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Comment by cecexacjrgec

6 hours ago

Not only that, but general colours are system-like but offputtingly different (dark theme is different from Mac dark theme just enough to be unsettling). Spacing (padding, margins, etc) is uneven on a lot of options, toggles and fields. Swipe back/forth being a simple arrow on the corner of the screen instead of full page swipe (like Safari) in the year of our lord 2026 is a complete disgrace (yes, chrome does this too, yes chrome also sucks). Press CMD+F and just watch as a search bar that hasn’t been updated to modern visuals in about 20 years pops up at the bottom. Pretty much everything around Firefox feels like a random collection of Windows and Linux behavioural patterns mashed together like a digital Frankenstein monster.

And despite what many people here like to think: these things matter. UX improvements compound exponentially, and so do UX problems. Firefox has an opportunity here to be a first-class citizen on every OS it runs on. It has the opportunity to be the browser that respects your OS choices no matter what, but alas, Firefox seems rather content carrying its “ah yeah I remember using it back in ‘06” reputation.

Firefox is not a bad browser by any means, but it feels like Firefox is the browser equivalent of the “how do you do fellow kids” meme. An out-of-time experience pretending to blend in under the guise of “AI”.

Most of those are subjective details and vary from platform to platform. Fine adjustments for each platform isn't guaranteed to attract many people to Firefox either. After all, the UI/UX of Firefox is good even if it isn't excellent. Factors such as convenience (e.g. familiarity or being pre-installed) are likely bigger factors. That said, I will grant you that things like the visibility of the find bar is poor.

It is also worth noting that the macOS UI/UX isn't anywhere near perfect. It is a hodgepodge of design decisions that go back to the origin of OS X or, in a few cases, the origin of the Macintosh iitself. Padding and margins may help achieve visual balance, but it's Windows management paradigm is an absolute functional mess.