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Firefox?s Australis design won?t ship until March 2014
 

Good news for Firefox users who do not like the changes that come along with the new Australis design that will be implemented in the browser in the foreseeable future.

 

The initial plan was to implement Australis in Firefox 24, but the deadline was not met and Australis was first delayed to Firefox 25 and then 26.

 

The design has not landed in Nightly yet which many saw as an indicator that Australis would not launch in Firefox 27 as well.

This has now been confirmed by an updated marketing roadmap that confirms that Australis has been moved to Firefox 28 which will launch March 4, 2014.

 

If things go as planned, Firefox Nightly users will be the first to experience the new Australis design when  the build hits version 28 for the first time on November 1, 2013.

 

firefox-australis-27-660x557.jpg

 

When will Australis hit other Firefox channels?

  • Firefox Aurora users will get Australis six weeks later on December 13, 2013.
  • Firefox Beta users will be migrated to Australis six weeks later than the Aurora version on January 21, 2014.
  • Australis will hit Firefox Stable on March 4, 2014.

Note that this is still subject to change. The core reason for the delay in the deployment of the Australis design is performance-related. Mozilla wants to deploy Australis only when it matches the performance of the pre-Australis Firefox versions. Since that was not the case until now, Australis has been delayed from version to version.

 

If performance of Australis matches that of Firefox come Firefox 28, it will be deployed then. There is theoretically still a possibility that this won't be the case, so that Australis may get further delayed.

 

The release to the browser's Nightly channel will make the new design available to a larger audience, and it will be interesting to see how that audience will react to the changes that Australis introduces.

 

The real test however comes with the stable release of Australis, as this is the channel that is used by the majority of Firefox users.

 

The majority of tech savvy users seem to be largely opposed to the changes introduced in Australis, and many have been very vocal about switching web browsers when Australis launches or preventing further updates of their version of Firefox to block the deployment of the new design on their system.

 

Source: ghacks.net

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...

 

The majority of tech savvy users seem to be largely opposed to the changes introduced in Australis, and many have been very vocal about switching web browsers when Australis launches or preventing further updates of their version of Firefox to block the deployment of the new design on their system.

 

Source: ghacks.net

 

Not exactly sure what people will switch to, now that Opera is also nothing more than Chrome with a couple of bells and whistles. The tendency for oversimplification of browsers so as to cater to the lowest common denominator is not something I am happy with (though I can understand it from a market share point of view).

 

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I don't know what's going on behind the scenes of the design, so to me, an average end-user, it just looks like the URL toolbar is a bit thicker, the tabs are rounded and blended with the window, and customizing the buttons is done through a drop down instead of a separate window.

 

What about these changes, or the work behind them, are so terrible that, "tech savvy" users will refuse to use it?

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I don't mind the new design, looks improved over the current one at least to me. But I have to admit, its beginning to become pretty absurd how long its taking them to implement this, its been promised and continually delayed for ages.

 

Also, the current firefox theme has some really obvious visual issues in windows 8, mainly the firefox menu. half of the menu highlights are native windows 8 style, the other half are clearly windows 7 style, it looks pretty stupid and unpolished and they have yet to even attempt to fix it, because its already fixed with the new menu in australis, but australis is infinitely delayed. (and something like this would probably be pretty simple to fix in the current theme...)

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I don't mind Australis too much, so no issue there for me.

 

Firefox needs more Metro like themes. Not ugly rounded corners.

That's why I use a custom userChrome.css file with a Windows 8-inspired button. :p

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This is the exact reason why i ditched Firefox, this design was supposed to be implemented 2 years ago and they just keep dragging their feet. Also when it comes to OS specific features like contextual scroll bars for OS X, Mozilla just implemented them this year, 2 years after it was introduced in Lion.

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I don't know what's going on behind the scenes of the design, so to me, an average end-user, it just looks like the URL toolbar is a bit thicker, the tabs are rounded and blended with the window, and customizing the buttons is done through a drop down instead of a separate window.

 

What about these changes, or the work behind them, are so terrible that, "tech savvy" users will refuse to use it?

