That is the new Australis themed user interface. There is no accommodation for reverting to the old interface, other than via an add-on.

That is quite unfortunate to hear. Was this new Australis theme really necessary functionally? Is it not possible to just scrap this theme manually?

Mozilla felt it was necessary to create a user interface that was the same for both mobile and desktop versions of Firefox.
No, but it can be modified with Classic Theme Restorer extension, and with selected bits of userChrome.css or Stylish user styles.

What a speedy reply. And thanks very much for the tip.

See also:

• [/questions/976166] change find bar back

Firefox has, without warning, updated itself on my PC to version 29. If I had known that Mozilla were going to mess the UI up like that, I would have disabled the updates. Lesson learned; updates disabled (on Thunderbird, too - just in case).

Mozilla, the new UI is AWFUL, just [expletive] AWFUL. Why did you have to do that? Now I have to spend a lot of time either trying to re-install version 28 (and disabling the update doubleplusquick), or mucking about with the classic UI add-on (or extension). WHY MESS YOUR USERS ABOUT LIKE THIS?????? Just beacuse it looks 'modern' doesn't make it good! Making a program smartphone-friendly at the cost of the desktop version is asking for disaster (just ask Microsoft)!!

Suggest you release a version 30 asap pdq with a simple tick-box to revert to the v28-like UI for your normal users who don't want to have to put up with this silly new designer interface.

Did you try the extension that I posted about 5 months ago in this thread?

The Classic Theme Restorer? Yes, I have, and after a hour playing around with it, I was able to fix pretty much everything. A title bar, the address box in line with menu items and bookmark items, rectangular tabs etc. Quite a clever little extension* - but one that should not have been neccessary if Mozilla hadn't messed things up in the first place.

• Pity it's not available for Thunderbird.....

Dogmatix, You should still allow updates in Thunderbird as the Thunderbird is doing updates in a ESR fashion due to the much more limited development compared to Firefox so the releases are still based on Thunderbird 24.0 as the current now is 24.5.0

No significant changes are ever done in such updates except for security and allowed stability bug fixes.

http://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/thunderbird.html

I believe that the user requested a solution that didn't require spending hours with (yet another) add-on to attempt to get your old look and feel back. I don't have an issue with you presenting a new concept for a UI but acceptance of it should be up to the user and NOT forced down our throats. If you want to show your new flashy interface OK, but give us the option to "EASILY" revert back to the one we like if we wish. The current add-on is not intuitive as to how we get back to the UI that we had! Please stop ignoring the wishes of your users.

Firefox doesn't care about anybody or what its users think. Consider them AOL, they'll do what ever the hell they want to do even if it's shooting themselves in the foot (eventually killing it self off, just like AOL).

Firefox is the current name (third one) of the web browser and not a company as that would be Mozilla ;)

@ Reiden
Sadly there are no other option then to use add ons with FF29 to get an older look back.
Maybe this is something for you? https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/997039
With those 4 simple add ons you get the look as shown on this screenshot.

Locking thread.

• Age (almost 6 months old, should be archived pretty soon?)
• OP's question was solved

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