI feels utterly unimaginative and painfully boring. I know that developers and programmers care very little about the looks, but when you’re making a browser for the masses, the design takes the second row from the front.
Alex Faaborg, the user experience designer at Mozilla shows us mockups of what the final release might look like. While they’ve taken pains to make sure the browser takes on the native look and feel of the OS it is being used on, they’re not adding anything new which might make it look appealing and ‘new’. UI changes (like the gold star bookmarking and phishing site report) need to be re-worked … or finished, because they look hideous. The location bar completer design is simply bloat.
In fact, comparing it to Firefox 2.0, you can see that it looks almost exactly the same, with the exception that 2.0 feels lighter, sleeker and faster.
Even though it looks dated now, the glassy icons and nicely rounded form elements give it a nice smooth finish. A universal gradient to the theme would have added the remaining touch.
Internet Explorer 7
Even though the browser is a dud, the look and feel goes well with the new design forms we have been getting used to.
In Vista, IE7 looks even better, and right at home with the OS. Highlights and colourful indicators everywhere, as well as the shiny look that’s so “in” right now, visually it is a breath of fresh air at first sight. The lack of a menu bar is a little daunting, but then you get used to it if you use it enough. It seems like they actually studied user behaviour (or made smart guesses) and kept only the required things on screen, hiding everything else away.
Addition of a ribbon-like navigation and Office 2007-like look will set it very high in my books. Of course, features come a close second, and that’s where it fails :P
Opera 9.2
Here is a browser which never took off. They did a lot of things wrong, granted. But the look wasn’t one of them. Opera was easily the prettiest browser in the market even during Firefox 2’s release. I jumped back and forth between the two of them, being wooed by Opera’s speed and look, and Firefox’s usability and extensions.
Even now, while the UI remains unchanged, Opera’s holds its own against other browsers. Gentle highlights on hover, glowing buttons all add to the eye-candy. It lacks the glassy-ness, but you never feel their absence since everything else falls so nicely into place.
Opera is also the only browser to natively have a very functional sidebar. Surprisingly, this has not been picked up by other browsers … going for a top heavy approach. I know Firefox could benefit tons from this, which is why the All-in-one sidebar extension is so useful. Too bad less than 1% actually use Opera.
Maxthon 2
Finally, the most beautiful looking browser today. It’s technically incorrect to call Maxthon an individual browser in itself, but the number of features it adds to IE allows me to cut it slack. I have never used this as my primary browser, and don’t plan to start either. But it deserves the 5 minute spotlight.
What immediately hits you is the gradient. Like a strange version of Safari, the fading Grey makes it immediately stand out from the rest of the applications on your screen. The icons are bright and cheery enough to fit in with Windows, although the spacing could be worked a little more, because out of the box, it looks a little too claustrophobic. There is a functional sidebar, so it’s not top-heavy.
It lacks the expanding UI elements from Firefox 3.0, but then again I find them annoying there, so I like their absence here.
So why is Firefox 3 bad?
One word. Unpolished. Okay, one more … unimaginative. It seems that in their endeavour to make everything easily accessible to the common user, the designers have overly simplified the interface to the level that it’s boring. Even the buttons look out of place, not fitting in with the rest of the theme.
We can easily put aside the ‘speed’ factor. Maxthon, Opera and Safari all prove that the look of the browser has got nothing to do with how fast it works. Firefox has always been inherently slow. I don’t see how it can get any worse (it seems to be getting better in-fact). They can at least make it a slow, but beautiful browser. We’re not switching away any time soon, with the lack of a viable competitor. I’d love to see Personas leveraged as the new way to change the look and feel of Firefox, and given enough privileges that it can affect the look in ways more than just giving a background and changing icons/colours.
Until all that happens, I plan to stick with Firefox 2.0. I’ve become all too comfortable with it.
6 Comments
funny enough, the look you choose from Maxthon 2 is actually the “ugly” look from the 2 common look configurations, the other is even prettier.
And it is indeed a stand alone browser because while Maxthon 1 shared around 70% of IE6, Maxthon 2 is around 50% so in my opinion it is indeed a stand alone browser for the most part now.
Maxthon 2 was great for IE inclined users, most out of the usa because it was light years ahead from IE6, the same cannot be said if you compare IE7 to Maxthon 2 and it is pretty much a given that IE8 will crush the novelty left in it for most.
IE7 in vista is not only prettier but it is also not the same IE7 build that the one in XP at all. in vista is also faster and counts with Vista specific features and integrates better with plugins and Windows Live Services (this is of course not touted to avoid problems)
I do agree on Opera being the prettiest, it always has been and probably will continue to be so. but Opera fall from grace is close. Firefox is their nightmare on the desktop not IE and now it will happen the same thing on mobiles. i can bet Opera is nervous now not only for Firefox mobile but because of the MIE update and new browsers like Skyfire and Torch mobile getting in the way. dominance or not.
Firefox.. oh boy, Firefox 3.0 still don’t fix all the memory leaks from 2.0 and it got a even worst problem, it s unstable as hell even on its own. i don’t remember firefox 2.0 beta 3 being as unstable and buggy as FF.30 beta 3 is.
Mozilla is now going into other areas as well but they have failed to make any impact outside of the Firefox property and that is why i think that Firefox Mobile will still be more important to them that any of their other projects.
But i do loathe how buggy apps that share code from mozilla are:
songbird = great but buggy as hell
Joost = took over a year to get it good enough and event then, it is still buggy.
Miro= took two whole years to get it to work as it should.
i think the best spin off using mozilla code is without a doubt Flock. the greatest omission in this post. and before you suggest that Flock is just a rebranded Firefox. it is not it s now 40% Flock and 60% firefox. so that is why i don`t consider it a rebranded firefox, you want a rebranded firefox? Wyzo. that is a perfect example.
