Is a title bar really necessary, though? The vast majority of the time, the exact same sentence is repeated again in the page as a h1. More prominently. With better styling. When I have the browser open, the favicon and the few characters on the tab are usually enough to figure out what the page is, and when it's minimized, the text shows up in the taskbar and alt+tab... I'm curious, what's missing?

It's often repeated again in the page as a H1, but that's only visible if you're scrolled to the top of the page. If you're part-way down a long HN discussion and want to quickly double-check what the topic was again, where do you look?

I have three tabs open, all of which begin with the title of the site. How do I distinguish which is which?

How does having the page title in the title bar help with that, though? It only shows the full title of the currently selected tab, but can't you usually tell which tab that is from its content?

No, not if they're all the same website. Take 3 comment pages on hacker news, for example, you'd have to look around the page for context to know which was which if you had several open at once.

Use a tab manager add on like Tab Mix Plus. It is the first thing I install on any new installation of FF. You can rename tabs or set a minimum width to see more of the title.

Plus numerous other customizations.

When the solution to a problem that nearly every user will have is, "Use an add-on", then that's clearly a time when the design/dev team should go back and re-think their implementation. I can see the phone calls now, "Yes, mom - you need to go install an add-on. What's an add-on? Well, maybe they call it an extension - depends which screen you're on. What's an extension?" Ugh - awful idea.

And then you end up with the old Netscape Communicator suite, until someone wants a "fast" minimal browser, maybe by moving some of the features out of the main browser into extensions....

It's the circle of life!

recently sites seem to be inverting the useful info to the beginning of the title, but this is still a problem. Especially considering that even when you only have a few tabs, the space given for the title is way too small (at least in Chrome, firefox is better about it)

Why do you have to "figure it out" when it can easily just be made clear. This is one of the reasons why I am very sceptical of the Chrome trend towards absolute minimalism.

How about letting the user decide?

I find myself installing addons to cut or move parts of the UI back to where it was when I was used to it. Starting with the location bar ending with status bars. Additional fumbling around in the config became the normal thing to do after an major update...

I know it's nice if your are the developer and you can force stuff on your users because most of them can't do anything about it and will accept it in the end but remember one thing: you will cross a border for another part of your custormers and then somebody will come up with something new just because you forced us and then you'll lose customers.

The reason why X Windows was so much more popular than Mac OS X or MS Windows was because it was so configurable, right?

As a matter of good design, configuration options should be used very sparingly. Yes they diversify the UX, but they also diversify the UX! Some decisions just have to be "made," like losing the title bar.

> you will cross a border for another part of your customers and then somebody will come up with something new just because you forced us and then you'll lose customers.

If the overall design is good, the customers loss are negligible vs. the customers gained. No one bothers chasing the miniscule emacs market.

It's more of a case of good defaults vs bad defaults. When 90% of your customers will never know how to change the defaults (or never like your system enough in the first place to bother) then being served up something weird by default doesn't help your popularity.

I think that is why Firefox is ditching the title bar. It just seems weird now (but I've been using Chrome for way too long).

But configurability is not on many consumer wish lists. Ya, power users love to have it there way, but most consumers just want a good experience out of the box.

I went away from software because of that for so many times. I can't remember the names of the software of companies anymore. I'm pretty sure they are not there anymore.

Sure YOU say the decision to make something go MUST be done. You don't even bring a reason for it here. I don't see it. Why does it HAVE to be made? Is the title bar going to be forbidden or something? Is it banned in some countries? I don't understand. I don't understand even more why I shouldn't have the CHOICE to make such irrelevant decision by myself. Why not? Give me at least one real reason...

Most of the time (like here) I have the feeling we are in some kind of Fashion Show. Some design guru decides: this will be like that now. All the big fashin designers jump on the train. But the fact remains that people on the street won't dress like that...and sure you push it here and there through the discounters and you may reach a mass where it becomes a thing. But initaly nobody wanted that. It may be even a worse kind of clothing. It may be a shoe that hurts your leg muscels in the end but nobody is interested in that because it is Fashion.

I see it the same way here. Don't take me wrong. I appriciate changes that are useful. I appriciate it even more if there are options but I don't see any reason to force Fashion moves on me in software.

A word on Win8? Nah I guess you already know ;)

@X Windows: are you kidding me? Do you want to start a discussion about marketing methods now and then? I guess you've just missed the point on that one. I can sell you the most ugly crap software if I have the money or the right marketing strategy but it has nothing to do with the topic.

I find I sometimes need to right click my title bar on Linux, to do things like move my window to another workspace. And other window functions, I have to have it on with Chrome.

