Firefox Australis: One browser interface to rule them all

Web-based live demos of the new UI:<p>Linux: <a href="http://people.mozilla.com/~shorlander/files/australis-designSpecs/australis-designSpecs-linux-mainWindow.html" rel="nofollow">http://people.mozilla.com/~shorlander/files/australis-design...</a><p>OS X: <a href="http://people.mozilla.com/~shorlander/files/australis-designSpecs/australis-designSpecs-osx-mainWindow.html" rel="nofollow">http://people.mozilla.com/~shorlander/files/australis-design...</a><p>Windows 7: <a href="http://people.mozilla.com/~shorlander/files/australis-designSpecs/australis-designSpecs-windows7-mainWindow.html" rel="nofollow">http://people.mozilla.com/~shorlander/files/australis-design...</a>

I actually prefer when apps respect the UI guidelines of the OS they're running on. I understand the desire for one unified interface, but there's also much to be said for intra-OS UI consistency. FF has done really well in the past with that, but I guess they're jumping on the Chrome bandwagon.

The mock-ups of future Firefox-versions always look gorgeous but they usually start running into issues at the implementation-stage. Some things are left out, corners are cut and in the end it doesn't give the full experience the mock-ups are giving the impression of. Firefox 4 is a good example of this, where the original designs were showing much more than what actually shipped in the end.<p>I hope that they have learned from this during the past redesigns and assign someone responsible for making sure that the mock-ups are followed thoroughly.

I've been wondering about this for a while: what's with the large back button? Back when it was introduced, it was cool because back button was the most often-use one of all nav buttons (next, reload, stop, home) but now they're reduced to one, large back buttons just doesn't seems to make any sense anymore.<p>Are they still doing it as a part of Firefox UI identity or is there any (recent) usability research on this?

My issue with this interface is the following:<p>You either have round tabs or rectangular tabs. Firefox used to have rectangular tabs, Chrome has rounded ones.<p>The new Firefox ones has, well, I don't know. It's a mix of both, please choose one, and I prefer rectangular. Seriously, they are mixing rounded and rectangular, it's <i>ugly</i>.

As long as they keep the add-on bar they can do whatever they want to the UI.

I'd still use Vimperator.

You know I don't use Chrome (which is sooo fast) partly because I don't like its UX (especially the tab design).<p>Copying it will not gain back the lost market share, it will only give more reason to use Chrome.

The tab thumbnails look a lot like Opera's.

Is it just me or does the first mock-up look a lot like Chrome?

The article is showing the wrong screenshots. Here is the accurate one: <a href="http://imgur.com/NdNif" rel="nofollow">http://imgur.com/NdNif</a>