As a self proclaimed Firefox power user I think the new Austalis UI will be extremely inconvenient to use.  Mozilla has made it clear to all that Australis is going to have a minimalist look.  This means no user created toolbars, no add-on bar, and no bookmark bar.  Icons to launch extensions will be given minimal room on the navigation bar with any other icons tucked away to be accessed from a drop-down menu button. That would be three clicks needed to get to a specific thing when it only takes me one at the present time.  This is a MAJOR LEAGUE INCONVENIENCE for users like myself who have a boat load of extensions and who are accustomed to the speed that easy access brings.  The problem for power users is further exacerbated with no bookmark toolbar.  Again, it's an extra click or two to access things.  Clearly the folks at Mozilla are bailing out on giving users options for customizing to go with a dumbed-down, one-size-fits-all browser.   Firefox users shouldn't be fooled into thinking this is anything more than 1) an attempt to make a browser that will work well on portables too (pad computing, netbooks, etc...), and 2) an effort to garnish greater marketshare by making it look even more "Chromelike" than it is right now.  Simply put, Mozilla is willing to walk out on who brought them to the dance..... the users that enjoy easy and extensive customization of Firefox.  So much for customer loyalty!

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Toying with the latest UX nightly.. definitely not a fan of the minimalistic thing either (one of the many reasons I hate Chrome), but at least at this point in time, a few tweaks and addons later (most of which I'm currently using anyway), I mostly got the "traditional" layout back.  Fairly puzzled with the removal of the addon bar though, that just doesn't make any sense as it's convenient as hell.. kinda-sorta replicated parts of it using the bookmarks bar, but still.. meh.  I can deal with it ignoring the tabs-where-they-belong setting, even though that just looks weird.. if browser.tabs.drawInTitlebar is off then it should relocate the tabs accordingly.  I would be honestly surprised if there wasn't an addon down the road that sets things right back to a more traditional state though, never mind an outright fork sans the gimped UI.  If I wanted a browser that packs everything into one toolbar and was inflexible as all hell I'd use Chrome thanks...

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Is this the firefox Death kneel? can't innovate a product that is over 2 years past it's due date, even just to get it to simply work

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Is this the firefox Death kneel? can't innovate a product that is over 2 years past it's due date, even just to get it to simply work

A browser isn't going to die just because a new skin isn't done, the browser itself works very well.  (And frankly they can take all the time in the world, prefer the old style anyway.) 

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Is this the firefox Death kneel? can't innovate a product that is over 2 years past it's due date, even just to get it to simply work

I have a feeling that if Firefox can't slim down the browser, stabilize it, and FINALLY fix the horrific memory hogging, than those will be the death knell of the browser. I honestly think they need to pull an IE, and trash support for both XP and Vista, and strip that old code out. 

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I have a feeling that if Firefox can't slim down the browser, stabilize it, and FINALLY fix the horrific memory hogging, than those will be the death knell of the browser. I honestly think they need to pull an IE, and trash support for both XP and Vista, and strip that old code out. 

 

Well the horrific memory hogging you speak of is way better than chrome!

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I have a feeling that if Firefox can't slim down the browser, stabilize it, and FINALLY fix the horrific memory hogging, than those will be the death knell of the browser. I honestly think they need to pull an IE, and trash support for both XP and Vista, and strip that old code out. 

Maybe it's just my particular selection of addons or something, but I haven't had any particular stability or memory issues with Firefox since like version 4 or so.  Only crashes I've gotten in the past year or so are out of Flash and not the browser itself, and memory usage is much lower than Chrome, especially when multiple tabs are going.. the only better one resource wise (for me) is IE but chalking that up due to it having a lot less addons installed.  I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the legacy baggage get tossed eventually though once XP goes past its expiration date.. it's still supported by Microsoft, so it should still be supported by third parties too.  After that date though, anything goes.

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I have a feeling that if Firefox can't slim down the browser, stabilize it, and FINALLY fix the horrific memory hogging, than those will be the death knell of the browser. I honestly think they need to pull an IE, and trash support for both XP and Vista, and strip that old code out. 

I've found memory hogging is the one problem firefox *doesn't* have. Compared to other browsers such as chrome, firefox consistently uses the least memory. Firefox took care of most of the "memory leak" issues during firefox 3.x... If you are getting a true memory leak its probably a misbehaving extension of plugin.

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A browser isn't going to die just because a new skin isn't done, the browser itself works very well.  (And frankly they can take all the time in the world, prefer the old style anyway.) 

 

Ok, I'm just with the crowd with my torch and pitchfork in hand

 

angrymobfunrun.jpg

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lol Gotta love them rounded tabs!

 

to bad the use significantly more space then plan square. at least when you have a lot of tabs. doesn't help firefox insist on forcing the retarded scrolling tabs on you. 

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