I know we have an official megathread about this, but I think this is important enough for everyone to know about.
Yes, there's an option to turn off the new Megabar—for now. The thing is, **[this option has already been removed from Nightly 77](https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/fwhlva/address_barawesomebar_design_update_in_firefox_75/fmp4beq/)** (the most bleeding-edge unreleased version of the code). So soon enough you'll have to live with it even if you went through the trouble of going to `about:config` to turn it off.
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As of Firefox 75, the new Megabar is now standard for all regular Firefox users. This has prompted another wave of negative feedback from Firefox users, including here. This isn't the first time, as people using the beta branches have gone through this process first. We've seen tons and tons of negative feedback, both here in this sub and elsewhere. [On Twitter, for example](https://twitter.com/search?q=firefox%20%20bar&src=typed_query&f=live)), or the [Firefox support forums](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/firefox?tagged=megabar&show=all), or on [Ars Technica](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/firefox-75-overhauls-the-browsers-address-bar/). (The only promoted comment? An `about:config` guide for turning off the new bar. [See how many negative comments there are.](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/firefox-75-overhauls-the-browsers-address-bar/?comments=1)) There's been so impressively much negative feedback that it's absolutely clear this isn't just the usual user annoyance at change.
Since then it's become clear that Mozilla is not prepared to listen to user feedback. Indeed, if they were, they'd have done so when people complained on their bug tracker—which they did, politely and eloquently, from the moment this Megabar landed in the experimental branches all the way through to today.
Their strategy seems to be to ignore all complaints until people just give up. There's a common UX fallacy that your new design is *always right*, and users who complain just "don't like change" regardless of what it is. This whole sub, a group of over 100,000 Firefox enthusiasts, has been dismissed as an "echo chamber" that's not worth paying attention to.
My problem with all this is that there's clearly a really deep lack of respect on the part of Mozilla's devs for their users. They don't seem to believe that users are capable of thinking rationally and giving valid feedback. I and others have tried—my concerns were basically ignored, largely not even substantively engaged with on the tracker. I asked what sort of system is in place for listening to user feedback, and how they would weigh that against their own internal UX people's views. I did not receive an answer.
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But when I saw how extremely unpopular these changes were among users, I believed this would make them pause and reflect. Surely, they can't just dismiss *all of us* as trolls? Unfortunately, that's exactly what they did.
Now that the option to turn off the new Megabar has been removed, they are basically saying that **our opinions are so worthless we're not even allowed to have an advanced option for this.**
For the past few days, we've seen that like 95% of the reactions to this change on this sub have been negative. **How is that not enough to keep at an advanced setting around, at the absolute least?**
[The bug removing the `update1` preference](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1627969) was even locked when users requested that it be kept.
**Mozilla, please show that you're better than this,** and allow us an option to keep this customization instead of forcing it down our throats. Firefox was always known as [the most customizable browser](https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/firefox/customizing-firefox/1/). One that gives users the power to fine-tune their browsing experience. Here we have **a deeply unpopular change with a large segment of your users**, that has been unpopular since it was introduced months ago.
*If nothing else, please allow us to customize this.*
In before locking and redirecting to the Megathread.
In 3, 2, 1…
>For the past few days, we’ve seen essentially 95% of users on this sub dislike the change.
Yeah, no. You’re saying 95.000 users have pointed out they dislike the megabar which is clearly not the case.
Reddit has a new polling feature. Might be worth to make a new post to ask people if they like/dislike the change.
This is extremely aggressive of them. Even Google would not delete a flag this quickly. I wonder what’s going on here, it’s not wise to do this because there’s always a small chance that there’s a serious bug in quantumbar and they would have to fall back to the old one. Does anyone know what’s going on here?
/r/thanksihateit
What’s a mega bar?
I’m out of the loop, megabar?
is it where megaman goes to drown the sorrows of killing thousands of robots?
Fuck this. I am going back to brave
I’ll be honest, I use the developer edition of Firefox so I already had this change for a while. Didn’t like it at first, but didn’t care enough to figure out how to disable it. I still don’t see why Mozilla thought this change was necessary, but I’m already used to it and it’s really not that bad tbh.
Well written. Why is Mozilla even being so stubborn and aggressive about this change, anyway? What a weird fight to pick with your userbase…
I’ve been meaning to join the “I hate it” club but haven’t been able to pay much attention this week so I’ll just say it sucks here.
I really hope the Firefox team learns from /r/amd when it comes to listening to user feed back. AMD released new drivers, things were broken, people complained. Like the Firefox team, there were a bunch of issues that went ignored. No mentions in ‘known bugs,’ no response from representatives on the subreddit, nothing.
