Mozilla Firefox: Proton and Skeleton UI

After Australis and Photon it will be Proton's turn. The latter is the code name of the new Firefox interface that Mozilla will introduce in the future. The Techdows site has spotted some mockups with changes that users will be able to see in the Nightly versions of the browser. Another novelty, called Skeleton UI, should arrive only on Windows 10.

Mozilla Firefox: Proton interface

Based on the references found on Bugzilla, the restyling will cover various elements of the interface , including the address bar, tab bar, and toolbar. A new wizard will also be introduced for importing bookmarks, history and passwords.

The New Tab page will also change. Users will be able to use new settings for personalization, such as the choice of theme, background and number of sites to view. The famous "hamburger menu" (the one shown by clicking on the three horizontal lines) will be less crowded. Users will only see frequently used items, but they can see the complete list with one click.

Cards with curved sides have been introduced with Australis, while with Proton they will have rounded corners, as can be seen in the following screenshot.

Firefox Skeleton UI

The Skeleton UI is instead an exclusive novelty for Windows 10. It is a minimal interface that speeds up the first start of the browser. The user will immediately see the outline of the address bar and tabs, while icons, tab names and URLs are represented by gray lines that indicate the upload operation.

The Skeleton UI can be enabled in Firefox 84 for Windows 10 by setting the browser.startup.preXulSkeletonUI entry to true. The result will be this:



It is not known when it will be activated in the stable version and if it will also arrive on macOS and Linux.