Thank you for trying the new Firefox. I'm sorry that you’re unhappy with the new design.

Firefox is a work in progress and your feedback is very important to us. Our support community is run by volunteers (like me) who work hard to help all Firefox users, but we can’t make changes to the design ourselves. Please help us improve Firefox by leaving feedback where the designers and engineers can see it: https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/feedback.

The interface you see in Firefox 29 is a major re-design (first one since Firefox 4) of Firefox's user interface called "Australis."

Or if you want to go back to a previous version, completely feel free to use the old, unsupported, and insecure versions of Firefox. Please remember that this puts your machine and personal data at an increased risk. You may then wish to mitigate that by having well rehearsed bare metal restore strategies or using a virtual machine.

• See also Install an older version of Firefox

Note: I won't provide a link to any previous versions since I'd be offering a less secure and outdated version of Firefox, however, the previous versions are available for download by doing a quick Google search. Please remember to be wary of what sites you download from as they may advertise Firefox 22 for example and package it as a Beta, RC, or other pre-release version and may have malware/adware or other unwanted items.

Uh guys i made sure on my other computers to check for updates but not install them and it still installed this update. needless to say im kind of a little mad here.

will doing system restore revert this process?

Like you I don't like 29. I went' back to 27 SUCCESSFULLY! here's how.

1. Download the version you want at edit Please use Install an older version of Firefox that contains advice AND links to older versions. ~J99 2. Make sure you download the full setup, not the install stem that goes back to the Internet. 3. Disable your NIC (network card in System > Device Manager). 4. Install the version you want. 5. *** start FF, go to Tools > Options > Advanced > Update and turn OFF the auto update. If you miss this step it will always update to the latest version. 6. Close FF. 7. Enable your NIC.

You now have an older version that is stable. As for the security issues, in my mind, the flaws in FF 29 are worse than any potential problem I might get through my firewall, virus, malware, and ad checkers. I'll protect my self with what I want, thank you.

MajorFoley:

Using System Restore will not likely revert the install. If you wish to keep updates gone, follow my directions below: There was a previous way by going through the Options menu to disable updates (this was suggested by drkenrich) but after disabling it through there, when you would go to Help > About Firefox, it would update regardless of that setting.

You can set these prefs in about:config to disable automatic updating:
app.update.auto - false
app.update.enabled - false
app.update.silent - false

Another thing to do would be to go into about:config again and set these prefs to blank. Right click > Modify > delete existing > OK.

• app.update.url
• app.update.url.details
• app.update.url.manual

Moses, Thank you for leading us in the desert :-).

I appreciate the about:config suggestions. I checked my own and the last three I changed as you suggested. This has been a very sore issue with me for sometime and I do appreciate it. I very much like Firefox and would rather use an older version than a brand new something else.

drkenrich,

I understand how frustrating it is when some of your favorite programs get an overall. I hated the Office 2003 > Office 2007 change. Quite recently when Ubuntu replaced Gnome2 with Unity. I actually enjoy Unity very much now. It's wicked fast and super slick.

MajorFoley: Did you still need assistance or did my answer solve your problem?

By the way, to the both of you, very sorry about the delay. Sometimes other contributors catch up on old threads but then sometimes they don't. We're trying hard here. Most of the contributors are from all around the world and we're volunteers. So be patient and calm with us when submitting further questions

Sorry havent been on in a while. That moses comment was cool :D

Anyway, system restore DOES work, i did it with 2 of my computers and it did revert with all my tabs in tact. Unfortunately i cannot do it with the laptop because the day of the system restore vanished because it only stored 2 restore points at a time :(

Ok so i still need to revert back to what im using now version 28. Also i found out when you turn off updates in firefox's options you should also untick "use a background service to install firefox updates." So how would i revert back to version 28 while keeping my tabs in tact?

Bringing up tabs is there an app or something for firefox thats similar to google chrome's session buddy (it lets you save multiple sessions at a time and open up and your leisure to prevent it hogging resources)

This would all be so simple if they let you decide to choose between the new interface and the old one via a dropbox option or something, i dont see why so many people dont think of that, i guess it would be a pain to add that kinda feature though.

MajorFoley

Thanks for responding.