Eventually, something clicked. Maybe it was all the bad press, maybe something changed internally. Either way, AMD started getting in deep with the community. Asking for repo steps for some common issues, replying to feedback (positive and negative).
The drivers are much improved now.
Mozilla listen to your users. We’re fans of what you’ve done, that’s why most of us are here. When you do something we don’t like, please listen. I get the ‘old’ address bar is full of old code you don’t want to maintain anymore, but that doesn’t mean there are features in there that aren’t worth porting over.
Let me customize what appears in the drop down. Why can’t I allow more items in the list? Why does disabling ‘top sites’ on the new tab screen get my dropdown back to where I’d love it to be?
This can work, just let it get there with our feedback.
Eh, the change isn’t that bad, certainly not deserving of all the hate and vitriol from some people on this sub. I like the clean design of the new bar. Now do I think it can be adjusted to better address the needs of some people on this sub? Yes, ***absolutely***. But demanding that the developers keep old, crufty, unmaintainable code around behind an about:config toggle is just being ignorant of software development in general.
I think one of the easiest ways to address some of the issues brought up in regards to the bookmarks toolbar is to just make the initial “zoom” on a new tab be a brief animation instead of being permanently expanded.
We do not need a preference to keep the old address bar. It’s being removed for good reason.
We do need preferences to make the new address bar behave in a reasonable way. All the things that people hate about it are things that should be possible to turn off.
damn they said all the comments against the bug removing the option to change it were abusive when they were no where near
” There’s a common UX fallacy that your new design is *always right*, and users who complain just “don’t like change” regardless of what it is. “, Ah yes, the Microsoft Metro theory.
Honestly, removing the update1 preferences is unavoidable. The old bar has a lot of legacy code that needs to be cleaned up. It’s not just a new design, it’s way more than that.
The right course of action for Mozilla is to listen to the feedback and change the design and behaviour of the new location bar appropriately. At least add a couple of preferences. Yes, it means more code to maintain. But given the negative feedback, I really do believe it’s worth it. The main goal was to get rid of the old code, so by all means, do that. But please don’t push the new design and behaviour onto people if it’s so abundantly clear they don’t like it.
You guys are asking for the wrong thing. You don’t want to old code to stay. You want the old **behavior**. So, what you are asking for should be a legacy mode that keeps the old behavior and design but implemented in the new tech. I don’t know all that much about programming but I think this should be fairly trivial.
Some neatness can be brought back with https://github.com/Aris-t2/CustomCSSforFx
Seriously if it wasn’t for the userchrome.css I wouldn’t even be using firefox anymore. With the addons bar and tabs below the navigation bar and multi-row tabs all is fine.
I love megabar.
Somehow I knew this would happen, but not this fast!
> https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/fxorxi/dear_mozilla_we_need_to_chat/fmvzhu5/
What’s the problem with the megabar? I don’t see it. Yes, it’s little different, so it messes with your muscle memory a bit, but apart from that?
[I’m using this CSS hack to remove it for now](https://old.reddit.com/r/FirefoxCSS/comments/fxez4e/remove_new_megabar_grow_shrink_effect/). Hope Mozilla at least don’t remove that too…
It’s just so jarring to use – especially when you use the compact theme.
If you try to please everyone you ultimately please no one.
Honestly, an address bar is an address bar, is still an address bar. I type in my address or my search term and I’m done. Those are all the features I really need or care about. Perhaps it isn’t as sexy as some of you caring about the size or other features I never knew about. It does exactly what I need and I suspect what most folks need too.
I don’t know if I am in the minority or the silent majority who doesn’t care enough to comment.
Had some success using files from https://github.com/Aris-t2/CustomCSSforFx , to toggle options on/off in the custom userchrome.css to fix the look back to what I liked.
Welcome to the Firefox where you can’t just fix this with an extension.
It’s fun watching how the same people who argued (and still argue!) that throwing out old extensions had been okay are later burned by the same disregard for their opinion.
And are suddenly surprised Pikachu.
https://imgur.com/s24Dxwp
I also don’t get what the big issue is with the new address bar…
I can still see the bookmark bar I have under it, I can still type urls and I can still use it for searches…
The drop down matches perfectly with my top sites lists that appear when I open a new tab.
Also what’s up with people saying this pushes you to Chrome? why a UI change would make you abandon the privacy goodies from Firefox?
Can someone point me to a legitimate functional issue with this change? Is it a OS specific thing? on my Win10 machine everything works as usual
The thing that gets me is… I don’t feel like the address bar needs to have a, “HEY I’M MR. ADDRESS BAR, LOOK AT ME!” style because *I’m already focused on it and intentionally clicked on it*. It’s redundant.