I'd actually rather there was a simple meta key in each application, that you could use to just show you the vital data about a page. Meta data in webpages can be human readable - title, author, summary etc. How about an overlay? And how about have this for every app? Looking at an image - activate meta key, to see copyright info etc, listening to a tune, activate meta key to see tag info etc. Far better than hiding it under some menu item and distant properties tab.

Opera has an info bar, but it's not that user friendly.

That doesn't particulary address whether the title is necessary, it's great for window management, using windows instead of tabs. But you'll need a good window manager. I'd rather windows than tabs - though I fear that Opera introduced tabs as they were cheap windows more than anything else.

Your absolutely correct in my mind. I get more from the favicon then anything else, and since moving to Linux and losing the title bar I have not found myself missing it or lost.

That's one of the things I despise about Chrome... plus the fact that it doesn't have a title bar at all. They taking exactly the things that make Chrome less usable to me and putting them in Firefox. /sigh

It's right there in the settings: (in Chrome)

Settings > Appearance > "Use system title bar and borders".

edit: clarified I meant Chrome.

Not on Windows :/

Not on my Mac. Am I missing something?

It is available on Chromium (Linux)

What are you missing on your Mac? It has the system title bar, the system-provided x, -, and + buttons, and (on my Mountain Lion, at least), the system-provided full-screen button in the top-right. What more could there be?

> What more could there be?

A full height title bar with the title of the current tab in it that I can use to drag the window around. Having to precisely aim my mouse pointer in order to drag my window is extremely annoying.

[Replying here due to HN's threading limits. This is in response to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5825892]

Anyway, I fail to see a significant difference between Finder and Chrome's appearance: http://i.imgur.com/sgfMXOy.png

If Chrome was full of tabs, the ~20px area to drag the window around is arguably a bit small, but it'd look ridiculous if there was a huge margin above the tabs.

I read about people who like their tabs on the left, because they have so many. Opera allows this AFAIK.

But why do you think the Firefox tab placement is better?

If you get tab happy, tabs are really difficult to navigate in Firefox without and extension, and I've tried most of the popular tab extensions - and have yet to find anything I like (that works without some bug).

Chrome and Opera squeeze the tabs, but list them all, whereas Firefox forces a scroll after so many, which feels horrible. Also Opera has let's you list and switch open tabs with CTRL+TAB, or lets you reposition your tabs.

Really though managing tabs should be left to the window manager. Otherwise you just get inconsistant behaviour between applications.

That's when the title comes into it's own.

> Chrome and Opera squeeze the tabs, but list them all, whereas Firefox forces a scroll after so many, which feels horrible. Also Opera has let's you list and switch open tabs with CTRL+TAB, or lets you reposition your tabs.

I use this tiny add-on, written by one of the main Firefox front end developers: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/custom-tab-wi...

It makes Firefox have the Chrome behavior of making tabs shrink infinitely. All it does it tweak one minor setting in the UI, so it's pretty bulletproof.

Thanks for that! Actually it still introduces the scroller at some point, but is slightly better.

Ah, but unlike Chrome, in Firefox, you can configure your client to look exactly like it did before. I know this is extra work for you (and me), but I guess it might work better for the vast majority of users.

The new ui update has the specific goal of reducing configurability, so new users dont get "confused".

Such changes include the inability to edit any of the UI except a row of buttons on the top left, shockingly just like chrome!. I'm sure these changes will help focus their design vision, or something.

So in short, no, you wont be able to configure your client to look exactly like it did before.

It seems that too many times I have to install a plugin to revert some design decision I don't like. This sounds like one of those times.

The day the customizability of FF is removed will be a sad day for me. Hopefully someone will create a fork.

Like disabling Tabs on Top?

Just as in Sublime Text (and even with a proper titlebar), I really dislike those Chrome-y tabs. They take too much real estate for my taste.

Lion scrollbars finally landed on Aurora and I was hoping to move back to Firefox again when it would land in Beta. The move towards consistency with the platform was very welcome around Fx4. Now, striving for uniformity, they make it feel foreign again.

Here's the agenda: Firefox as a brand has to grow and make a show of itself. Indeed the Chromification goes much deeper than simply tab looks: as the OS is relegated to a platform/hypervisor, the browser becomes an OS in itself, so that Firefox OS makes sense for people. They're moving to make phones, which will soon call for services (unless they plan to rely solely on third parties such as WhatsApp). Mozilla's product may increasingly end up looking like yet another vertically integrated software platform.