  Ok so i still need to revert back to what im using now version 28. Also i found out when you turn off updates in firefox's options you should also untick "use a background service to install firefox updates." So how would i revert back to version 28 while keeping my tabs in tact?

IMO, the "Check for updates" option in the Options window doesn't work for me. I have set all app.update.url prefs to a blank value in order to work as a test. Please note that downgrading is not a recommended solution that is approved by Mozilla. You are doing this on your own. As for backing up your tabs, your open tabs are saved in the sessionrestore.js file in your Firefox profile folder

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox

Continuing, You could just make a copy of that file, uninstall the current Firefox via Control Panel (important: Do NOT check mark the box to remove your current settings.) Once you've removed Firefox 29, simply download the Firefox 28 version using the Install an older version of Firefox link, download, install, and copy your sessionrestore.js file into the Firefox profile folder before opening it.

  Bringing up tabs is there an app or something for firefox thats similar to google chrome's session buddy (it lets you save multiple sessions at a time and open up and your leisure to prevent it hogging resources) 

Session Manager seems like a good alternative

• https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/session-manager/

  This would all be so simple if they let you decide to choose between the new interface and the old one via a dropbox option or something, i dont see why so many people dont think of that, i guess it would be a pain to add that kinda feature though.

Please note that for users who do not like the Australis interface. they have reverted back using various addons which are located in the How to make the new Firefox look like the old Firefox article.

If this is all you need, please mark the solution. IF you have any further questions, please let me know.

I personally feel that the look and feel of 29 and up is ineffective and frankly kind of ugly. I have a much easier time moving stuff around as I want in 28, which doesn't try to be so distracting in its color scheme and the like. I use Windows XP at the moment, though I will be getting a win7 machine at some point, and I'm saving up for a mac. Why don't you use the new features of 29 and up with the look, feel, and old customization that we had in 28? Honestly, just trying to customize the menu bar alone is a hassle in 29 and 30, and even classic theme restorer does nothing to help. Is it possible to take a look back and see what 28 did right and then find a way to make it possible for people to choose whether or not they want the look and feel (and apparent lack of customization of the menu bar and such) of the newer versions or the look and feel of 28 with the features being implemented in 29-30 and up? I think if we had that ability to have the old setup and look, just with the new features, more people would be willing to take a chance on it. As it is, I can't stand 29 or 30 and went right back to 28. I would prefer to use 28 if at all possible, and so am sticking with it until a solution is found.

You can look at the Classic Theme Restorer extension to restore some functionality that was lost with the arrival of the Australis style in Firefox 29.

• Classic Theme Restorer: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/

• You can check out the settings of the CTR extension via its Options/Preferences button on the "Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions" page.
• You can find extra toolbar buttons and more toolbar settings in Customize (3-bar Firefox menu button > Customize)

In current Firefox releases (29 and later), that have have the Australis user interface, the orange Firefox menu button has been replaced by the three-bar Firefox Menu button at the far right end of the Navigation Toolbar and this button is always visible, whether you have the menu bar visible or hidden
A consequence of this location is that you no longer can hide the Navigation Toolbar

• There is a star like button next to the search bar on the Navigation Toolbar to bookmark the current web page and a "Show your bookmarks" button next to it to open the Bookmarks in a drop down menu.
  You can find "Show All Bookmarks" to open the Bookmarks Manager (Library) at the bottom of this drop-down list
• If you bookmark a page then "Bookmark This Page" in the Bookmarks menu changes to "Edit This Bookmark"
• You can make the title bar visible via the "Title Bar" button at the bottom left in the Customize palette window

It is still possible to have the menu bar visible via the right-click context menu of a toolbar to have menus like the File menu with Print (Ctrl+P) and Print Preview and the Bookmarks menu available.

See also:

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/how-to-make-new-firefox-look-like-old-firefox
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/common-questions-after-updating-to-new-firefox
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/learn-more-about-the-design-of-new-firefox

I'm more concerned about the fact that the interface for 29 and up doesn't seem to allow proper customization of the menu bar. For example, trying to choose which buttons on the bar go where seems to be a complete crapshoot. If it were possible, I could email screenshots to show what I'm talking about. is there a means to do that? I've been trying to find an email address to send this information to for awhile now. I am currently on a library computer and the screenshots aren't on this machine to send them, however I have them on my old desktop at home.