The battle against IE8 will be interesting because it will be harder since Firefox is no longer playing to win but it is now playing to holdout their marketshare. IE7 managed to recover 10% out of Firefox estimated Max of 30% pre IE7. so how it is gonna fair now that is not better that IE7 (more in vista than in XP) and you only need two plugins to make IE7 as good Firefox with the 10 most common extentions installed?.
( i am talking about the awesome IE7pro and Surfgear) and also that most of the more important Firefox extensions now got a Plugin for IE7 too. where is “so much better” in firefox now compared to IE?
you will say: the render engine?
now, and after IE8?
Exactly.
I say this because for example i have never been able to crash IE7 in vista and i have only crashed IE7 3 times in XP. ask me how many times Firefox 2 has crashed on me even before extensions. i ask you the same on both cases.
“I think the best spin off using mozilla code is without a doubt Flock. the greatest omission in this post. …”
I’ll disagree. Flock is actually bloat upon bloat. The entire ‘social browser’ aspect of it actually makes it a pain to use, the features of which you can easily duplicate with Firefox extensions. The whole point here is to make the browser slimmer, prettier and faster. And of course the fact that they’ll always be playing catch-up (engine wise) to Firefox.
And it’s in my disclaimer why I skipped reviewing Flock.
“Firefox.. oh boy, Firefox 3.0 still don’t fix all the memory leaks from 2.0 and it got a even worst problem…”
Firefox 3.0 is headed to be a big disappointment, I’ll give you that. The only positive thing I see is the new rendering engine, which makes pages load “much” faster. Almost to the level of Opera. But that’s pretty much it.
“and after IE8?”
I still say Firefox’s engine will be better than IE8’s, especially when it comes to executing Javascript for RIAs. The Internet’s future lies in them, and you know it. Firefox will also be in a better place to implement XHTML 2 or HTML 5, because IEs development cycle puts it at a disadvantage here.
Microsoft will have gained my respect if they actually remove the ‘standards compliant mode’ from IE8, and force people to fix their sites to adhere to the standards everyone else around them follows. Until they do that, I will never rank IE higher than other browsers.
Good to see you finally broken out of your slumber :)
“I’ll disagree. Flock is actually bloat upon bloat. The entire ‘social browser’ aspect of it actually makes it a pain to use, the features of which you can easily duplicate with Firefox extensions. The whole point here is to make the browser slimmer, prettier and faster. And of course the fact that they’ll always be playing catch-up (engine wise) to Firefox.”
and i think you are crazy, they tuned the engine enough, FIXED the memory leak,made it more stable than Firefox and then you got the fact that even if you could replicate what it does with extensions (something that is not entirely true), could firefox remain as stable as flock? not at all.
then you got that now in 1.1 , flock can finally run most (90%) of firefox extensions.
so i don`t think that Flock deserves the bad rep on the technical side of things. now on the design. they should shot the guy who redesigned flock. flock was pretty. it reminded me of maxthon 2 and now it hideous. so on that i do agree. the design and UX went awry at some point.
“I still say Firefox’s engine will be better than IE8’s, especially when it comes to executing Javascript for RIAs. The Internet’s future lies in them, and you know it. Firefox will also be in a better place to implement XHTML 2 or HTML 5, because IEs development cycle puts it at a disadvantage here.”
that is debatable since they are still not out yet. and the future does not rely solely on JS so that would be partly true to a certain degree. IE development cycle is no longer an issue and you already know that too. not in real world terms.
“Microsoft will have gained my respect if they actually remove the ‘standards compliant mode’ from IE8, and force people to fix their sites to adhere to the standards everyone else around them follows. Until they do that, I will never rank IE higher than other browsers.”
it is not that easy, it is not because they don`t want to do so. there would a pandemonium if they did that right now. the legal and business ramifications of such a thing is what you fail to grasp.
however i do think that it will happen in the future, maybe even as soon as IE9, who knows?.
“Good to see you finally broken out of your slumber :)”
i don`t know what do you mean.. i have been active for months now.
My Firefox is pretty stable, so I don’t know what the fuss really is. The memory leaks are down to a minimum with 2.0.0.12, and except for periods of very heavy load, I’ve rarely seen it climb above 70MB, which my computer can spare for an application used 90% of the time. Secondly, I can convert an IE person to a Firefox, but can never sell a Flock. It’s too overwhelming. If they can find a way to make things less intrusive (which was my main point), I’ll rate it relatively high.
It’s not what features you add, but how you add them that matters (my initial gripe about Firefox too).
IE’s Javascript handling is standards deviant, and there have been enough complaints about that. Resorting to a framework (which takes cross-browserness into consideration) is the only thing that saves developers from tearing their hair out at getting the same thing to work in both browsers properly. The business ramifications? Of course change is hard. But they’ll be paving a way to better practice and long term sanity. That’s a trade-off I’m willing to bet on. We know people accept (willingly/unwillingly) everything Microsoft throws at them. Why not use that power for a good cause?
And I meant around here. I’ve written a lot that you’d have loved to shoot at … I was surprised it took you this long ;)
[…] of what I asked for in my comments. I still want to see it to believe it, but this is a very good step … even if it’s not […]
If you’re on a minimalist setup in XP (read less programs, lean system), and only a handful of FF extensions, I can’t see any reason why Firefox would crash.
I’ve been in minimalist setup for 2 months now, and Firefox 2 has crashed, count it, 2 times only. There’s been 4-5 times stuck-up FF, but it goes back to normal after 5-10 seconds.
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