I'd like Firefox to give me back the ability to choose "full screen" and have it make the web page itself fill the screen from corner to corner, with no "chrome" (no title bar, no tabs, no menu bar, no URL bar, etc.)

It used to be possible to use Firefox on Mac OS X to do a presentation with HTML and have the web page, and only the web page, fill the whole screen. (It was an option in the "View" menu.) That feature disappeared several versions ago, and now if you want to use it, you have to switch to Chrome.

I have the Full Screen option in the latest version, on Ubuntu and I don't remember a time when it wasn't there. It's still in the "View" menu. I just press F11, the default shortcut.

Furthermore, Firefox implements the HTML5 Fullscreen API, which gives the ability to websites themselves to request the full-screen mode, with a dialog pop-up that allows you to either deny, or to temporarily or permanently give this privilege to a website: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/DOM/Using...

So basically your full-screen HTML presentation can load in full-screen mode by itself, without the user having to make an explicit View action for it.

I find it hard to believe that you don't have it. If it's true, maybe it's a problem on OS X that will likely get fixed.

The fullscreen API works fine. A website can display itself without any other clutter on the screen (with user permission). Unfortunately, it is no longer possible for a user on Mac OS X to cause the switch to fullscreen. The view menu (Firefox 21.0, for example, on OS X) still offers an "Enter Full Screen" menu item. Unfortunately, all it does is hide some of the chrome (it hides the menu bar and the title bar), leaving other bars (tabs, URL) still cluttering the screen.

It has been this way for a couple of years, if I recall correctly, and it is only a "feature" on OS X. Nothing is being done to change it, AFAIK.

I just tried this on Nightly and the chrome that's left behind (tabs + URL) slide up and out of the way within half a second of entering full screen mode, leaving nothing but the webpage on the screen. Are you sure that this isn't happening for you?

Works great on Linux, but that feature is totally absent on OS X.

I'm using this add-on in the meantime, but it has other issues: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/old-lion-full...

Yes, I'm quite sure. On OS X, I can get real full screen with Chrome, and I can get it with Firefox if the website itself initiates it. But the "full screen" in the View menu removes half of the chrome and leaves the other half. Useless.

It turns out I'm not the only one complaining. It has been a known issue since at least early 2012. Apparently, some of us think full screen should mean FULL screen. Nobody at Mozilla is working on it: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=740148

You might need to enable the "hide toolbar" option, which can be accessed by right clicking the toolbar in the right place while in full screen. I'm unsure if this option is available on OSX.

I appreciate your making the effort to help. Unfortunately, as you suspected, it's not an option on OSX.

Works for me, as the other commenter stated.

In addition I'm running the Tree Style Tabs addon, which moves all tabs to the left. While I look at a full screen Firefox I can move the mouse to the left side of the screen and the list of tabs will show up -> There's no way to get better screen estate usage, imo.

People are always complaining about existing features being lost.

"I am not using firefox again until they reinstate the back button!"

I see this kind of stuff on reddit and slashdot all the time. Is it some sort of FUD campaign against Firefox?

Click view > Enter Fullscreen

You can also use F11, unless you set OSX to high-jack that button. You can also use the fullscreen button in the top right corner on lion versions of OSX.

I still see the bar with the address and search fields, and associated buttons to the left and right. They don't seem to go away. This is on OSX.

The OSX fullscreen button does the same thing, leaving me with chrome up top.

The window titlebar doesn't make sense in every application. In this case, the title is already displayed on the tab. Showing it in two areas that are very close to each other is just redundant.

On Windows Vista, 7, and 8, explorer does not have a titlebar since the location breadcrumb trail makes more sense. On OS X, iTunes and the App Store also do not have titlebars, favoring other ways to show information that makes more sense in the context of the app.

Tabs are a bit too small to display much useful info though. A page yes, but which song is playing - already too wide. It would be a major improvement if tabs became about twice as wide by default, only shrinking on demand (like they already do).

My tabs are all way too small to read the title.

Perhaps because you have an excessive amount open?

The page title hasn't been shown on the window chrome for some time on Windows. I don't remember when it changed, but Firefox's UI hasn't changed for a little while.

Previously, the titlebar would be shown if you enabled the menubar.

> the rest of the new UI is fine. The seemingly inexorable chrome-ification is just wrong.

I didn't see it in the linked article, but what happens when I do Alt-V, z, r in the new UI (to pick one at random) to reset the zoom level? Will the rest of my memorized shortcuts cease working?

Now if only they would copy the separate master process (Heck, put all the renderers in one process, I don't care) so I can move tabs around without waiting five seconds per tab.