Marc,

You can upload screenshots right into this forum thread by using the Add images: Browse ... right below the Post a Reply textarea.

It is best to use a compressed image type like PNG or JPG to save the screenshot and make sure that you do not exceed a maximum file size of 1 MB.

Okay, sorry it took so long for me to do this. But here's the screen shots. The first one, situated on the left side of the screen, is a screenshot of Firefox 30 with classic theme restorer used. The second is of firefox 28. Both were taken on a windows 8 machine, but act the same way on my windows XP machine, which is why I reverted to 28 on it.

As you can see, attempting to make changes to the navigation bar results in a bizarre situation in which no matter what I do, I cannot get the home button anywhere on the bar near where it should be. Nor was I able to move the reload/stop buttons out of the address bar The image of firefox 28 shows how the configuration should look. With the forward and back buttons on the far left side, followed by reload/stop, home, and in my case the noscript icon, followed by the address bar. No matter what I tried to do, version 30 refused to allow my button configuration to be used. I have no idea why. But it's a major issue for me since the customization is supposed to be easy and shouldn't be causing this kind of fuss. This is why I went back to 28. It may not be new and fancy, but at least I can arrange it the way I want it. Plus there's no annoying orange button.

Did you check the Options/Preferences of the Classic Theme Restorer extension in "Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions"?

That should give you a separate Back and Forward button in the Customize palette, so you can place items after them.

• "3-bar" Firefox menu button > Customize
• View > Toolbars > Customize

I have now. It seems to work, but this was done as a test on the windows 8 machine. I dunno if it will work properly on Windows XP. There's also an odd change in that the reload/stop icons are now two separate buttons when I use the options instead of one button like they are in version 28.

You need to reverse the order of the Reload and Stop button to make them combine because the CSS code checks the order.

• Set the order to "Reload - Stop" to get a combined "Reload/Stop" button.
• Set the order to "Stop - Reload" or separate them otherwise (Space or Separator) to get two distinct buttons.

That's what I did. I put the reload button in first and then the stop button. It still came up as two separate buttons.

Sorry. It need to be the reverse in current releases and you need to place a tick in the box in the CTR extension Options/Preferences window at the bottom right.

• [X] Combine stop & reload buttons
  Toolbar: place reload button after stop button!

I am currently using Firefox 32.0.3 now on my Windows XP machine and I hate the look and find it difficult to navigate customizing the thing. It took fifteen minutes to set everything up to even come close to resembling what I used to have. Even with the Classic Theme Restorer it is horrendous. Will Firefox be able to restore the look and feel of 28.0? I would appreciate it if the next update went back to the classic settings and appearance as a default. The only reason I updated was due to supposed vulnerabilities in 28.0, otherwise I would never have upgraded. And as it is, I am seriously considering returning to 28.0 as it is, because honest to God, I cannot stand this thing. I wish I had a screenshot of how it used to look to show as a comparison to how it looks now.

Actually, by sheer luck, I found I do have a screenshot of how it used to be. I'm adding it to this, and also adding a screenshot of how 32.0.3 looks. This, combined with the fact that customizing firefox didn't open an entirely separate window just to adjust the toolbars and the like makes me wonder why such massive changes were made. I'm glad classic theme restorer restores the squared tabs, of course, but why install rounded tabs, or that annoying orange button to begin with? Why make it look so different from what everyone already knew and liked? Anyway, the screenshots are shown below. You'll notice that in the one marked youtube screenshot, everything looked natural and didn't have any difference in coloration between the menu button and the icons bar and said icons bar did not require me to go into a convoluted and confusing 'customize' menu that had icons in it I did not understand) and have to find the stop and reload icons (which I have since done) and put them ON the icons bar to use it. The older URL bar would have a star on it that would show you if you had the site bookmarked. The current version doesn't. And that's WITH the classic theme restorer in place. Seriously, why didn't Firefox just take what was already there and simply fix the issues instead of making such massive changes to the entire setup that would require the existence of a 'classic theme restorer' to begin with?