Anytime I search for an addon via the search box in settings > add-ons manager I get all these theme results. Here is a search for “syntax” (via the add-ons manager) I had to make it very zoomed-out to fit long page into screen cap:

I use themes personally to visually differentiate between profiles. And I have nothing against fun and frivolous user customizations. Am not hating on the concept.

I am curious about why they are so aggressively pushed so that they show up be default when trying to search for add ons you need to toggle off every time. Searching for an add-on to do something and searching for a theme that has some keyword included seem to me like totally different tasks and mixing them up is a strange choice.

Is this like a major things firefox thinks people like about it? Do people like it?

  • People that like themes. I’ve actually used this Motörhead theme because they rule.

    Edit: I do agree that the search for themes should be separate from add-ons, or just have a themes/add-ons/all button.

  •  apis   ( @apis@beehaw.org ) 
    link
    fedilink
    English
    58 months ago

    Maybe just so new users realise they’re a thing.

    Firefox out of the box isn’t very attractive, so mixing in themes by default maybe helps retain new people without driving us lot away.

  • I feel like it’s just a matter of it being easy enough to scroll by. Most people don’t regularly install add-ons or themes, and will never get too familiar with the UI to know to select one or the other, nor will they be annoyed by having to scroll past themes.

    Plus, you might search for an add-on, but randomly scroll past a cool theme and because themes are so easily digestible, you’ll immediately know that you want it or not.

    Which isn’t to say, I’m completely foreign to your pain. I prefer to keep the unpersonalized OS aesthetic, so even a cool theme wouldn’t get installed by me. Albeit, I haven’t gotten annoyed enough by it so far.

    Having said that, if you install add-ons that often, maybe you’d like to add a custom search bookmark.
    Use this as the URL to only see extensions:

    https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/search/?q=%s&type=extension
    
  • Remembering my unhinged usage of themes for anything, regardless of how many runescape accounts got hacked, when I was younger, I gonna take a guess and says kids.

  • I guess never look into userChrome.css?

    I heavily modified my firefox not only with a simple theme, but also to have smaller icons, no favicons or x close buttons on the tabs, to have a thick cursor, no forward or back buttons, etc. All through config settings, userChrome.css, and a simple theme. I mainly did this for aesthetic reasons, but also to make the UI much more minimal as I simply don’t use the mouse when browsing (Vimium extension and native keyboard shortcuts). It’s one of the reasons I hate Chromium in this regard. While they do have skins as well, their configuration options for the UI are far more limited.