And if I opened a new tab, I may want to interact with the bookmarks bar that this stupid thing obscures.
I just want a text box to be a text box, y’know?
I hope Mozilla don’t underestimate the power of word of mouth. If your die hard fans (ie users of this sub) start spreading bad about your browser who is going to be left to upsell it?
I don’t mind the address bar too much – prefer the old one and so have changed it in about:config – but it ultimately doesn’t break the experience for me. However, there are those it does affect more and they should not be ignored. Mozilla aren’t in a strong enough market position to alienate core users
> My problem with all this is that there’s clearly a really deep lack of respect on the part of Mozilla’s devs for their users. They don’t seem to believe that users are capable of thinking rationally and giving valid feedback.
I’ve increasingly noticed this with Mozilla over the past 5 to 10 years. It is an unacceptable reality and they need to change their attitude regarding this.
I have to turn it off because it breaks my UserChrome theme, I don’t even care that much I just want consistency in themes, there’s no reason to not have a switch.
As always it’s the little things that tip people off the most.
I for one am NOT big on customization, at all…
I am very simple in my handeling with any software menu. The only change I have ever done with the Firefox settings is, to only let entrys from my bookmarks be displayed, which happens in order of the most visited.
Of the 9 “recommendations” only the first 4 are important:
* Google
* Youtube
* My Email provider
* my local gaming journalism website of choice
Originally I’d open a new tab, click the small down arrow on the right of the bar and pick were I want to go. Not the best way to do it, but my way.
Now there is now little arrow anymore and clicking the bar gets me 7 nonsensical results of:
* *search with Google* [which doesnt get you to Google, just adds a tag to the bar]
* *search with amazon* [which is the same shit]
* the gaming juornalist site [which I dont visit that often]
* reddit [where I am most of the time, but I got to reddit through google because I’m fucked up like that]
* my Email site [which is the only bookmarked site on this list]
* the Fandom wiki for CODBLOPS 4 [which I visited like twice 2 years ago]
…like what the fucking shit is this bloody mess of a clunky dayold roadkill.
I know I can just enter space to get the “real” results but it still shows the “*search with google*” thing on top, I mean seriously…
It shit is almost as rabid as my browsing habits.
My mind screams at me because the muscle memory doesnt match up and I am very, VERY, **VERY** salty about it.
ok the only thing preventing me to go back to chrome is the lack of content/ad blocker on their ios app. and i only want to use one browser across all my devices. but i guess id rather see ads than this megashitbar.. thanks for the past year firefox. its been a nice ride, but u guys turned out to be quite an ass. maybe someday when the megashitbar is gone, ill try again
They are working SO hard to remove my option to continue using Firefox…
What exactly is the difference between the old and the new?
mozilla has been fucking up urlbar for a long time.
that why i upgrade ff once or twice a year.
Firefox fork when?
> Surely, they can’t just dismiss all of us as trolls? Unfortunately, that’s exactly what they did.
They flat out treat you like you kicked their dog. It’s unprofessional and cringey.
Friendship ended with Firefox, Brave is my new browser
I don’t know who came up with the go-go-gadget-extendo-bar but don’t let them make anymore design choices.
i’m not extremely shocked at the declining UX and features of firefox. i am amazed by the surgical precision with which mozilla has been destroying key advantages of firefox for the last few years
Reminds me of how the GNOME project go about their UI changes and decisions as well. Like it or get lost.
I remember way way back when Firefox users were asked to donate so they could put full page ads in a newspaper here in the UK. It seems that all that is forgotten and the usual “fuck you” attitude when an organisation forgets its roots has taken over.
I’m just going to risk the downvotes and say I’ve already got used to it. It would be nice if it respected your density preferences, but other than that, it works and looks fine.
I don’t mind the look of it, the issue I have is that I specifically disabled having history in the address bar when I click it for privacy reasons if I’m sharing my screen and what-not. With the new update, it seems to ignore that completely and show titles of websites that I’ve recently opened. Is there a way, without disabling the new megabar, to actually disable the expansion information?
I suddenly became unable to access two of my most used sites with one click, while two I use less frequently were still there. My wife’s most used url no longer worked with one click, it only got entered in the adress bar and required a second click.
I was going to use the about: feature to reconfigure it but since that is being removed, I’ve used an alternative method.
Fortunately, System Restore had set a new restore point on both machines a few days before this so called update so I simply used that to remove version 75 and to revert to the previous version of Firefox. Then I disabled automatic updates and we’re back to our previous unbroken versions of Firefox. The only problem is the pop up advocating to “update” to the new broken version but I’m ignoring that for the foreseeable future. I make take another look at Vivaldi, I tried that a year or two ago and thought it looked quite good but I would have to forego some of the Firefox add ons I use all the time. I’ll have to balance out which is the easiest to use overall.
>If nothing else, please allow us to customize this.
It is too late. The user base had allow mozilla to get away with “we are removing old code” for all the nonsense they are doing ever since the oh so fast quantum. In fact, I saw someone [suggests](https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/fylghw/since_people_love_the_megabar_heres_a_preview_of/fn3bo6z/) that he read it somewhere else in this sub that ONCE AGAIN, it is the omnipotent legacy code in play. Well, or lack of. Somehow, without legacy code, the urlbar is doom to become a shitty mega bar. Most software that I know receive better features when climbing the version number, but only firefox seems to be undergoing regression.
~~I am not sure how long, but at the very least, it is at least more than 2 years, and what did mozilla show us with all the changes they are doing? Mozilla shows us that they don’t actually understand what the user base want, since all the “improvements” to the browser is DRIVING THE USER BASE DOWN, and not up. I am not sure if anyone can actually convince me that doing something right will result in continuously losing users.~~
~~Maybe it is just me with all the blocking of ads+script and/or being light user, but there was never ever an obvious increase in speed for firefox. In the end, even if firefox did speed up, it is definitely a **MINOR** speed up at the trade off of performance efficiency. ie All the laptop heating up/fan getting noisy when using firefox complaints, these definitely doesn’t show up out of nowhere.~~
~~Even whatsapp can get a proper dark mode. What does mozilla feel is important? Ah yes messing around and making the UI looking more and more ugly, esp by enlarging things, instead of shipping out an ACTUAL DARK MODE. /endrant~~
Feature creep. I thought Firefox was better than this.
Expect GIGAbar in 76 release
/u/harry-mozilla
I came to this subreddit to find out how to disable it, lo and behold.
Yeah I’m not a fan of it and I just want to search with my actual search bar on the side.
Is there anything else we can do? This change will actually see me switching to another web browser and I hate to say that. Would not updating be an option?
Man I was ready to dig in and support Firefox to stop the web monoculture, but with this kind of decisions from the big brains at Mozilla, it’s time for me to fold.
I hate the new “mega” bar, I found the best option, that doesn’t require any major changes, is to go to the customize screen. Then at the bottom there is a drop down selection box for density. Select “compact”. For me the bar has returned to what appears to be normal behavior.
Would love some word from the devs??? How much user feedback would be enough to merit that??
There’s got to be more to this than an aesthetic.
The bar has been engineered for a purpose of some sort or another, that’s not been made clear to us users.
I think most of us are looking at it as an aesthetic change, and while that’s true, I think there’s more to it than that.
I’m of the opinion, that the increased size and the animation are there to provide a new stronger focus on the bar itself for some purpose that is unknown to us so far.
I’ll speculate that it’s there to provide for the users an overall impetus to use the bar for searching, INSTEAD of search provider input boxes… on the site we’re visiting.
I think… Mozilla is trying to push us to use the bar more and the regular search boxes less.
I’m only speculating, so don’t get the pitchforks out… ok?
So, if this is the case, the question would be WHY? Is it because it will be easier for Grandma? Probably not.
Can they garner information from the users while using the bar that they can’t or don’t get when we use a regular website search box?
**That’s my real question. What can FF/Mozilla gain from us using the mega-bar ??**
As an aside… “Mega-bar” is a terrible term. As if our web browser is the online equivalent of the meat counter at the Golden Corrall.
> lack of respect on the part of Mozilla’s devs for their users
Not the developers. The UX designers, which aren’t developers.
\>The bug removing the update1 preference was even locked when users requested that it be kept.
Ah, but it’s silly Marco Bonardo striking again! Not at all surprised.
If Mozilla removes the classic bar, I’m leaving Firefox. Plain and simple. Tired of the browser being watered down from what it used to be. I *like* customization. I *want* to be able to tune the browser how I like. I’m tired of every update to the browser breaking my userChrome file – what’s the point of having it if they won’t stop changing things and forcing me to change their stupid decisions? At this point, losing customization just makes Firefox inferior to other options, so I might as well switch.
Why does Mozilla kill its browser? People are not fools. They just end up moving to Waterfox, Palemoon or similar.
I tried hard to like the new mega bar, or at least tolerate it. It’s just not going to happen. It’s been over a month, and I’ve finally turned it off. If the options and workarounds stop working with some future update, I’m not going to bother turning up a bug report at mozilla. I’ll just figure out what other browser gives me similar features, and move on.
Good luck Mozilla. It was nice while it lasted.